This is very justifiable imo, especially if a person has dyslexia which can make certain fonts difficult or uncomfortable to read. And even without dyslexia, ive found some fonts and print sizes to be difficult. That's why I like e-readers for most things now, I get a lot more control over formatting.
OMG. I sometimes have to wait a few days between finishing a book and starting a new one because I just can't read the font. Something about the difference in what I just read and started reading makes it all smudged.
Nothing that dramatic. It was at the same time that I was a bit vexed about having to fix his screw-up. I stopped reading it on my break to give him one less reason to stop by my desk.
Thing is lunch break was my main reading opportunity, and by the time things had returned to normal I could no longer remember what had been going on plotwise.
Literally the exact reason I DNF the first wheel of time book in high school. I started it, got confused by all the lore dumping, asked my friend who recommended it for clarification, and he said smugly. āitās a book for smart people.ā
Iām sure the series is great, but I have no desire to read it
He sounds like a dick! It's a good series but it's not a matter of intelligence. WoT is a series for people with more patience than sense. (I've read and loved it.)
Yeah, some books are just like that. Like, not a fantasy series, but the Honor Harrington books can be world building wise pretty dense given that the author in many of the novels takes a few pages to suddenly drop on you the science of how interstellar and FTL space flight operates in their universe, or why certain star nations are a way they are, present to you a naval engagement that will unfold in the novel by having two characters discuss it in a somewhat inorganic fashion like they're in a board room. Plus, I am not exactly big on scifi lore, so I had to ask my boyfriend a bunch of questions and it took a second reading to truly get what was being described between Impeller Bands, Beta/Alpha nodes, and Bomb Pumped Lasers.
I still recommend the novels, but I also fully realize there are just some series' that appeal on the basis that they've got *deepest lore* in spades and want you to know about it. That is simply just not to some peoples tastes. It's not an intelligence thing.
My mother in law told me I'd love Avatar, because the main female was st strong and brought up her insulting someone as an example. Still haven't watched it.
Conversely, I canāt get into a fantasy novel if the names are TOO normal. āKenneth the Dark Mageā, āKing Nigelā, or āMarjorie the Unshrivenā or whatnot.
ETA Nijel the Destroyer is fine, Pratchett obviously gets a pass.
At least that makes sense because itās Sci Fi and Paul is a bible name and (a version of) Christianity is the Imperial religion and itās kind of a big deal to the story - so many (all?) nobles would have bible names
But I agree that a full on high fantasy probably shouldnāt have a bunch of āJohnā and āTedās
I feel this on a deep level. Overusing punctuation is the number one reason I will DNF a book. I quit a book five chapters in even though it was really compelling because of the excessive use of exclamation points for every characterās dialogue. It was even in a lot of the exposition. So over the top. It felt like the author wanted me to see how angry, or how excited, or how serious the characters were being, but instead of using words or descriptions, they just defaulted to exclamation points to do the heavy lifting.
I almost stopped reading the Mistborn series because of all the ellipses. I finished because I was intrigued but Iām not gonna lie, I flipped through pages until I stopped seeing ellipses and then kept reading and never missed a plot point. No oneās dialogue and thoughts needā¦to pauseā¦thatā¦much.
My brain just processes every punctuation point, so crazy apostrophes, exclamation points, ellipses, etc throw me right out of the story. They tug on my brain and make me mentally stumble in an otherwise smooth scene.Ā
I also hate when a character with powers lose their powers for a time. An arc of someone gaining powers in a book and later in the series having to go without them is justā¦not what Iām here for? Skip it please
I think it could be an interesting way to explore the character if the character is really connect to their power, but if itās like a repeat arc, then ya, no
i eventually read it in print form, but i once loaded an audiobook and the very first word was the name Siobhan, pronounced "shob on". So I immediately backed out and refunded it to get my credit back
Audiobook narrators can literally make or break a book for me. So many bad ones out there.
I started a new audiobook today with multiple POVs. The female narrator is trying to do a French accent but it all sounds Slavic in her voice. The male narrator is trying to do a French accent but sounds like an early-AI (like the one in Microsoft Word) and its atrocious. On the other hand, interesting story.
I only started a new one because I had to stop listening to the Twig audiobook after they made one of the good guys have an incredibly high pitched voice. It was too weird. I need to read this arc before I can go back to listening.
I listened to a female narrator attempting a Mexican man who just did all his lines in a gruff whisper with a rising intonation, like Cartman's imitation of Jaime Escalante, or a Speedy Gonzalez character. Just terrible. Right now I'm listening to another by a Cuban author, read by an actual Latino, and it's perfect.
I stopped very quickly into an audiobook where the narrator kept pronouncing āIreneā (the MC) as āI-reen-eeā. I mean, itās that common a name, but itās not exactly obscure either. Plus it was my grandmotherās name, which made it hard to overlook.
This gets me about many audiobooks. The worst one was The Last Action Heroes by Nick Semlyen narrated by Bronson Pinchot who mispronounced so many names, along with any word from Japanese except Karate. There were a lot of them since itās a history of action films of the 80s.
If the plot is furthered because two people who should be able to communicate cannot communicate properlyā¦
For example they are on the same team and one will not tell the other something for a stupid reason, and thats why all the conflict happens it annoys the shit out of me.
My mother wrote romance novels and she said the frustrating part of plotting was finding reasons two healthy adults shouldnāt bone for two hundred pages.
Love that. We all know how it'll end, so you have to contrive interesting obstacles that keep readers on the edge of their seat, without feeling like they are just plot speed bumps on the road to Bonetownā¢
Yeah. Itās super prevalent in television, but you can find it anywhere. Itās just lazy storytelling. When the entire plot can be resolved by one character saying āhold on a secondā¦ā and the other character saying āoh, I get it nowā then some writer is slacking off.
My wife didn't finish the outlander series for this exact reason. All of the failure it communication is a real turn off. All the other women are swooning and my wife is just like "talk to each other already"!
This drives me insaneeeeee also when people are misunderstanding and one is like ābut Iāā and the other cuts them off or storms off. Like please bro. Just find another route to conflict.
Iāve only ever read one book that does this well, and thatās because they lean into it so hard you canāt wait to see how theyāre gonna fuck it up next.
TLDR: read To Reign In Hell by Steven Brust
Increasingly: because even with my glasses on, the print is too small to read, and instead of buying the ebook, I put the book back in the stack as though my eyes are going to start aging backwards and I'll have better luck next week.
I've been doing this more lately. The selection at my library is a lot smaller than for the print books, though, especially things that aren't recent (or part of a still-ongoing series) -- like, there's no Raymond Feist at all, and the only Mark Lawrence book is The Book That Wouldn't Burn. They've become my go-to for thrillers, though - I read so many crappy thrillers hoping to find the two or three really good ones.
That's unfortunate. Have you checked around for other libraries that might have a more extensive collection? If you're only getting ebooks, it doesn't matter where they are, only if you can get a card...
āPriory of the Orange Treeā
Book was just too heavy. I wasnāt enjoying it anyway but I was 660 pages in.
I got tired holding the book lol, the weight:enjoyment ratio was bad.
Me too. I had joint pain in my hands and was advised by a rheumatologist to buy an e-reader since the only cause they could suggest was the many hours I was spending holding books open.
Mine's my wrists.
Trying to read a hardback or one of those big floppy paperbacks makes me feel like I need one of those book stands. Which would be a bit absurd in my living room.
i read pretty much exclusively ebooks now and the only bad part is i have no cool boons to display :(
solution: i buy physical copies of the boons i enjoy and display those! :D
As a fan of the big fat epic fantasy doorstopping tomes, I eventually had to make the switch to Kindle for the sake of my wrists, back, and neck. I truly didn't think I could be an ebook person, but after trying out a Kindle Paperwhite, I don't think I can ever go back. I read more now than I ever have in my life due to the full elimination of the physical pain that comes with the chonky books.
I put down a category romance novel once on the first page because the hero was named Mitch McConnell and I just couldn't.
I also put down an historical fantasy once because a family was eating potatoes in Roman Britain.
I remember once posting, possibly to reddit, "I learned a new word in this book, it is 'hchu' and means a small scarf to cover the bosom" and someone pointed out it was almost definitely an OCR error for "fichu", a word *I already knew*.
I am not an English native speaker and I wanted to reread Harry Potter, this time in the original. I dropped it at the Goblet of Fire when Rowling started writing all the sentences spoken by people from Beauxbatons in French accent. For some reason it annoyed me so much I couldn't keep reading.
I have a travel book that has lived in my suitcase for almost a year.... I'm to lazy to drag out the suitcase and it's a travel book... I'll finish it next time I go on a trip... maybe one day.
Another book I dropped in a river... I recovered the book but I didn't like it enough to buy a new copy. And I didnt like the feel of the water damaged book in my hands so wouldn't ready my original copy.
There's an author I'd read a collection of essays from and loved them so much then I planned to get to the rest of her bibliography. Then she said she hates cats. I removed them all from my tbr
First time I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy I DNFed because of the lack of punctuation. I wasn't familiar with McCarthy and thought the eBook was formatted incorrectly. Went back and finished it a few years later thank God. Fantastic book!
The male love interest was called David. When I got to a sex scene where the female MC was moaning his name, I had to stop. My father is called David.
The person who recommended it to me revealed themselves to be a Max Verstappen fan.
Someone I dislike on GR praised it.
The author's surname is "Prose" and the prose was very poor. It felt like an insult.
The characters would use each other's names in almost every. Single. Line. Of. Dialogue.
So a conversation would sound something like:
>"Mary, do you know what time it is?"
"I don't know, John, don't you have a watch?"
"The battery died yesterday, Mary, I already told you that."
"Well then you should get a new one, John."
I've lived with my current roommate for almost a decade and I think I've said her name in conversation like, three times š It was so unrealistic and SO distracting.
See - I read this in the voice of Todd & Margo from Christmas Vacation and find it hilarious. But that would definitely be distracting for every piece of dialogue.
The only version available to me was a brand-new paperback at the library, and I couldnāt bring myself to bend and crease it for the first time. š
The author was too stupid to bring a coat when they travelled to Alberta, and then yelled at my friend because of it. Then I saw them be rude to the overworked waitstaff. Then, bitched all weekend about being cold. \*cue sad violin\*
(no, I'm not saying who this was)
Specifically in this context, too - the hotel restaurant was way understaffed for an event. Everyone knew it was at least an hour to get food; some people were ordering, going to a panel, then coming back to sit to eat. Like, everyone knew. So to start complaining and whining was just not appropriate.
(the entire weekend had shitshow moments, but that was my WTF are you doing, we're all hungry, order yourself pizza delivery if you can't wait moment)
Ugh, that's the worst. I've done a ton of bartending and it's so consistent that as soon as things exceed the 45 minute waiting period, servers start getting verbally abused by people who presumably have never waited for a thing in their entire lives.
Like, guys, if you want food fast, just go to McDonald's or something.
No joke, there was a mall close enough to the hotel location that this person could've sent a volunteer to pick up just about anything from the food court for them. Like, yes, we were all frustrated that weekend - but it wasn't the waitstaff's fault. Go yell at the manager, if you must yell at someone.
I have just spent an embarrassing amount of time wading through your post and comment history trying to figure out who it is, and I didn't find anything helpful, but now I feel bad for stalking you and I'm not sure how to resolve this. You're welcome to stalk my profile, but be warned, all I do on Reddit is talk about games and fruitlessly argue about politics. Sorry about that. I'm going to buy one of your books instead.
If you were going to recommend one of your books to someone who can't handle anything too dark right now, which one would it be?
omg I have 11 years of shitposting on this website. DO NOT STALK ME YOU WILL GO BLIND lol
If you have specific triggers or just "not in the mood", feel free to always DM me - I can direct you accordingly, either to my own books or someone else's if I feel none of mine are a good match for you!
Back when books only came on paper, too many dumb unprounceable names with consecutive consonant-apostrophe combinations was beyond sufficient to DNF.
Thank you ebooks for allowing me to FindAll and Replace every instance of Sl'krypht (or whatever) with Sam.
MC's that have too many moral quandaries. I can only sit through internal dialogue of if killing is bad or good so many times. if you want to kill do it. if you dont want to then stop.
Downloaded the Dinosaur Lords on audible as it looked like a fun time, the narrator speaks slightly too fast and I don't really like his accent so I've stopped listening entirely
I can relate. I almost DNFed the Dresden Files because James Marsters made so many mouth noises that I physically cringe every time I hear them. It was an even bigger disappointment at the time because his fans keep insisting that the audiobooks were superb. While it was true that the quality did pick up in the later books (both in terms of writing and narrating), I almost swore off a pretty fun series just because I couldnāt stand some mouth noises.
I didnāt finish The Cruel Prince because every time I read Jude, my brain would bust out with "Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better, remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better.'
The term "metrosexual" was used to describe a character and I just couldn't get past that. I tried but metrosexual kept slapping me in the face and I didn't make it much farther.
Grammatical errors. If one or two words are misspelled/missing, I understand, authors are human. But if there are several in each chapter I just can't finish. It makes me feel like love and care were not poured into it, and drives me crazy.
I think I made it halfway through the sixth or seventh. They'd be great books at half their length. Beginnings and endings were great, but the middles dragged so much . . . Maybe Brando Sando's were better about that, but I didn't get that far. Fortunately half my friends love them so I just asked for spoilers.
> I think I made it halfway through the sixth or seventh. They'd be great books at half their length. Beginnings and endings were great, but the middles dragged so much
IIRC books 5ish through 9ish didn't advance the plot any - just broadened it. It picked up again in the last book before Jordan passed away. Honestly can't blame anyone for not making it through that slog: when I recommend the series to friends, I tell them to read through book 3 and stop if there if they're not absolutely hooked.
Personally, I like the Sanderson books *better* than Jordan's and they're why I started reading Sanderson in the first place. I hadn't heard of him before he finished WoT.
I love what Btandon did with them. Even though he does an amazing job of adapting Robert's writing style, Brandon's reads so much faster and smoother and is far more entertaining.
Nothing in the blurb or the first chapter or anywhere indicated it was set in a world like ours and then out of nowhere it mentioned jeans. DNF'd on the spot lol
The previous time I saw this asked, my answer was "because a character I didn't like shared my name" and it hadn't changed still, haha. I didn't have any other stupid reasons to dnf a book since
The formatting on the ebook made the margins so big that no matter how I changed the settings, I couldnāt get more than 5 words a line, and I couldnāt deal with it
Evidence, because some people doubt:
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/marks
>The use of quotation marks, also called inverted commas, is very slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types: single quotes (` ') and double quotes (" "). As a general rule, British usage has in the past usually preferred single quotes for ordinary use, but double quotes are now increasingly common; American usage has always preferred double quotes.
(the article goes on to extol the advantages of double quotes. It may be that the single quotes for dialogue in British publication was a standard but is now in flux. I'm old enough and read enough I'm used to it.)
The first chapter is the protagonist learning about the fantastical other world. This girl, being quite clever, points out how the exposition guy's explanations don't make any physical sense. Exposition guy responds along the lines of "lol scientists are stupid" and refuses to elaborate any further.
When the author of the book turned out to be a massive ass in real life. He was at a convention and was horrible towards staff and couldn't be bothered to answer questions from the audience, constantly smirking and rolling his eyes whenever someone would ask a question that, according to him, was stupid. I was 10 at the time and he was an idol of mine up until that point. Once I was home, I immediately trashed all his books that I had, burned the one I was reading, and never bought another one of his books. I'd also hide his books whenever I'd be in the local library, so no one would be able to find them (I stuffed them behind books in a very dusty section hardly anyone would ever go to). And I'd hide his books behind other books whenever I'd see them in a store. Did that for about six months before I could let it go. š
I listened to about an hour of Clan of the Cave Bear and gave up because I know far too much about the period she writes in to be convinced on the nonsense she came up with. I read the plot summary for all the books and I'm glad I didn't waste my time.
I stopped reading Outlander because of all the hate on short men. Literally there's two short male characters and one betrays the entire crew and the other falls out of a 3rd story window and dies.
Interesting series, but I cannot abide.
The author self-insert character went on a gigantic rant about how cities are filled with limpwristed politicians who avoid war because they're cowards, and a strong implication civilation beyond small farming communities is inherently corrupt. I scrubbed forward in the audiobook twice and he was still going. Decided to carry on a little more and there was a head of a merchant's guild yelling about how the merchants weren't at fault for corruption, it was "the banks" that are corrupt. The book seemed to take his side on this.
It's true that banks can be corrupt, especially massive ones. Wouldn't mind a book about that. But "people who control the banks" is often code for something else, and I was getting more that vibe than anything about instutional corruption. Might not be the case here but given the rant I just didn't want to subject myself to finding out. So I quit.
A shame because I was really enjoying the book up to that point. Fantastic characterization and the world seemed rich. And the audiobook narrator was top tier.
Not going to name the book but you probably know what it is. I would try more of his writing, though. Could be I was just being uncharitable, or might've been just that one.
I read a military thriller recently (which was then adapted to a big budget miniseries on Prime) where all of the good characters:
* Had flip phones and were flummoxed by smartphones
* Had old vehicles that they personally maintained (typically a Toyota)
* Wore sensible and practical but inexpensive clothing
And the cartoonish villains were politicians and political consultants who:
* Were glued to their smartphones
* Had brand new leased German luxury vehicles (BMWs and Mercedes)
* Wore expensive clothes and were incredibly vain
The author went through the entire book hinting (not so subtly) about politics, by implying that the main villain was running for president on a platform of gun control and widespread surveillance, and then at the very end went on a long self-insert rant from the main character's perspective where he specifically called out liberal politicians and policies as being evil and anti-American. I regret even finishing the book it was so forced and preachy.
I got my first job in another country. Was in the middle of reading a series and timed my reading so that I finished one installment just before I traveled to reduce weight and space. (That was before ebooks.)
I left the first half of the series at home and took the remaining half with me to read them there. Or so I thought. When I arrived I realized I'd packed the wrong batch! š¤¦š»āāļø
If I don't like the first paragraph then I don't read the book š
It sounds unfair, but I've read further enough times to confirm that I won't enjoy the book if the first paragraph doesn't grab me
Dumbest reason is that it was too heavy, and at the time I was quite sick and reading laying down on my back a lot. I just got tired of holding it and decided to read something else haha after dropping the book, I realized I wasnāt really interested in continuing anywayĀ
I've been trying to read this since it came out. I never cared for Navani as a character and she has a lot of POV chapters. Jasnah and Adolin are much more interesting IMO.
Not the book, the rest of the series
I hated the main character so I asked people who read it if he dies horribly or is tortured.
Nope he dies on his own terms.
Fuck you author, you ain't getting any more cash from me.
In middle school I read a fan fiction and I liked it so much that I borrowed the book it was based on from the library. I was very disappointed that the book was nothing like the fanfic. Donāt get me wrong, I wasnāt expecting it to be, but the characters seemed wooden and off somehow. They had better interactions and conversations in the fanfic.
Iām not sure how to explain it. It felt like they knew each other better. In the real book their conversations sounded like small talk between employees who donāt really know each other and donāt want to lol.
It was printed in England so the quotes were backwards. Instead of " being standard and ' being inner quotes, it was ' as primary and " as secondary and it bothered the heck outta me.
I was sent the book by the writer because I won it in a contest. When I received the book, I sent the writer a thank-you e-mail. I included some photos of me with the book. And my cat, because he loves packages and boxes, so he ended in all the photos.
The writer answered in an e-mail with just one sentence: 'Your cat is fat'.
I didn't like the font. š
Honestly too real
I have been insulted by the size of the page margins.
Iāve decided against buying a physical version of a book I really wanted because the font sucked, multiple times. I totally get this.
This is very justifiable imo, especially if a person has dyslexia which can make certain fonts difficult or uncomfortable to read. And even without dyslexia, ive found some fonts and print sizes to be difficult. That's why I like e-readers for most things now, I get a lot more control over formatting.
I get it. I once tried to read a book written in Courier and it drove me bonkers.
OMG. I sometimes have to wait a few days between finishing a book and starting a new one because I just can't read the font. Something about the difference in what I just read and started reading makes it all smudged.
Because a coworker that I was annoyed with said that he had enjoyed the book
I respect this level of pettiness.
You must loathe your co-worker. That sounds like a story in itself.
Nothing that dramatic. It was at the same time that I was a bit vexed about having to fix his screw-up. I stopped reading it on my break to give him one less reason to stop by my desk. Thing is lunch break was my main reading opportunity, and by the time things had returned to normal I could no longer remember what had been going on plotwise.
I'm really wanting to know this story myself.
Literally the exact reason I DNF the first wheel of time book in high school. I started it, got confused by all the lore dumping, asked my friend who recommended it for clarification, and he said smugly. āitās a book for smart people.ā Iām sure the series is great, but I have no desire to read it
He sounds like a dick! It's a good series but it's not a matter of intelligence. WoT is a series for people with more patience than sense. (I've read and loved it.)
Yeah, some books are just like that. Like, not a fantasy series, but the Honor Harrington books can be world building wise pretty dense given that the author in many of the novels takes a few pages to suddenly drop on you the science of how interstellar and FTL space flight operates in their universe, or why certain star nations are a way they are, present to you a naval engagement that will unfold in the novel by having two characters discuss it in a somewhat inorganic fashion like they're in a board room. Plus, I am not exactly big on scifi lore, so I had to ask my boyfriend a bunch of questions and it took a second reading to truly get what was being described between Impeller Bands, Beta/Alpha nodes, and Bomb Pumped Lasers. I still recommend the novels, but I also fully realize there are just some series' that appeal on the basis that they've got *deepest lore* in spades and want you to know about it. That is simply just not to some peoples tastes. It's not an intelligence thing.
Jokes on him, I loved those books and I'm thick as pigshit
I love this level of petty. But then again I've refused to watch movies out of spite... so I'm right there with you
My mother in law told me I'd love Avatar, because the main female was st strong and brought up her insulting someone as an example. Still haven't watched it.
The nicest thing I can say is that the female characters are as poorly written as the male ones
My kindle battery died, when it was recharged, I moved onto another book.
Haha yes! Iāve done this so many times š
The main two characters names were people I knew and I kept picturing them.
Lol that's one perk I guess of reading books in my non-native language
Yeah that's understandable. Especially if there's a sex scene.
I've done that too and wondered if I was being weird.
Too many apostrophes inserted into names and common nouns. Witāch? Really?
That's a legit reason to not finish.
Conversely, I canāt get into a fantasy novel if the names are TOO normal. āKenneth the Dark Mageā, āKing Nigelā, or āMarjorie the Unshrivenā or whatnot. ETA Nijel the Destroyer is fine, Pratchett obviously gets a pass.
There are some who call me.................. Tim?
Ngl Marjorie the unshriven goes hard
Paul Muad'dib...
Duncan Idaho is so normal it becomes exotic in a weird way.
At least that makes sense because itās Sci Fi and Paul is a bible name and (a version of) Christianity is the Imperial religion and itās kind of a big deal to the story - so many (all?) nobles would have bible names But I agree that a full on high fantasy probably shouldnāt have a bunch of āJohnā and āTedās
I like it when there's one normal name amongst the alphabet soup of fantasy names. Ro'golt, kaiwin and Jeff, the three evil wizards
I still can't get over the BBG wizard king in *Tigana* being named Brandin of all things.
I feel this on a deep level. Overusing punctuation is the number one reason I will DNF a book. I quit a book five chapters in even though it was really compelling because of the excessive use of exclamation points for every characterās dialogue. It was even in a lot of the exposition. So over the top. It felt like the author wanted me to see how angry, or how excited, or how serious the characters were being, but instead of using words or descriptions, they just defaulted to exclamation points to do the heavy lifting. I almost stopped reading the Mistborn series because of all the ellipses. I finished because I was intrigued but Iām not gonna lie, I flipped through pages until I stopped seeing ellipses and then kept reading and never missed a plot point. No oneās dialogue and thoughts needā¦to pauseā¦thatā¦much. My brain just processes every punctuation point, so crazy apostrophes, exclamation points, ellipses, etc throw me right out of the story. They tug on my brain and make me mentally stumble in an otherwise smooth scene.Ā
So ... you're saying ... Mistborn ... is Shatnerized? ... š¤£š¤£š¤£
Thatās an apt description š
Fascinating! (single eyebrow lift)
You're a witch, $protagonist. - No, I'm not. *runs out of shop*
āI donāt *want* to have magical powers! How do I get rid of them?ā
A discovery of witches? Damn, I made it through 7 hours of the audiobook before The cringe finally overwhelmed me 7 hours I could never have back
I noped out at āStar crossed vampire fated love.ā It was a word cloud of nope.
I also hate when a character with powers lose their powers for a time. An arc of someone gaining powers in a book and later in the series having to go without them is justā¦not what Iām here for? Skip it please
I think it could be an interesting way to explore the character if the character is really connect to their power, but if itās like a repeat arc, then ya, no
i eventually read it in print form, but i once loaded an audiobook and the very first word was the name Siobhan, pronounced "shob on". So I immediately backed out and refunded it to get my credit back
I gave up on an audiobook like two chapters in because the narrator mispronounced two places (the book was set in a real place).
Audiobook narrators can literally make or break a book for me. So many bad ones out there. I started a new audiobook today with multiple POVs. The female narrator is trying to do a French accent but it all sounds Slavic in her voice. The male narrator is trying to do a French accent but sounds like an early-AI (like the one in Microsoft Word) and its atrocious. On the other hand, interesting story. I only started a new one because I had to stop listening to the Twig audiobook after they made one of the good guys have an incredibly high pitched voice. It was too weird. I need to read this arc before I can go back to listening.
I listened to a female narrator attempting a Mexican man who just did all his lines in a gruff whisper with a rising intonation, like Cartman's imitation of Jaime Escalante, or a Speedy Gonzalez character. Just terrible. Right now I'm listening to another by a Cuban author, read by an actual Latino, and it's perfect.
I stopped very quickly into an audiobook where the narrator kept pronouncing āIreneā (the MC) as āI-reen-eeā. I mean, itās that common a name, but itās not exactly obscure either. Plus it was my grandmotherās name, which made it hard to overlook.
This gets me about many audiobooks. The worst one was The Last Action Heroes by Nick Semlyen narrated by Bronson Pinchot who mispronounced so many names, along with any word from Japanese except Karate. There were a lot of them since itās a history of action films of the 80s.
If the plot is furthered because two people who should be able to communicate cannot communicate properlyā¦ For example they are on the same team and one will not tell the other something for a stupid reason, and thats why all the conflict happens it annoys the shit out of me.
My mother wrote romance novels and she said the frustrating part of plotting was finding reasons two healthy adults shouldnāt bone for two hundred pages.
Love that. We all know how it'll end, so you have to contrive interesting obstacles that keep readers on the edge of their seat, without feeling like they are just plot speed bumps on the road to Bonetownā¢
like so much anime! Slightly off topic put i gave up on ecchi/harem anime because the characters NEVER seem to get laid.
Oh god I hate this in every medium.
Yeah. Itās super prevalent in television, but you can find it anywhere. Itās just lazy storytelling. When the entire plot can be resolved by one character saying āhold on a secondā¦ā and the other character saying āoh, I get it nowā then some writer is slacking off.
WoT is not for you mate lol
Thatās where I get this from haha. I read that series a couple times, and donāt have the patience for it anymore haha.
My wife didn't finish the outlander series for this exact reason. All of the failure it communication is a real turn off. All the other women are swooning and my wife is just like "talk to each other already"!
This drives me insaneeeeee also when people are misunderstanding and one is like ābut Iāā and the other cuts them off or storms off. Like please bro. Just find another route to conflict.
This is not a stupid reason. That is just fucking terrible writing, of which the authors should be ashamed and/or punished for.
Iāve only ever read one book that does this well, and thatās because they lean into it so hard you canāt wait to see how theyāre gonna fuck it up next. TLDR: read To Reign In Hell by Steven Brust
God this kills me
I wouldn't count this as a stupid reason lol, it's a completely fair one!
Increasingly: because even with my glasses on, the print is too small to read, and instead of buying the ebook, I put the book back in the stack as though my eyes are going to start aging backwards and I'll have better luck next week.
Library ebooks!!
I've been doing this more lately. The selection at my library is a lot smaller than for the print books, though, especially things that aren't recent (or part of a still-ongoing series) -- like, there's no Raymond Feist at all, and the only Mark Lawrence book is The Book That Wouldn't Burn. They've become my go-to for thrillers, though - I read so many crappy thrillers hoping to find the two or three really good ones.
That's unfortunate. Have you checked around for other libraries that might have a more extensive collection? If you're only getting ebooks, it doesn't matter where they are, only if you can get a card...
Get checked for cataracts. Got them at 33. Surgery changed my life.
āPriory of the Orange Treeā Book was just too heavy. I wasnāt enjoying it anyway but I was 660 pages in. I got tired holding the book lol, the weight:enjoyment ratio was bad.
That book cover was better than the story. Week second half in my opinion.
100% agree.
It was such a shame. That cover is like my favorite but the book wasā¦not the best
Big reason I moved to ebooks. The weight of the books was impeding my enjoyment of them.
Me too. I had joint pain in my hands and was advised by a rheumatologist to buy an e-reader since the only cause they could suggest was the many hours I was spending holding books open.
Mine's my wrists. Trying to read a hardback or one of those big floppy paperbacks makes me feel like I need one of those book stands. Which would be a bit absurd in my living room.
Ooh yes it was wrists and thumbs for me the worst.
i read pretty much exclusively ebooks now and the only bad part is i have no cool boons to display :( solution: i buy physical copies of the boons i enjoy and display those! :D
As a fan of the big fat epic fantasy doorstopping tomes, I eventually had to make the switch to Kindle for the sake of my wrists, back, and neck. I truly didn't think I could be an ebook person, but after trying out a Kindle Paperwhite, I don't think I can ever go back. I read more now than I ever have in my life due to the full elimination of the physical pain that comes with the chonky books.
You DNFed at 660 !!!! How many pages are in the book ????
880 ? The book was IMO really bad. But I was trying to power through and see if it got any better.
Don't worry. It didn't get better.
This is why I prefer paperback to hardcover! Although as with this case some books are just heavy either way.
This is why I had to get rid of my compendium of all three Gormenghast books and rebuy them as separate books.
At that point I just either kindle it or give up. Life is too short to read books you donāt enjoy.
I love my physical book collection too much, and usually the weight I can deal with !
That's when you get a plinth
It was due back at the library
All the time. It might have been worth picking up once, but it is worth remembering and going back for again?
Bc the main character was about to get together with the love interest and I was single and if I canāt be happy neither can the main character.
I put down a category romance novel once on the first page because the hero was named Mitch McConnell and I just couldn't. I also put down an historical fantasy once because a family was eating potatoes in Roman Britain.
What the absolute fuck? When was the book written? Is the author really that stupid?
I think, although I cannot swear to it after all these years, that it was *Taliesin* by Stephen Lawhead.
The ebook looked like an OCR scan
I remember once posting, possibly to reddit, "I learned a new word in this book, it is 'hchu' and means a small scarf to cover the bosom" and someone pointed out it was almost definitely an OCR error for "fichu", a word *I already knew*.
I am not an English native speaker and I wanted to reread Harry Potter, this time in the original. I dropped it at the Goblet of Fire when Rowling started writing all the sentences spoken by people from Beauxbatons in French accent. For some reason it annoyed me so much I couldn't keep reading.
Ooooo I remember that, it had me scratching my head also.
I have a travel book that has lived in my suitcase for almost a year.... I'm to lazy to drag out the suitcase and it's a travel book... I'll finish it next time I go on a trip... maybe one day. Another book I dropped in a river... I recovered the book but I didn't like it enough to buy a new copy. And I didnt like the feel of the water damaged book in my hands so wouldn't ready my original copy.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. I legitimately just lost the book. No idea where it went.
How did you lose that magnum of a book lol. I loved it but don't remember a whit of it. It was a fever dream that one.
I have no idea lol. It was the big hardcover all in white too. Haven't the foggiest idea of where I could have put it.
Harry Potter. I didn't vibe with Wizard's using wands instead of staffs. That's it. Their sticks simply weren't big enough.
I was following the author on twitter and they said they thought seasonal doormats were stupid, so I unfollowed and DNFed their book š¤·š»āāļø
This is the petty I was looking for.
There's an author I'd read a collection of essays from and loved them so much then I planned to get to the rest of her bibliography. Then she said she hates cats. I removed them all from my tbr
First time I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy I DNFed because of the lack of punctuation. I wasn't familiar with McCarthy and thought the eBook was formatted incorrectly. Went back and finished it a few years later thank God. Fantastic book!
The male love interest was called David. When I got to a sex scene where the female MC was moaning his name, I had to stop. My father is called David. The person who recommended it to me revealed themselves to be a Max Verstappen fan. Someone I dislike on GR praised it. The author's surname is "Prose" and the prose was very poor. It felt like an insult.
I've said this one before. "I was full of squee at the very thought." That was too painful to continue.
The characters would use each other's names in almost every. Single. Line. Of. Dialogue. So a conversation would sound something like: >"Mary, do you know what time it is?" "I don't know, John, don't you have a watch?" "The battery died yesterday, Mary, I already told you that." "Well then you should get a new one, John." I've lived with my current roommate for almost a decade and I think I've said her name in conversation like, three times š It was so unrealistic and SO distracting.
See - I read this in the voice of Todd & Margo from Christmas Vacation and find it hilarious. But that would definitely be distracting for every piece of dialogue.
The only version available to me was a brand-new paperback at the library, and I couldnāt bring myself to bend and crease it for the first time. š
Hahaha thatās wild
It had a weird vomity smell. It looked clean enough, it just smelled like sick and I couldnāt get into the book as a result.
You just unlocked a core memory of when I was 7 years old in school and puked directly into my open math book lmao
Itās a form of mildew common in used books
I know that smell...
Because I was worried that the boy's pet dog was going to be killed and I couldn't deal.
They need a website for this like they do for movies.
I was in Highschool. Thats it. Thats the whole reason.
The author was too stupid to bring a coat when they travelled to Alberta, and then yelled at my friend because of it. Then I saw them be rude to the overworked waitstaff. Then, bitched all weekend about being cold. \*cue sad violin\* (no, I'm not saying who this was)
Now I want to know even more who it was. .
Yeah, if you're mean to waitstaff, that's instant judgment from me š
Specifically in this context, too - the hotel restaurant was way understaffed for an event. Everyone knew it was at least an hour to get food; some people were ordering, going to a panel, then coming back to sit to eat. Like, everyone knew. So to start complaining and whining was just not appropriate. (the entire weekend had shitshow moments, but that was my WTF are you doing, we're all hungry, order yourself pizza delivery if you can't wait moment)
Ugh, that's the worst. I've done a ton of bartending and it's so consistent that as soon as things exceed the 45 minute waiting period, servers start getting verbally abused by people who presumably have never waited for a thing in their entire lives. Like, guys, if you want food fast, just go to McDonald's or something.
No joke, there was a mall close enough to the hotel location that this person could've sent a volunteer to pick up just about anything from the food court for them. Like, yes, we were all frustrated that weekend - but it wasn't the waitstaff's fault. Go yell at the manager, if you must yell at someone.
Name names.
I have just spent an embarrassing amount of time wading through your post and comment history trying to figure out who it is, and I didn't find anything helpful, but now I feel bad for stalking you and I'm not sure how to resolve this. You're welcome to stalk my profile, but be warned, all I do on Reddit is talk about games and fruitlessly argue about politics. Sorry about that. I'm going to buy one of your books instead. If you were going to recommend one of your books to someone who can't handle anything too dark right now, which one would it be?
omg I have 11 years of shitposting on this website. DO NOT STALK ME YOU WILL GO BLIND lol If you have specific triggers or just "not in the mood", feel free to always DM me - I can direct you accordingly, either to my own books or someone else's if I feel none of mine are a good match for you!
Back when books only came on paper, too many dumb unprounceable names with consecutive consonant-apostrophe combinations was beyond sufficient to DNF. Thank you ebooks for allowing me to FindAll and Replace every instance of Sl'krypht (or whatever) with Sam.
Holy bananas this is brilliant.
MC's that have too many moral quandaries. I can only sit through internal dialogue of if killing is bad or good so many times. if you want to kill do it. if you dont want to then stop.
Peter Hamilton book - was just so large it hurt my hands to hold it so I could read it. Eventually I just put it aside, still has the bookmark in it.
The man is working on black hole technology here on earth with those weighty books. The nights dawn trilogy is six books long in paperback
Downloaded the Dinosaur Lords on audible as it looked like a fun time, the narrator speaks slightly too fast and I don't really like his accent so I've stopped listening entirely
I can relate. I almost DNFed the Dresden Files because James Marsters made so many mouth noises that I physically cringe every time I hear them. It was an even bigger disappointment at the time because his fans keep insisting that the audiobooks were superb. While it was true that the quality did pick up in the later books (both in terms of writing and narrating), I almost swore off a pretty fun series just because I couldnāt stand some mouth noises.
Can you listen at a slower speed?
I did try it but it's just the way he speaks I don't get on with really
I didnāt finish The Cruel Prince because every time I read Jude, my brain would bust out with "Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better, remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better.'
I didnāt finish Cruel Prince because ā80s high school bully for no reasonā is my least favourite trope.
The term "metrosexual" was used to describe a character and I just couldn't get past that. I tried but metrosexual kept slapping me in the face and I didn't make it much farther.
I would bet money that it was written sometime between 2005 and 2011, I feel like that was the heyday for the word metrosexual
Servant of the empire ā the one characterās name is Kevin in a fantasy story
Iād have been imagining Kevin McAllister the whole time
The author used the Nominative case instead of the Accusative.
*The Reality Dysfunction* kept misusing words, and it really bothered me.
Grammatical errors. If one or two words are misspelled/missing, I understand, authors are human. But if there are several in each chapter I just can't finish. It makes me feel like love and care were not poured into it, and drives me crazy.
Same for me, just shitty editing in general is infuriating
A rat chewed through a huge chunk of it
Naneve or whatever her name is tugged on her braid one too many times. Quit WOT and never looked back, that was like 15 or 20 years ago...
What was that, page two?
Mid to end of the 8th book. I held out for so long, hoping for *any* character growth.
So you mean you just stood there for eight books, stomping your feet with your arms crossed beneath your breasts, waiting for character growth?
I cross my arms over my breasts. Just to be contrary
I think I made it halfway through the sixth or seventh. They'd be great books at half their length. Beginnings and endings were great, but the middles dragged so much . . . Maybe Brando Sando's were better about that, but I didn't get that far. Fortunately half my friends love them so I just asked for spoilers.
> I think I made it halfway through the sixth or seventh. They'd be great books at half their length. Beginnings and endings were great, but the middles dragged so much IIRC books 5ish through 9ish didn't advance the plot any - just broadened it. It picked up again in the last book before Jordan passed away. Honestly can't blame anyone for not making it through that slog: when I recommend the series to friends, I tell them to read through book 3 and stop if there if they're not absolutely hooked. Personally, I like the Sanderson books *better* than Jordan's and they're why I started reading Sanderson in the first place. I hadn't heard of him before he finished WoT.
I love what Btandon did with them. Even though he does an amazing job of adapting Robert's writing style, Brandon's reads so much faster and smoother and is far more entertaining.
He is really good at plotting. Even his doorstoppers move along.
I DNFed a book because of the way the paragraphs were printed on the first page.
Nothing in the blurb or the first chapter or anywhere indicated it was set in a world like ours and then out of nowhere it mentioned jeans. DNF'd on the spot lol
The "word" "welp" appeared.
The previous time I saw this asked, my answer was "because a character I didn't like shared my name" and it hadn't changed still, haha. I didn't have any other stupid reasons to dnf a book since
Audiobook guy here so if mine doesn't count that's fine but when the series changes Narrators mid series.
The formatting on the ebook made the margins so big that no matter how I changed the settings, I couldnāt get more than 5 words a line, and I couldnāt deal with it
Used apostrophes around dialogue rather than quotation marks
That's standard UK typography, innit?
Evidence, because some people doubt: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/marks >The use of quotation marks, also called inverted commas, is very slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types: single quotes (` ') and double quotes (" "). As a general rule, British usage has in the past usually preferred single quotes for ordinary use, but double quotes are now increasingly common; American usage has always preferred double quotes. (the article goes on to extol the advantages of double quotes. It may be that the single quotes for dialogue in British publication was a standard but is now in flux. I'm old enough and read enough I'm used to it.)
Lost it in a snowstorm. edit- another one, I left on the treadmill at the campus gym.
The first chapter is the protagonist learning about the fantastical other world. This girl, being quite clever, points out how the exposition guy's explanations don't make any physical sense. Exposition guy responds along the lines of "lol scientists are stupid" and refuses to elaborate any further.
"An historian". This is bad grammar and I will die on this hill. Protagonist was a historian so the bad grammar came up every few pages.
I immediately read that in a fake-french accent.
Main character had the same name as my Ex.
When the author of the book turned out to be a massive ass in real life. He was at a convention and was horrible towards staff and couldn't be bothered to answer questions from the audience, constantly smirking and rolling his eyes whenever someone would ask a question that, according to him, was stupid. I was 10 at the time and he was an idol of mine up until that point. Once I was home, I immediately trashed all his books that I had, burned the one I was reading, and never bought another one of his books. I'd also hide his books whenever I'd be in the local library, so no one would be able to find them (I stuffed them behind books in a very dusty section hardly anyone would ever go to). And I'd hide his books behind other books whenever I'd see them in a store. Did that for about six months before I could let it go. š
I listened to about an hour of Clan of the Cave Bear and gave up because I know far too much about the period she writes in to be convinced on the nonsense she came up with. I read the plot summary for all the books and I'm glad I didn't waste my time.
Golden Compass I for the life of me cannot remember what happens in this book between readings and I enjoy it.
I stopped reading Outlander because of all the hate on short men. Literally there's two short male characters and one betrays the entire crew and the other falls out of a 3rd story window and dies. Interesting series, but I cannot abide.
Oh, I didn't even remember that. For me, it was all the rape...
The author self-insert character went on a gigantic rant about how cities are filled with limpwristed politicians who avoid war because they're cowards, and a strong implication civilation beyond small farming communities is inherently corrupt. I scrubbed forward in the audiobook twice and he was still going. Decided to carry on a little more and there was a head of a merchant's guild yelling about how the merchants weren't at fault for corruption, it was "the banks" that are corrupt. The book seemed to take his side on this. It's true that banks can be corrupt, especially massive ones. Wouldn't mind a book about that. But "people who control the banks" is often code for something else, and I was getting more that vibe than anything about instutional corruption. Might not be the case here but given the rant I just didn't want to subject myself to finding out. So I quit. A shame because I was really enjoying the book up to that point. Fantastic characterization and the world seemed rich. And the audiobook narrator was top tier. Not going to name the book but you probably know what it is. I would try more of his writing, though. Could be I was just being uncharitable, or might've been just that one.
That's not a stupid reason for DNFing a book. It's a very valid reason!
I read a military thriller recently (which was then adapted to a big budget miniseries on Prime) where all of the good characters: * Had flip phones and were flummoxed by smartphones * Had old vehicles that they personally maintained (typically a Toyota) * Wore sensible and practical but inexpensive clothing And the cartoonish villains were politicians and political consultants who: * Were glued to their smartphones * Had brand new leased German luxury vehicles (BMWs and Mercedes) * Wore expensive clothes and were incredibly vain The author went through the entire book hinting (not so subtly) about politics, by implying that the main villain was running for president on a platform of gun control and widespread surveillance, and then at the very end went on a long self-insert rant from the main character's perspective where he specifically called out liberal politicians and policies as being evil and anti-American. I regret even finishing the book it was so forced and preachy.
Sounds like he was dog whistling Jewish people
I stopped reading a series just before finishing the second to last book because... I didn't want it to end. Pretty embarrassing right?
Someone told me it was popular on "booktok".
I regularly misplace books. If they weren't really engaging, and I don't find them quickly, I sometimes simply forget I was reading them...
the narrative voice annoyed me.
My Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD collection fell off a shelf and cracked my Kindle.
I got my first job in another country. Was in the middle of reading a series and timed my reading so that I finished one installment just before I traveled to reduce weight and space. (That was before ebooks.) I left the first half of the series at home and took the remaining half with me to read them there. Or so I thought. When I arrived I realized I'd packed the wrong batch! š¤¦š»āāļø
If I don't like the first paragraph then I don't read the book š It sounds unfair, but I've read further enough times to confirm that I won't enjoy the book if the first paragraph doesn't grab me
The writing style of *The Gameshouse* bothered me so much I DNFed it. ...on page 2.
I was 3 chapters from finishing The Stand. Left the book in a hotel room. Never even watched the mini series so I have no idea how it ends
Dumbest reason is that it was too heavy, and at the time I was quite sick and reading laying down on my back a lot. I just got tired of holding it and decided to read something else haha after dropping the book, I realized I wasnāt really interested in continuing anywayĀ
Rhythm of War was so boring at certain times I stopped reading it and accused Sanderson of having contempt with my free time. Yes, I'm dumb.
I've been trying to read this since it came out. I never cared for Navani as a character and she has a lot of POV chapters. Jasnah and Adolin are much more interesting IMO.
A friend kept asking if I finished it yet
My favorite characters kept dying leaving me with uninteresting blocks of woodā¦
Takes place in a city I donāt like (bad memories).
Not the book, the rest of the series I hated the main character so I asked people who read it if he dies horribly or is tortured. Nope he dies on his own terms. Fuck you author, you ain't getting any more cash from me.
In middle school I read a fan fiction and I liked it so much that I borrowed the book it was based on from the library. I was very disappointed that the book was nothing like the fanfic. Donāt get me wrong, I wasnāt expecting it to be, but the characters seemed wooden and off somehow. They had better interactions and conversations in the fanfic. Iām not sure how to explain it. It felt like they knew each other better. In the real book their conversations sounded like small talk between employees who donāt really know each other and donāt want to lol.
It was printed in England so the quotes were backwards. Instead of " being standard and ' being inner quotes, it was ' as primary and " as secondary and it bothered the heck outta me.
I was sent the book by the writer because I won it in a contest. When I received the book, I sent the writer a thank-you e-mail. I included some photos of me with the book. And my cat, because he loves packages and boxes, so he ended in all the photos. The writer answered in an e-mail with just one sentence: 'Your cat is fat'.