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.

'Betrayed by those who should have offered her care'

Yep. The true story books about how they overcome the odds to survive/escape/whatever. Not many cake shops or Agas to be fair.

My friend lent me one about a man who as an Irish alter boy, (I'm sure you can imagine), and how he survived. I was just all 'wah wah wah call me a wahmbulance' after the first few chapters.

Stupidhead, isn't that type of book called victim lit? (Or misery lit) something like that!

I think so! There was a whole section devoted to then in Supermarkets with the same b&w or sepia covers of a sad child. It seems to be 'mom porn' there now.

There was a whole section devoted to then in Supermarkets with the same b&w or sepia covers of a sad child. It seems to be 'mom porn' there now.

I really don't see the appeal of that type of book

The Irish misery lit. book that is no. 1 on the list of books that I plan never to read is 'Ma, He Sold Me For a Few Cigarettes'. It's part of a series of 5 or 6 and one of the sequels is called 'Ma, It’s a Cold Aul Night an I’m Lookin for a Bed'. It actually make me feel a bit queasy to see them on a bookshop shelf.

Oh I hate those too but have to admit that my guilty pleasure are the ones told from the POV of the foster carer. Even though they all read exactly like a Take A Break article ( they're always tucking into a sumptuous roast with all the trimmings when the doorbell rings or something like that), the foster carer is unrelentingly perfect and never ever breaks policy and the endings are utterly predictable meaning they're probably totally made up.

Those aside though, how do you find a good book? I find almost everything I read is irritating. It either has ridiculous characters who have stepped straight out of stereotype town or it's horribly pretentious and overcomplicated (like books that keep skipping around in time. Stop it! Tell me the story in order!) has child abuse dumped in the middle of the story for no reason other than dramatic effect or they have the most simpering predictable dross ending.

On Kindle-(A something something novel) like "escape from cliche dom" a DS Stereotype novel.
Or never ending series by someone you have never ever heard of. (Usually beating the fantasy genre around it's head until it's stone dead)

'Side-splittingly funny'

'Daily Mail'

And anything at all along the lines of

"No, daddy, stop!"

Or "mummy please don't"

Someone on here mentioned "Please Mummy Not The Big Stick" which rather sums it up..

Eek when my eldest was about 4 I'd chase him around the kitchen with a wooden spoon. For fun obviously! In a HUGE queue in Boots one day he said, 'will you beat me with the wooden spoon again when we get home?'

Can you imagine the glares I got???

Lol stupid

Bertie I'd look at novels from a while ago. Somerset Maugham? Raymond Chandler? Elizabeth Jane Howard?

Someone on here once made one up "Four Children, One Crisp" it still makes me laugh.