Top Things That Will Make Me Instantly NOT Want To Read A Book

Last week we covered what will make me want to read a book.  Now we are going to the talk about the opposite.  What makes me run for the hills?

Books About Dogs

Nope, no dogs allowed.  I don’t do tear jerkers about any animals but dog books seem to be the worst.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Nope, nope, absolutely not. I’m the kind of person who can read a fantasy story about people going in and slaughtering villages but if the rampaging army hurts a dog on the way out of town, they are dead to me. Automatic DNF.

Wailing White Women

This is what I think a lot of YA readers think that all adult books are like.  There are some very rich but very sad white ladies sitting around stewing in their ennui.  Boring.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

I ignore this genre of books so much that I couldn’t even think of an example. This was all I could come up with. I’m not even sure if it fits because I haven’t read it.

I Am Such A Manly Man

Maybe this a reaction to the books we had to read in school that were all from the dead white man canon.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

I’ve never read Hemingway and I have no interest in ever reading him.

Award Winning

I never have any interest in books that are on the lists for the most prestigious prizes. The ones that I read usually bore me. A book winning the Man Booker Prize pretty much makes it dead to me. The exceptions for prize winners would be the Hugos and Nebulas. I like a lot of those books.

Possession by A.S. Byatt

Excuse Me Sir, You Forgot Your Shirt

I love some historical romance. I love muscles. It seems though that the more pecs and abs on view on the cover of a romance book, the worse I find the book.

What a Wallflower Wants by Maya Rodale

I picked this example at random. It may be a lovely book but I’m not interested in reading it because of the cover.

Westerns

I do hate westerns. The whole time period is a turn off for me.

A Tall Dark Cowboy by Mackenzie McKade

This poor man also is inadequately dressed for a day’s work on the range.  He’s going to get a sunburn and get all scraped up by plants and barbed wire.

Cozy Mystery Series

Ok, how many dead bodies have you ever stumbled across? I’d guess not many. Why then do these people who run bakeries or craft shops keep finding them? I’ve been to a lot a quilt stores and craft shops and there has never once been a dead person there. I think that you maybe get a pass on one dead person in your small business but if it is happening over and over, you are a Person of Interest. Who keeps being friends with these people anyway when people they know keep dropping dead? I think they are serial killers who haven’t been caught yet.

Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli by Diane Kelly

What Are Your Book Turn Offs?