Let's Talk: What makes you DNF a book?

[snowynight]

I quickly get bored if the book began with long description of scenery. That's why I gave up on The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers.

I dislike when the author forces me to accept their agenda. I am here to read a story, nor propaganda. In the case of nonfiction, please convince me with good evidence or argument.

I dislike when the author writes sad ending because supposedly it's more realistic or high brow. It was lucky that I skipped to the ending of The Necessary Hunger, or I would have wasted my time finishing it. It also had my hated trope: miscommunication problems that can be solved if people could just talk for 5 minutes.

I also dislike entitled protagonists who thinks the world should rotate around him, and the narrative agrees with this. I couldn't finish The Children of Men by P. D. James because how insufferable the male protagonist was. Sadly, I continued to read Private Patient by her, which was so horrible and offensive.

The protagonist is a male police detective. His lesbian friend is brutally raped and stays in a coma until the end. Her spouse (also his friend) told him she didn't feel respected by the investigating police officer, only for him to be really condescending to her. (How dare she doesn't think of the police!) His fiancée spent time with the couple because she was a decent human being and their friends. Then the protagonist felt so hurt because how dare his fiancée spent time with her friend in coma instead of catering to his whim.

The entire subplot was completely random and had nothing to do with the main plot. Its purpose is apparently for the protagonist to be a jerk and complained why his fiancée focused on her friend (In a coma) instead of him (totally fine)

And of course the lesbian character woke up at ending to be an object lesson how love conquers all for the protagonist. How romantic for the protagonist!

And this novel is praised in more than one review how it's lgbt inclusive/positively depicted lgbt characters

This is so awful that I never read anything of her anymore

Comments

[garonne]

I dislike when the author writes sad ending because supposedly it's more realistic or high brow.

I agree so much! And the worst thing is, by the time I realise that the author is doing that, it's almost too late to DNF the book, since I am right at the end...

[snowynight]

Yeah. I hate when authors trick me into that. There was one time that I read a fluffy lighthearted romance, suddenly ending with one dying early and the other keeping writing love letters to the dead person. Why?

[resonant]

I have a personal requirement that I'll finish 50 pages before I let myself abandon a book, and let me tell you, sometimes every one is an effort. Only exception is if it trips my torture squick, because experience has taught me that an attitude of reveling in cruelty is a thing that rarely gets better, and even when it's in character and relevant, I just can't stand it. (I was less than 2 pages into the first Game of Thrones book when it became obvious that it was Not For Me.)

I'll drop a book if there's no one who wants something that I really care about them getting, if there's too much exposition getting between me and the characters, if all I meet in the first 50 pages are whiny people with trivial problems. That literary fiction attitude where it's somehow distasteful if anything *happens* and classy if people drift without making choices.

Totally with you on the descriptions of scenery - or weather! A really good author can turn either of those into characterization, but a bad one will lose me very fast.

[snowynight]

I have a huge torture squick too. I still didn't read the Culture series because I read from review that there were torture. Better be safe than sorry.

I don't get why literary fiction writers dislike character actually doing things. Characters wallowing in their mind or whiny about their trivial problems annoy me greatly and will get a pass

[lilacsigil]

It also had my hated trope: miscommunication problems that can be solved if people could just talk for 5 minutes.

This is also my #1 most hated trope, alongside "reasonably competent people have to be incredibly stupid for the plot to work".

That particular P.D. James novel sounds awful but I've already quit reading books by her because of her bad case of protagonist-centred morality (people who agree with the protagonist are good, whatever the protagonist does is good or at least for good reasons, people who pose the slightest disagreement are obviously bad.) This sounds like a more extreme case of it.

[snowynight]

I (stupidly) gave her chance because people kept talking about how awesome her detective novels were, so I thought it was my problem. Private Patient proved that it wasn't me. It was her.

[silveradept]

I've been known to drop books where I can tell the author hasn't done any research on a subject where I haven't done any research either and I can still tell they're wrong.

Usually, though, if I'm reading a book I hate, it's because I need to know what to recommend to the people who love it.

[snowynight]

it's really annoying when it's obvious.

I remember seeing a novel that think regular natural snow happens in a subtropical city where the average temperature for winter is 16.3°C/61.3°F and the last time it snowed was in 1893. I facepalm at the research fail.

[severina]

The title Children of Men sounded familiar, and I see that I read it back in 2018. I had to read an entire detailed synopsis before I remembered it. I think being completely forgettable might actually be worse than being offensive.

I try to get through every book I read. At the same time, life is too short and there's too many good books out there, so I don't force myself if I'm actively hating it. Torture porn is one thing that turns my stomach.

[snowynight]

To be honest, I don't remember anything about the plot except how insufferable the protagonist was.

Life is too short to read bad books, and torture porn is a big no to me too.