Petty things that have put you off a book

[RosieLemonade]

I have just finished a book based in 2017. Teenagers called Tim, Paul and Sarah. It really took me out of it.
Anyone been put off a book for a petty reason?

50 Shades of Grey (ok I knew it wasn't going to be a literary masterpiece) annoyed me when the main character 'restored her equilibrium' more than once in the first few pages. There was continuous repetition of phrases all through the book which really made me grind my teeth.

Brick Lane lost me as soon as it turned into barely legible letter correspondence. I had enjoyed it up until then.

I find it patronizing and condescending when a book is promoted by a well known celebrity , that is famous for something else
Instead !

word of mouth will tell me if its a good book or not

I don't need a celebrity promoting a multi millions pounds health /beauty expensive products off this book to have their opinion !

No thanks its off putting !

I can make my own mind up !

50 shades of Grey book and similar over hyped books which certainly do not live up to all that Hype and razmatazz !

In a book I read recently the characters name kept switching between spellings. I can’t remember the exact name but it was something like Katie/Katy. Minor but really jarring the first time I spotted it.

I also agree @FurrySlipperBoots about 12 years ago I had an American version of Harry Potter on my Kindle and there were SO MANY changes. Christmas jumpers were referred to as sweaters, “mom”, Jell-O, English muffins instead of crumpets, soccer, etc. Awful.

@britnay

The one thing that I love about kindles is the ability to report typos and inconsistencies.

I often to this but wonder what happens to the reports, does anyone know?

@Blondie107

The author of that sheep pet book you read as a teenager, was obviously a visionary who could see into the future in a rather quirky way the bigger picture of how transgender issues or anything related to this topic is a Big story nowdays !😁

@SingleHandSue

Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. Never read another after that.

Me neither, and I haven't even seen the film. I just know that I can no longer correctly picture Jack Reacher in my mind without him morphing into a squeaky short-arse.

A book based on a Victorian female detective. Not badly written,but factually incorrect. The author had one of the protagonists using a tissue,err,not in 19th century England she wasn't. Another one set in the civil war era,where the author wrote of clothes being hung up on a hanger,and a book set in Victorian London,where they used the words 'ok' and talked of streets as blocks. I looked it up and the author was American.
The very worst was a book in which the main character was a horse,which not only changed name,but changed sex. It was truly awful and I gave up after that. Sad really,as the lady who wrote it was on a horse forum asking for readers opinions of her book,she was clearly very proud of it. I said nothing.

When the main characters names are too similar to each other.
Tim Tom Tod
I end spending most of the book trying to remember who's who.
Surely it's a simple thing to make the names completely different?
Another thing that put me off a book recently was the father was called a really young name think Jamie and the son had an old man name Arthur.
All kinds of wrong and confusing to read.

Continuity errors - I was reading a book where a character had put on a dark coloured shawl to go for an evening walk. On the next page she was in the garden with her bright pink shawl providing the only spot of colour.
Also the use of "seagulls" - there's no such thing. Gulls is the correct term.

[quote MrsDoctorDear]**@NeverDropYourMoonCup 😂 my (very slim) DD sounds like a baby elephant, walks on her heels.[/quote]
I've got a real cat, a geriatric fluffball, that weighs about 3lb. She comes down the stairs like the 10th Panzer Division. In comparison, I move like a Ninja.

You never read about fat old women who can move silently and stealthily as well as without padding , do you? Mind you, most of those writers who go on about women weighing at least 17 stone seem to have a picture in their head of somebody who is either nearer 28 stone or around 10 and a half.

"Girl, Woman, Other", the lead character describes her childhood growing up in Peckham. But the details she gives very clearly describe Woolwich (where the author grew up), not Peckham. For example she describes being able to see the runway at London City Airport from her tower block. If you can see LCA you are certainly in Woolwich and not Peckham.

It's like she wrote it set in Woolwich, then her publisher said "change it to Peckham because Peckham's trendy and people have heard of it" and she just did a find replace without changing any of the details.

@Blondie107

I remember reading a book series when I was a teen where one of the characters had a pet sheep. Throughout the five part series the sheep switched from he to she and back to he again.

Jane Austen was guilty of this in Mansfield Park. Lady Bertram's pug was 'he' throughout the novel but then when Fanny was proposed to by Crawford, as a mark of how pleased she was, Lady Bertram promised her a pup 'the next time pug has a litter'.

Any chance the Lidl van was a big truck delivering stock to the stores as opposed to a home delivery van? (I’ve never read it so just wondering)

I’ve only ever given up one book deliberately (Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer - it was gross).

Stuff like descriptions from the character POV don’t bother me. With the description about the 17st woman it would depend if it’s the narrator saying that (so I’d wonder WTF the author was thinking writing it) or if it’s showing what the main character is thinking which would show their flaws like being judgmental etc. I am guessing it’s the former though.

I’m just starting to write a novel - not expecting to get anywhere with it as it’ll likely be crap but this thread has certainly made me determined to not set it in a real place and to keep a very firm grasp on the details of the characters’ appearance etc :o

I read a book a couple of years ago that changed from present to past tense between a couple of chapters, about a third of the way in. It wasn't deliberate, it was just really badly sub edited, so it went straight in the charity shop bag.

Another 'pad' hater here, too.

I hate how some books these days have dyed pink page edges! It looks so twee

@Ladybigbeach was that by LJ Ross? Am sure I saw that in one of her novels recently (been bingereading loads of them quickly so can't remember which) but am sure I saw that in one of them. Surprising really as she knows the area so well. I do love her books though partly because she writes (usually anyway) so beautifully about Northumberland and surrounding areas

I've read 2 books lately that had a character named Caroline in them and they shortened it to Caro, it really jarred with me as I've never heard anyone in real life be called Caro. It's either their full name or Caz at a push.
I'm probably being unreasonable and all the Carolines on MN are nicknamed Caro.
One of these books also decided to change tense for a couple of pages which is infuriating.

Time travel. Ninety nine times out of a hundred it's going to be pure wish fulfilment for the author.

@LondonStone

In a book I read recently the characters name kept switching between spellings. I can’t remember the exact name but it was something like Katie/Katy. Minor but really jarring the first time I spotted it.

I also agree @FurrySlipperBoots about 12 years ago I had an American version of Harry Potter on my Kindle and there were SO MANY changes. Christmas jumpers were referred to as sweaters, “mom”, Jell-O, English muffins instead of crumpets, soccer, etc. Awful.

English muffins aren't crumpets though.

@thelegohooverer

I have a weakness for historical fiction but it’s very hard to find any that doesn’t have anachronistic female mindsets- everyone’s a feminist. Or the author completely ignores the intense religious indoctrination that guided everyday thoughts and actions in the Middle Ages.

The Outlander series was painful - particularly when Claire was crashing around French aristocratic circles and the author clearly had no idea that she would have been giving offence at every turn. Claire is supposed to be a time travelling mid-20th c English woman but actually she’s a late 20th c American.

The absolute worst was a spanking scene involving Henry VIII in a Philippa Gregory novel where a man who had courtiers to help him blow his nose, had managed to plan ahead and secrete a whip in his bed to privately humiliate the female character in a very 21st c bdsm scene. Even for Philippa Gregory that was an embarrassment.

Was that Katherine Parr in that scene

@NeedWineNow oh God, I used to LOVE Martina Cole...but stopped reading about ten years ago as every single one was the same. My particular pet hate was the phrase “bellyful of arms and legs”, I used to work in the East End and never once heard this. I think the book that put me off altogether was ‘Hard Girls’ if I read “she’d caught the Grantley Ripper. She’d earned her creds” once more, I’d have chucked it through a window! And I worked the killer out less than 100 pages in if memory serves.

Anything that isn't proofread, I too have read books where a character's name changes halfway through. Recently read a trilogy where in the first book the aristocratic son got a girlfriend and all through the first two books it wasn't mentioned she was black until they needed someone to 'understand' the Somalian POV in book 3! Proofreading was rubbish too!

@clary

Haha op I read a book set in 1970s with girls called Grace and Tilly. I was young in the 70s and NO ONE young was called either of those names.

I was going to say exactly the same thing!! We would have laughed at those old fashioned names!

@WhereHaveAllTheGoodTimesGone 🤷🏻‍♀️ I didn’t make the change.

In the first book, at one of the meal times in the there are crumpets on the table and in the American version they changed the word crumpets to English muffins.

I’m not saying they are the same thing, I’m just saying I find it weird that they change things like that as if an American couldn’t possibly comprehend anything outside of their own experience.

I read loads of American books growing up (Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High!) and enjoyed finding out what things meant if I didn’t understand them and that was in the 90s. No excuse to not find out what crumpets are in 2009 if you don’t know.

@SingleHandSue

Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. Never read another after that.

The books are good Just totally the wrong actor for the book character