Top Ten Tuesday #11 - Top Ten Book Turn Offs

     Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and The Bookish, which allows bloggers to share lists of some of our favorite (and not-so favorite) things.  This week we’ll be highlighting the top ten book turn offs.  What are the things that stand out when we're reading, and either get it the way of our enjoyment, or make us stop reading altogether?  I know there are definitely some things that annoy the heck out of me and turn me off of the book entirely.  I can't wait to read your lists and see if we have anything in common.   Happy Tuesday and have fun everyone! :)

Top Ten Book Turn Offs

1.  Fake Incest As a Plot Device - This is something that drives me completely up the wall and makes me disgusted with the author.  Really, you couldn't come up with anything else to drive the action in the novel?  They have to be romantic interests and maybe-not-quite-sure siblings on top of that?  Major reason I'm not a big fan of The Mortal Instruments series.  It just makes me want to quit.

2.  Love Triangles - If I see one of these coming and it's the first book in a series (this happens quite a bit nowadays unfortunately) I get really disgruntled.  Give me a book with just ONE love interest for the main character!  Usually if you need a love triangle to prop up your writing, it's inferior and oftentimes complete crap.  There are obvious exceptions though.  Example of these exceptions:  Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me series.

3.  Romance used as a cover for Porn - I have read a lot of paperback romance books in my time.  There are good and bad just like any other subsection of a genre.  The way to tell a good romance, is to find one balancing plot with maybe a couple of tasteful sex scenes (if it has any - some don't and that's even better at times).  Drowning the plot in sex scenes generally tells me you can't write dialogue, plot or get creative, so you resort to smut.  It's usually bad, boring smut too!  Quit wasting my time!

4.  Insta-Love - Characters that have barely met each other and begin spouting declarations of 'soul mates' and true love make me gag.  Please, don't make me gag!  Give your characters some dignity and development, instead of making them act like 11 year old One Direction fangirls!  Respect your readers and put their intelligence above that really low, weak-ass tactic.

5.  Repetitive Language - I am not someone who normally notices this in a book.  If I happen to notice this, your book really is repeating itself an awful lot.  An example of this (not to beat a dead horse, but...) is when I was reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  If I never see the words "inner goddess" on a book page again, it will still be too soon.

6.  The Innocent, Speshul Snowflake, Perfect Virgin Girl - Bella unleashed a whole train of these characters, who are just so pure and sweet that when they talk birds sing.  You know, shit like that.  Not to mention, every guy she ever meets is drawn to her magical ladyparts and is in 'lurve' with her, cause she's just so SPESHUL.  She's also usually never had a boyfriend, is verging on a-sexual until the generally bordering-on-stalker love interest lights her panties on fire, and has never even been kissed.  Yeah, how about NO!!!

7.  Cheaters -  I cannot STAND cheaters.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is no excuse for it!  If you want to be with someone that badly, break up with the person you're seeing and pursue it.  Don't be a sleazeball, and hook up when you're spoken for.  It's just nasty and it's got nothin' to do with love.  

8.  Abrupt Endings - I don't necessarily mean cliffhangers.  I mean when the mystery (or main plot, whatever it is) is still unresolved, but in the last 20 pages all the loose ends are tied up in neat bows.  Most of the time when an author does this it's sloppy and really lazy - it reads like it too.  I like my endings a bit more gradual than that.  Just sayin'.  

9.  Twitterspeak in Normal Conversation - Maybe this is just showing my age or something, but this is my newest pet peeve.  I literally just quit a book 67% into it, because I just could not take it anymore.  There were other issues too, but the main character (a fourteen year old girl) thought she and her friend were so cool cause they talked in real life like they did on Twitter.  JUST SHUT THE F*** UP.  Seriously.

10.  Placeholder Characters - As in, I wrote a book because I've always wanted to be a book heroine.  Now look at me, I'm the main character in my own book and the most boring one in the whole thing!  All to live out my own, personal fantasies that NO ONE CARES ABOUT.  Basically just *insert self here.*  If I wanted that, I'd read Choose Your Own Adventure.  I'll pass thanks.