What line has made you stop reading a book?

[TheFloofyOne]

I usually stick with a book, even if it’s not great. However, sometimes I’ll read a line that is just so ridiculous, I have to just give up.

Recently, I started in on a very cheap Kindle sale book that was bad from the first page, but the following line just made me want to throw it across the room-

“Lucy and Emma have doubled over in uncontrollable LOLs”.

A biography of Gertrude Bell that said, “She was not a feminist - she didn’t expect special treatment.”
Um, what now??

DH binned a popular science book about 50 pages in for repeated use of “schizophrenic” as a casual metaphor for something with two contrasting characteristics at the same time.

We studied American Psycho at university. Made me physically sick the first time around. Is wonderfully written though and an excellent example of unreliable narrator.

A lot of chick lit stops me reading after a chapter or two. The women are so perfect with only minor personality flaws. I know there are only a few actual plots in the world and character types, but give me strength!
I've read a lot of them though. Sometimes my brain can only deal with that level of crap.

A biography of Gertrude Bell that said, “She was not a feminist - she didn’t expect special treatment.”
Um, what now??

I read that as if written from Gertrude's point of view rather than the author's.

But, she is not unusual in this. I have read a lot of biographies of women who were the first to achieve things and it seems more common than you'd hope to state fairly strong non-feminist views. Mrs Thatcher is the best known modern day example. Whether they really thought them (like Belle in the Disney B&tB they thought they were somehow special and unique and not like other women) or said them because it was the only way to survive in a man's world I'm never very sure. And it's not true of everyone, so, e.g. Marie Curie was a fantastic supporter of other women scientists.

It was in the introduction, and definitely the author’s view. She was describing who she thought Bell was on a larger scale.

I think also Bell was rather too early to think in terms of feminism. “No special treatment because I am a woman” would, I think, have been closer to the mark for her way of thinking.

As I said in my post- in the right context that word can be effective whether thats funny or helps build an idea of the character. But in the slap it was used so freely and so quickly it came across as lazy as if the author just wanted to shock or offend and couldn't think of any other word but that. If put me off the book straight away...which is what the OP was asking about

James Herbert! I re-read The Fog recently having first read it as a young teen.

My god! I had to tear it up and put it in the recycling so my DC dont accidentally pick it up and read it.

I presume much of it went over my head the 1st time but wtf was that man thinking?!

I read a detective story written by a male for a female lead. The female character was talking about weddings and said, "man and wife". I hate that. Couldn't read it.

An urban fantasy book by a very popular male author.

The female protagonist, in the middle of a fight, describes her "built-in temperature thermometers" going pointy and that was that for that author.

Anything with scenes of torture. Child cruelty and sex abuse ditto. I have no respect for authors who make money by using this as "entertainment", it is a type of pornography.

A book where the main characters are successful American Private Investigators, one was African American and one white, which a big deal was made of.

In the first chapter they go to a sink estate to try and find someone and the black PI is incredibly rude and scathing towards the African American kids that are living there and they way they behave. Literally no sympathy for their living situation at all. He comes out with this whole, actually quite racist vocab rant.

I looked up who the author was and it was a random older white bloke, I think he wasn't even American.

Binned the book.

Sushi that reminds me - did anyone else find the black character in Mr Mercedes (Stephen King) quite uncomfortable reading? It seemed like everything he said was a reference to being black, and it was just strange and a bit awkward.

Eleanor Oliphant. But I am vastly in the minority. Perhaps it's too subtle for me. Was I meant to be wryly amused when she had her bum waxed?

I hate read Elinor Oliphant Caroline. I was waiting to see if there was something about it that made everyone think it was fantastic. There wasn't.

Oh, yes, Eleanor goes to the GP and comes out with anti-d's and a cracking therapist 2x/week. All fixed up in no time.

A book about killer slugs.

In the first chapter he introduces a female character, and spends several paragraphs wittering on about her underwear, or rather lack of it. He explains (in detail) how she doesn’t wear underwear in summer.

Lascivious filth. Sure Logic would dictate perhaps you would wear it in summer for its sweat absorbing properties. Then you wouldn’t be constantly washing your jeans.

I actually thought it was a James Herbet, but I’ve looked it up, and is by Sean Hutson.

grouchy piebald agreed!

I stopped reading one book because the main character was described in the first couple of pages as doing something in a "mildly autistic" way (where the author seemed to be trying to convey "this person is a bit anal"). I tried to read on but it just pissed me off and I couldn't enjoy the book anymore.

I rather like Decline and Fall, and actually think the skewering of racist attitudes is quite cleverly done when you examine it, but it is hard to read sometimes I agree. I think the obvious humour in it allows it for me, I came across a description of an indigenous woman in a book from the 50s and it was so clearly meant as it read that even though I continued the book and there were no other instances it definitely clouded my view.

I do try in general to finish a book (if it’s a classic or in some other way worthwhile) if only so I can pass an informed judgement on it, but I did read something in the last Louis de Bernieres that caused me to give up at 50 per cent. It was when a vicar called in to have tea with a young unmarried woman he had never met in the aftermath of WW1 and talked to her about someone who had died and just came out with “he got a bullet through the face that took the back of his head off.”

I just didn’t buy it, it was so out of keeping with the situation, the time, his profession and their relative ages and length of relationship.

I was given a present of a Louis de Berniers book as a present by a boyfriend once. I can't remember which one. The main female character was abducted, mutilated and murdered. I was sickened. Bf told me he has read the book and knew I would identify with her character. I didn't give up on the book but I did give up on him - I broke up with him. Not only because of that but it was a major reason. I thought it was such a heartless thing to do. Weird, because he was a really great bf in many ways.

Was it one of his Latin American trilogy? I really enjoyed those when I read them and loved Captain Corelli but that was an awful storyline, and I remember feeling shocked by it. The bf thing does sound unsettling - saying you’d identify with a woman that gets murdered? Maybe he just really didn’t think. I’ve increasingly not been keen on de B portrayal of women in his writing and often find his more recent books quite clunky in terms of message and characterisation.

I picked up The Lost Village by Neil Spring at a charity shop. I was cross when the narrator spoke to a "Train Manager" as the book was sent before WW2, but I thought maybe it was an American who had written it, but when they started on a "fail safe" system - and then finally went back to a British Army base in a jeep - then I put the thing in the recycling. The author, apparently is British and should've known better.

Two spring to mind

A Karin Slaughter (my mother recommended ) in which in the very early pages a blind woman meets a horrific fate, still haven't forgotten the imagery and really didn't need it in my life

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - it's supposed to be "one of the greats" but there was a frankly toecurlingly cringeworthy description of a woman's parts early on and I was like, nope, no more for me Jonathan

Crikey Valley , that sounds vile. I once started a Karin Slaughter that featured someone being nailed to a floor. (shudder) What really annoys me is that up until then I was enjoying the setting and characters. But never, never again.