Today's challenge asks me this: What plot lines or stereotypes make you cringe or DNF? This is not an easy question for me to answer, because I don't typically not finish books that I've started, with the exception of The Hobbit, but I have plans to attempt to read that one again sometime in the near future maybe. Are there things in books that just make me roll my eyes and say, "Please," because they are just that ridiculous. Sure. So I guess that's what you're going to hear about here.
The biggie for me is insta-love. I do not believe in love at first sight, and I have yet to find a book that conveys it in a way that feels real, and this is coming from a woman who married a man that she'd only known for three months when she said "I do." I assure you, in the early stages of our relationship love was not something we were considering. I do believe that love can happen quickly, but not instantaneously. And you will absolutely never convince me that a character fell in love with someone else based on a picture (I've read a book where that was the case and the whole relationship felt incredibly fake to me, even before that was revealed).
Another book thing that really makes me go "hmmm" is the borderline abusive alpha males that are apparently super swoon worthy. I just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy a story that features one, Underestimated by Jettie Woodruff did make my top books of 2014 list after all, but I do not go gaga over the abusive partner. I know it's fiction, but that is absolutely not what I would want in a guy and I don't find those guys appealing in stories. If you do, that's awesome for you, but they're just not my type.
I have one more pet peeve, but it isn't plot based. I really can not stand poorly edited books. If I were to not finish a book, it would almost certainly be because it was poorly written or edited with lots of typos or grammatical errors. I get quite annoyed by ARCs (Advanced Reader Copy) because they are usually not fully edited, and grammar and spelling are important to me. I don't really like rating a book without that information because I don't know for sure that spelling and grammar corrections were made. I realize that one of the reasons for this is to help cut down on piracy issues (or at least make it a little easier to find the culprit, but that knowledge doesn't make the errors less annoying to me.
So there you have it. Those are the things that make me roll my eyes and might lead me to not finish a book. What are some of your pet peeves? - Katie
My daughter and I were just having the "poorly edited" conversation yesterday. LOL
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