What kills a book for you?

[outlander78]

There are a lot of good ones listed here, so I won't repeat them.

I primarily read mystery stories, and what kills them for me is when the protagonist or a close friend of their's is the primary suspect, and the goal shifts from solving the mystery to proving one's innocence. This changes the character of the book from a mystery to a suspense book, is very distracting, and always causes me skip to the end (and not buy another book from that author).

I really wanted to like Death on Demand, for example, but the fact that the lead was always the suspect, and that the police officer had blinders on to obvious cluses to the contrary, quickly killed my interest in the series.

[Gronk]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

That seems to be more of a non-starter, as opposed to "I started it and will never finish" but are there really that many books that are ONLY on Kindle?

Of necessity I am a bargain shopper.

[Rumpelteazer]

I hardly ever stop reading a book. I recently stopped reading The Name of the Rose by Eco, which was the first book in years I put aside, because his writing style just isn't something I enjoy (at the time).

Some things that irritate me:
* each chapter ends with a cliffhanger
* too much sex without a good reason or described at length
* sex, violence, cursing only used to shock the audience
* main character feeling sorry for himself (I almost decided not to go on the the Dresden Files for this reason, luckily after the first couple of books Harry seems to stop whining so much)
* when a series feels more like one book cut into several parts, I like each book in a series to have a storyline of it's own, which is resolved at the end of the book, besides the overall storyline of the series.
* I can forgive spelling, grammar and OCR mistakes up to a certain point. I read one book that had people continually "wrapping" on doors, I just couldn't take the story serious any more.

[big dave]

Basicly, the cost. I have found many a good book at bargain prices, and some sorry ones at inflated hype prices.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

indeed, too much sex in a book makes me sleepy. i also dislike misspellings and general grammar errors, unless they are intentionally part of a character's dialogue for the sake of his/her characterization, or something like that. beautifully formatted books give me the sense that the author really took their time in making sure that it visually appealed to the readers.

i also hate lame resolutions to conflicts.

For me it isn't too much sex, it's too much of the same sort of sex described with the florid idiocy of someone who hasn't really experienced it. If the hero or heroine gets a recreational spanking, the author needs tho KNOW what that is like!

Other than that I despise characters who behave in a manner inconsistent with their character makeup and experience. A coward can act heroically, but only after an appropriate reason for doing so is presented.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

If the hero or heroine gets a recreational spanking, the author needs tho KNOW what that is like!

Research. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it .

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by orlok

Research. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it .

That is just so wrong....

[Blossom]

I mainly read romances but I have been known to put a book down for
Missing words, (This only happened once), Bad Characterization, Too much Sex with no plot or I felt the book was full of propaganda by the author.

What bothers me but I usually can ignore it is where the story is suddenly out of sequence. I call these bloopers. It seems to be happening more and more in the main stream romance lately and a certain famous romance author completely blunder by deleting a very important last scene in her book and how in the world her editor missed it just goes to show you how lazy editors have gotten lately.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by issybird

I have a corollary to

3) Creating a set of rules for your world, then breaking them because they became hard to follow.

Introducing over time new rules and wrinkles which would have materially altered events in earlier books if they had been available. J.K. Rowling was a huge sinner in this respect.

I wonder.. I have not read Rowling's stuff, so can not comment on that, but heres a question for you what about this made up example...

Beginning of Book One the main characters say "XZY is true, and ABC is false" and they make decision based that understanding, and that decision impacts the plot big time, but turns out to be a good one.

Then someplace in say book 2 or book 3 ... it is revealed that "XYZ is false and ABC is true" and had the original characters made their decision based on that it would have changed the entire plot of book one, possibly eliminating the need for book 2 at all.

How would that look to the reader, as the author breaking their rules, or realistic life where even smart people are sometimes wrong?

[tubemonkey]

What kills it for me is having to pay for it. I like free books.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

That is just so wrong....

Well, to be accurate, I was speaking hypothetically. There is a reason no one here has read anything by me that contains recreational spanking.

[ebusinesstutor]

For me, I hate incompetent characters. It is fine for characters to make mistakes or be slow to change, but some do the same stupid things over and over again.

I disliked Robin Hobb's Soldier Son series for this reason, but I like some of her other works.

[Figlilly]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I'm put off by encountering a gratuitously disgusting or shocking scene or action. These needless images make me put down the book immediately and forever. Shock schlock is no substitute for good writing.

This happened in Thomas Harris "Black Sunday"

Spoiler:

graphic description of villain putting live kitten down a garbage disposal

and in Georgina Harding "The Solitude of Thomas Cave"

Spoiler:

graphic description of skinning baby seals alive and putting them back into the water for their mothers to try to rescue them

While I agree with many sentiments expressed in this thread, this one stood out for me and made me all warm and fuzzy. Sometimes it is nice to be reminded that other people are just as appalled at wanton cruelty, even when imaginary, as I am.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by hidari

Sorry, have to disagree.....Happy contrite Hollywood endings bore me to tears. 90% of books are so predictable even Bambi would get bored and she can't read.

It doesn't have to have a real happy ending. But at least some things must work out as planned. If you have two or three main characters, at least one must survive. If a plan has two or three backups, at least one of those backups must work.

An example:
The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer

Spoiler:

is a book about a parallel universe where not Homo Sapiens became top-dog, but rather Homo Neanderthalensis. They manage to create a link to our universe. As they haven't spoiled their side, our side wants to kill all of them and take over their world. This plot succeeds. But in the end, it doesn't really succeeded as the bad guys had planned. One of the main (good) characters dies due to this, so it's not really a happy ending, but as the evil plot doesn't really succeed either, it's not really a bad ending either.

And Bambi is a he...

[rhadin]

Realizing that the fantastic description of the book, written either by the author or a publicist, is the only well-written "part" of the book -- the characters are lifeless, the plot trivial, the spelling errors atrocious, the formatting errors distracting.

Hmmm, I guess it all boils down to discovering that the author and the book are wannabes but neither has successfully made the first baby step.