What puts you off a book immediately?

[EishetChayil]

For me it's opening a book and discovering it's written in the second person. I can't bring myself to read on. It makes me squirm too much. Just about acceptable in a (very) short story, but not a whole novel.

I'm also no fan of epistolary form, if I'm perfectly honest.

I've just read a novel where the protagonist (who everyone simply loves and adores) throws a 40th birthday party in her garden for 100 people. She is irritated when someone comes to the door who she assumes is going to be a neighbour complaining about the noise, even though she put notes through everyone's doors warning them the party would go on till 3am. Selfish cow I thought.

I was recently put off a psychological thriller because the author described a woman as having "tresses". Just don't, it's not Rapunzel!

Not the author's fault, really, but last year I read a book set in the UK in 2019 that had a 'flash forward' to one year later, where the characters had a huge house party ... which would have been bang in the middle of a strict lockdown as it turned out.

Moral of the story - don't write about the very near future - you never know what might happen!

Chick lit
Woke shite

No quotation marks when people are speaking.

In depth descriptions of what the characters are wearing, or what their hair looks like.

The word sumptuous. I close the book immediately I see it.

Poor plot development where the reader is required to suspend disbelief (Crawdads, I’m looking at you).

Any crime fiction where the detective / police officer (or their family) end up being stalked by criminals / bad guys. Such a very stupid plot device.

Also sensationalised violence against children.

Any that have a woman moving from a city to a small village because her BF broke up with her but, luckily her great-aunt twice removed left her a tea rooms. She’ll make enemies for being an incomer, the local barman/postman/horse groomer/farmhand will have a HUGE falling out with her after a day as she trips over him and spills a drink on him/reverses into his fence/gives his dog some scraps. Come the day of the grand re-opening of said tea rooms, they’ll announce their engagement 🙄.

When long-standing characters in a series disappear with nary a mention or explanation. Also when plots just make no sense; I can tolerate some artistic licence but one of the later ‘Agatha Raisin’ books had such a huge plot hole that I had to re-read a couple of the preceding chapters to check if I’d missed something.

@DottyHarmer

Ahhhhh, but therein might lie a clue , *@WilliamofBaskerville* ! I think it’s in A Murder is Announced (I may well be incorrect) where a character says something like, “Yes, Margery, I just can’t take it any more.” And then later says, “Yes, Marjoram, I just….” And there’s the reader, if they notice at all, thinking it’s a misprint. But no!!!! (Sorry, I’ve somewhat revealed the murderer now….)

Dotty, I know EXACTLY what you’re referring to, but it still doesn’t account for the overuse everywhere else .

The last Stephen King book I read had unnecessary descriptions of teenage girls breasts and teenagers speaking and giving references to pop culture in the 70s even though it was supposed to be set modern day. Those put me off.

I am another one who will immediately put a book down if it has a long list of characters in the front. I know it will bore me to tears trying to keep track.

Also so-called chick lit romance novels, even in disguise. Woman meets man, man is unbearably rude or bossy, woman can't stand man, man comes to her rescue, they fall madly in love etc.

All the while she struggles with her sad past and her tumbling curls.

Small print! It's too much effort to read it, what with long sightedness!

I think it’s in A Murder is Announced

Yes, it is. The names are nicknames and only one letter different, and the incorrect one is only used once very near the beginning so, as you say, it's likely to be overlooked or assumed to be a misprint.

Nicely done, Agatha!

@ArblemarchTFruitbat

I think it’s in A Murder is Announced

Yes, it is. The names are nicknames and only one letter different, and the incorrect one is only used once very near the beginning so, as you say, it's likely to be overlooked or assumed to be a misprint.

Nicely done, Agatha!

It is used three or four times throughout, you have to be sharp spotting it!

@Mummyford , DH has just observed that in Rupert books the characters often "smile" whole paragraphs of dialogue.
And no I don't mean Rupert Brooks btw.

Every so often I return to an Agatha Christie (leave it long enough and it's difficult to remember whodunnit). They never fail to please. A Murder is Announced stuck in my mind as it was a particularly good one - very clever. Just read 4.50 from Paddington this week and although I enjoyed it the premise was somewhat preposterous.

Every year my cousin gives me some modern murder books which I read on planes (not lately, though!) and they are invariably awful. In the last one I read the culprit was, you guessed it, a hitherto unmentioned twin . A twin! Number one in the no-nos of detective fiction as set out in the 1920s.

Agatha was amazing and unparalleled.

Would never pick up misery fiction (or non fiction) and avoid most 'chick lit'.

Lots of exposition/tired tropes put me off too. I like fantasy and SF but imo lots of over the top clunky world building usually means a crap story.

I don’t like jumping timelines. I just want a book to flow from start to end without back and forth disruption.
And this is very personal because I’m getting on a bit now, but I cannot read a book by a young author. I’ve found a few of the aspects to be a bit naive and I think to myself ‘that would never happen like that’. It just puts me off.

@Mummyford

I once read a book where instead of the characters saying stuff they constantly ejaculated.

@ButtonSister

That sounds... messy

Sherlock Holmes 'ejaculates' a lot; Mr Brown in the William books (Richmal Crompton) is another prolific ejaculator. I'm guessing the word was in common usage as a slightly more violent version of 'exclaiming' back in the early C20th.

It makes for an amusing reading of Sherlock Holmes if you subscribe to the common fanfic trope that Holmes and Watson were not-so-secretly getting it on!

Thank you to everyone on this thread. It's a very good one, and has provided many a chuckle.

Another word that has slipped from common usage is “presently”. In older books half the sentences begin, “Presently, Mildred went to the Boots lending library…” I always notice it because it’s a word so seldom used these days, particularly at the start of a sentence.

Agree that “young authors” are slightly off-putting. I was reading an article about that very thing in the Sunday Times magazine and there was the complaint that they don’t do irony. Everything is very earnest and straight down the line. Perhaps though that can only be levelled at certain writers and also may be the fault of the publishing staff who are by all accounts now of a particular demographic with particular views and tastes.

Mr Bagthorpe, in the quite wonderful Bagthorpe Saga, ejaculates a lot. The language in those books is wonderful.

I adored the Bagthorpe Saga as a child, Double.. So funny.

@GoodMorrowFairMaiden

I don’t like jumping timelines. I just want a book to flow from start to end without back and forth disruption. And this is very personal because I’m getting on a bit now, but I cannot read a book by a young author. I’ve found a few of the aspects to be a bit naive and I think to myself ‘that would never happen like that’. It just puts me off.

I so agree about the timelines. It's a lazy over-used device.

Just start at the beginning, introduce interesting characters, use convincing dialogue, have a good plot, and go on till the end.

One of the reasons I return to Victorian fiction a lot.