Bloggin' 'bout Books: 04/25/17

2026 Literary Escapes Challenge

- Alabama

- Alaska

- Arizona

- Arkansas

- ~~California~~ (1)

- Colorado

- Connecticut

- Delaware

- Florida

- Georgia

- Hawaii

- Idaho

- ~~Illinois~~ (1)

- ~~Indiana~~ (1)

- Iowa

- Kansas

- Kentucky

- Louisiana

- ~~Maine~~ (1)

- Maryland

- Massachusetts

- Michigan

- Minnesota

- Mississippi

- Missouri

- Montana

- Nebraska

- Nevada

- New Hampshire

- New Jersey

- New Mexico

- ~~New York~~ (2)

- North Carolina

- North Dakota

- Ohio

- Oklahoma

- Oregon

- Pennsylvania

- ~~Rhode Island~~ (1)

- South Carolina

- South Dakota

- Tennessee

- Texas

- Utah

- Vermont

- ~~Virginia~~ (1)

- Washington

- West Virginia

- Wisconsin

- Wyoming

- Washington, D.C.*

International:

- England (2)

Top Ten Tuesday: Automatic Book Turn-offs

9:41 AM

It's Tuesday, which means it's time again for my favorite weekly bookish meme, Top Ten Tuesday. Participating is fun and easy. If you've never done it before, hop on over to The Broke and the Bookish, read over the rules, make your own list, and voilá, you're in!

Last week, we talked about the things that entice us to pick up books. This week, we're chatting about the opposite. Which things make you avoid a book like the plague? What are your reading turn-offs?

Here are my Top Ten Things That Will Instantly Make Me Not Want to Read a Book:

1. Books that are excessively long. I read a fair amount of chunksters, mind you, but I definitely think twice before picking them up. Also, if a book is endless for no apparent reason, I will most likely not continue reading.

2. Erotica. No. Just ... no.

3. Half-naked people on the cover. These books get an automatic bypass from me. Scantily-clad folks on the cover = a sure sign a book is too "spicy" for my tastes.

4. Naughty words in the title. Do you have little kids? Then you know why you don't want to read books with swear words on the cover. "Mommy, that book has bad words! Why are you reading a book with bad words? What does **&&^^!! mean?" Yeah.

5. Self-published books. I know, I know, but I've read too many terribly-written, poorly-edited self-published novels to want to read more. In general, I don't read books that haven't been looked over by a traditional publisher. Not that I haven't read terribly-written, poorly-edited traditionally-published books, but still ...

6. Books with poorly written/edited queries. This one goes hand-in-hand with #5. I get dozens of queries every day from authors/publishers/publicists asking me to review the book(s) they have on offer. A clever, well-written/edited query goes a long way toward making me want to read a book. The opposite is also true. If a query contains sloppy prose, typos/grammatical errors, and flat writing, it's a pretty good indication that the book in question is going to be the same way. No thanks.

7. Poetry. Unless a poem rhymes and is written by Dr. Seuss, I probably won't understand it. Poetry makes me feel dumb, so I avoid it.

8. Short Stories. In spite of what I said in #1, I'm definitely the kind of reader who likes to sink into a rich, detailed novel where I can really get to know the characters and the world in which they live. Short stories don't allow this kind of depth, so I rarely read them.

9. Certain authors. Just like I have auto-read authors, I have auto not-read authors. If I've read enough of an author's books to know they're just not my cup of tea, I don't pick up their work.

10. Deep, dense tomes. My husband is a big fan of deep doctrinal books on religion, philosophy, science, etc. Not me. If I have to read a sentence (let alone a paragraph) five times in order to understand it, then it's not for me. I much prefer clarity to complexity. No one has ever accused me of being a deep thinker :)

So, what about you? What will automatically make you reject a book? Leave me a comment and I'll gladly return the favor.

Happy Top Ten Tuesday!