Want to see past topics? Click on the links below to see them:
Day 1 Day 6 Day 11
Day 2 Day 7 Day 12
Day 3 Day 8 Day 13
Day 4 Day 9
Day 5 Day 10
Day 14: Tell us your dealbreakers
Before I list my bookish dealbreakers, let me tell you something. In school I hated most of the books we had to read for the literature class. When I say most of them, I say about 90% of them. Classics bore me to death and they never helped me find my passion for reading. There were few classic books that I read and enjoyed, but we never studied those *bummer* So when I graduated high school I promised myself I would never force myself to read a book. If I honestly don't enjoy reading it, I'll put it down and never pick it up again. This is also why you'll probably never see a review with less than 3 cups on here. I really do have a lot more books to read and potentially love than to read something that I don't even mildly like.
So my dealbreakers. Well, they're quite a few:
- Grammar - look, I don't pretend to know a lot of grammar, I make mistakes all the time and I know it. Everyone makes small mistakes. But huge ones will pull me out of the story.
- Name changing characters - am I reading about Michelle or Elizabeth? For that matter is it really a she or is it a he? I like to know who I'm reading about, who's head am I in. I hate being so confused by a character that keeps using different names, unless it has something to do with the story: he/she is a spy or a thief or undercover cop or something like that. If it's an error, I'll know and I'll hate it.
- Silly phrases -"My inner goddess" anyone?? It's phrases like this that make me laugh and not in a good way. You want me to laugh because of what your character is doing, right? (PS: No, I haven't read that book. No, I will not read that book. I think everyone knows about this inner goddess thingie, though :P )
- Typos - too many typos really ruin it for me.
- Characters that annoy me - I'm talking about those books where the main character makes you want to break something. The type of character you can't stand and this is especially difficult to deal with when it's a main character, at least to me.
- Dictionary, stay beside me - have I mentioned English is not my fist language? Even so, I do believe I have a pretty big vocabulary in this language, so why should I read a book that forces me to use a dictionary every five, six sentences? Is it a non-fiction cleverly disguised as fiction?
- A story that goes nowhere - Plot, pacing, development, character building, world building. I want it all and more. I want to read about a book that leads somewhere, otherwise I'll stare at the tree outside my window hoping to see a leaf fall.
- Repetition - You know, I might have a memory as big as a regular goldfish sometime, but I'm not exactly an idiot. I'm fine with reminding me certain things, especially in long series, but to repeat the same thing over and over and over again AND using the same words will pretty much mean I'll be very reluctant to read another book by that author.
These are my bookish dealbreakers. Though even if I find myself reading a book that sometimes has one of these 8 points, it takes quite a lot to pull me out of the story. Though once I'm out, I can't get back in. Which sucks, because at times I realize that the book I'm reading might even be a good one.
What about you? What are your dealbreakers?
