Are there key words on the jacket that puts you OFF a book?

[sweetnessandlite]

Me?

As soon as I read the words 'Cornwall' or 'Painter' or 'tea shop' or 'young mother'
I immediately Put The Book Back.

Why do a lot of female authors set their story in Cornwall? It's so boring and predictable.

'Booker Prize Winner'

One woman's struggle...

Harrowing

Quintessentially British

Any character described as loving fun, shopping, or shoes

If the plot is abou somone who finds a letter etc from the past and so travels to Egypt, Japan etc to " unravel the secrets of the past" As you do.
The book jacket of my life story reads " on day Prima discovers a note revealing secrets from her past..it is a Marks and Spencer's receipt for that top she bought but made her arms look fat."

5* grazia
Louise bagshaw
"Sammy (a klutz who loves shoes!) is trying to get over her relationship by taking a job in the country by working for a grumpy (but well hung) farmer"... I wonder how that one will end.

Saga (yawn)
ditto Victorian Style.

Lifesalemon,
I'm the same with some really modern American Fiction, but I prefer to read American Classics than British ones.
You can't beat John Steinbeck, Mark Twain.

And Willaim Styrone, Stephen King (and Bill Bryson)? All great American authors.

"Juggling career and children"

invariably a nonsensical tale of an uber successful, middle class London dweller making farcical errors at work and home, yet still managing to hold down her job and get her suave boss to have the hots for her at the same time. All the while supported by her one dimensional long suffering husband who holds it all together.

Bore off!

There are some very good books set in Ireland, books I enjoy and would read again. The Commitments, various books by Mary Stanley. Some of Marian Keyes (although not the one she keeps saying "fissog" in, they should have written "fissog" on the cover and then I'd not have bought it)

But if you've set those books in the fifties and peopled them with urchins in hand-knitted war-refugee jumpers then I don't want to know about it. Especially if they spend their time hiding under the table from some drunken relative or the nuns and have taken keeping what money they do scrape together in the teapot for good luck until somebody spends it on gin.

And especially, especially but unlikely if you have called one of those urchins Cressida. I don't know why anybody would name a person, even a fictional person, after a pointless salad ingredient nobody likes and still expect people to read their book. No. Just, no.

And if the book has GLITTER on the front what's with that? then I immediately put it back.

Juggling career and children"

Instant turn-off! And then they usually up sticks and move to Cornwall to become Painters and open Tea Shops.

Martin Amis
Paul Auster

'Booker Prize Winner'

Instant put back

Even though they are well-written and usually immensely clever, they are hardly entertaining!

............you have called one of those urchins Cressida.

That's one to look out for! :)

Glad it's not just me, *sweetnesandlite'

Uplifting.
Hilarious.
Heartwarming.

Flashbacks.
Twins.
Colonial anything.

Twirly writing.
Puns.

Quotes saying 'if you liked x, you'll love this . . .' or 'for fans of . . .' If you tell me it's the new Sarah Waters, that just reminds me to read Sarah Waters.

Anything that starts 'when A discovers B, little does she know . . .'

I can't remember the last time I read anything new and good .

Elegiac

tipsy,
I have started so many books lately, only to give up on them after a few pages.
There doesn't seem to be anything good around. Nothing you can get your teeth into anyway!

I know sweetness - I want something that I can't wait to read every night, that I don't want to end, that goes on my comfort list forever.

I'm finding YA much more entertaining, but I still want grown up stuff. I'm getting ruthless about giving up on them much more quickly than I used to though. I wish people would write the books that the back covers promise as they often sound brilliant - they're just nothing like what actually lies within.

I want something that I can't wait to read every night

That's a sign of a really good read, when you can't wait to get back to it.

Before I purchase a book, I read page 69. If I get to the bottom of the page without rolling my eyes, I buy it.

Really PicandMinx? Page 69?

Oh behave

Sometimes I wish I could find my 'double' (doppelganger). I would get her to proof read all the books in the world andthen she could tell me which ones are worth reading and which ones I would like - instead of me wasting my time ploughing through a load of drivel.

"the past comes back to haunt her"

"nothing is quite as it seems"

'against unimaginable odds'

'triumph of hope over adversity'

'resilience/human spirit/hope in the face of blah di blah'

I save my deepest, darkest hatred for Jodi Picoult nonsense though. All that, 'imagine you were having a cup of tea, there was a biscuit in your hand, the most perfect biscuit ever made - then your son killed everyone in the world except you and possibly a cliche-ridden lawyer. How do you love your baby when the biscuits are crying?'

Or something.

DadonIce, the intrigue! :)

(it never lives up to the expectation)