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Here's another reader who usually can't stomach present tense.
One thing that made me quit reading a handful of novels recently: Each started with a high-tension prologue, scene, chapter, or even just paragraph that made me want to know what happens next, then jumped to a different point in time (I think mostly before the high-tension bit happened). Two, three, four chapters later there's STILL no sign of continuing what was initially started.
Starting in the middle of things and then going on from there, gradually slipping in stuff that happened before, would work, or maybe alternating between the two timelines, one chapter this, one chapter that. But not knowing WHEN the author will stop pulling the metaphorical carrot out of my reach is too frustrating.
The protagonist has so little personality that I don't give a hoot what happens to them.
Science fiction that shows off how the author does not understand basic physics, like relative movement (nothing about relativity, just the fact that in a spaceship that's not accelerating or decelerating, and if you aren't looking out a window, you can't tell it's moving).
Hm, one reason why I did not read the Hal Spacejock stuff what that he was playing chess against a computer using a physical board, the computer announcing how he should move the pieces for it. I'd accept it in something written in the 1960s or earlier, or using computers that don't have screens, or maybe even just if it were commented on, but not something written this millenium when the computer in the same chapter pulls arbitrary images on its displays.
Repeating the same word over and over again close together, rather than varying the description.
One author in part lost me because they kept writing "[character] began [doing something]" rather than just "[character did something]" - at one point about 7 times in 9 consecutive sentences.
I don't drop a book at the first typo, but consistently bad spelling and grammar might make me stop reading. Worst are mixed up homonyms and incorrect comma usage. (With one book the last straw that made me abandon it was having "site" instead of "sight", a comma behind "but", and a third mistake on the same page.)
I haven't come across a book that did it, but not using proper capitalisation or not using quotation marks would be a no-starter.
Poor formatting can make me discard a book; the two examples I can think of were one with double line spacing, and one which had ridiculously wide margins along the sides.
"Life sucks" books. Diving deep into the seedy underbelly of whatever. Starting a book by describing how much the protagonist suffered all their life, or the protagonist wallowing in misery.
Books which treat women as sex objects and maybe plot devices rather than characters. Books in which the viewpoint characters are misogynist dickheads. (Didn't get farther into a book by John Locke than the prologue because the AFAICT protagonist thought a) the only reason to meet a woman would be sex and b) she should be impressed at him pulling a knife from under the pillow and stabbing his cellphone, rather than freaked out.)
There's more that annoys me, but these are actual reasons I can think of why I put down books after starting at least the sample.
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