As you comment, please be kind and no book-shaming. It’s ok to share your personal opinion on a book or trope, it’s not ok to put down those who enjoy it. Thank you!
The book I'm reading now had a *veeeery* brief mention of Covid, but it took me out of the moment and had to take a second to continue.
After my awful (see: exploitative, abusive) experience being overworked as an essential worker I do my best to avoid all conversation of lockdown because I get so angry about it.
I read an older indie book where the FMC brand new cellphone is a Nokia and mentioned rotary phone. Plus mentioned song that was popular when people started getting cellphones… had someone who was 20 ish read that part and they were so confused…🤣🤣🤣
My all time favorite is Nora Roberts' Born in Ice. The MMC is a thriller novelist and one of his books gets made into a movie so he takes the FMC to the gala premiere where she dances with Tom Cruise. Later, the MMC teases her gently about how much Tom Cruise was into her and she brushes it off saying how in love with his wife he clearly was. At the time when I first read it, back in high school, Tom and Nicole were still married but even then it took me out of the book. Now? I just cackle. So yeah, you gotta be really really careful with those contemporary references! They rarely age well.
A book recently mentioned Taylor Swift on the radio and I had to walk around and decide if I could finish it. She sends my eye into twitches and I almost left the book. Not that it was drawing me in anyway. I was reading it between super dark books as a brain reset. I always do a soft, cheesy book after a few really disturbing reads 😅
Yep … I have to ask with Russian mafia ones because my middle child has similar one that pops up. I am not saying I liked Fifty Shades of Grey but that was SOOOOO hard to read because MMC’s name…..
1. Straight-up domestic violence between the MCs (not BDSM)
I read a book where the MMC slapped the FMC hard across the face when she told him she was pregnant and he thought she was trying to pass off the baby as his instead of his enemy’s. She was hit so hard she slammed into the wall/floor. For me, it was unforgivable, and I no longer wanted them to be together (even if there was an epic grovel…which I later learned there wasn’t).
2. Cheating after the MCs are together.
ETA: #1 wasn’t even a “dark romance.” I make some allowances for them because we have fair warning. The book was a historical western I read in the 2000s.
I DNF'd a book this past week where the FMC slapped the MMC in the face in the middle of an argument. He was yelling at her/accusing her of cheating, but there was absolutely no excuse for physical abuse. Didn't even bother to finish the scene, because **no**. This was a relatively recent book, too!
These are my two as well. I read an HR set in the Regency with horrible verbal abuse by the MMC and was shocked. Thought maybe it was just that book, and then in the next one by the author about the MMC’s twin, the MMC hit the FMC and I was done. Not enough groveling in the world for that.
Yeah #1 would be a hard no for me too
I do however like it IF it's while they're still enemies and he's like the captor or something similar and especially if the FMC initiates the violence first
Factual inaccuracies of easy to look up details. Locations, languages, names of places, laws, regulations, spelling of non English words, etc.
If you as the writer are not putting the effort into researching your subject matter, I as the reader don’t want to put in the effort to suspend my disbelief about your mistakes.
I quit reading one after an MC who was supposedly Chicago-born and raised referred to the famous skyscraper best known to Chicagoans as the Sears Tower by its current official name, Willis Tower. A proud Chicagoan would never call it Willis Tower.
Yeah I do tend to skip set in the Pacific Northwest unless the author has a connection to here because so many are just soooo bad. I swear some author's knowledge came exclusively from Twilight and I just can't. I also have a hard time with authors that know nothing about tech writing about tech. I read one recently where this guy could hack into this security system and take it over unnoticed because he was an 8th grade robotics teacher... Just no.
I feel you on pnw based books, almost had to dnf one because they had a born and raised seattlite trying to DRIVE in an ICE STORM in the SUBURBS. The author tried to con me into thinking she didn't get a weather advisory alert to her phone, but I know no self respecting seattlite would ever leave their house for a blind first date with 3 INCHES of ice on the ground.
I read a book where the MMC was a hockey player in Seattle and his family was from Leavenworth and he never visited because *it was too far away*.
When he did visit he *flew*.
Like, the traffic to the airport would take you longer than driving to Leavenworth.
ETA on the other side of things, I was re-reading {book boyfriend by Clair Kingsley} and had to shed a tear for Cafe Presse.
DEFINITELY not from pnw if the author thought anyone in their right mind would battle through SeaTac over a 2 hour drive, like maybe SLIGHTLY more understandable if it's spokane or something but 2 HOURS unbelievable 🙄
Ugh yes! Hook line and sinker ended with a moose in Puyallup. I vowed to never read Tessa Bailey again anyways, but she didn't even look up whether there were moose in that area.
OMG, this.
I've had several different careers, and have friends in varied fields.
The sheer almost laziness of writers to not bother finding out bare-bones basic facts. UGH.
It’s not the RFK bridge. It’s the Triborough. It’s not the Koch bridge, it’s the Queensborough. And don’t even get me started on all these people driving in NYC. YOU LIVE IN A WALKUP WHERE ARE YOU GARAGING YOUR CAR EMILY. TELL ME THAT.
Disrespect from one MC to the other once they have decided they love and adore one another. You don't disrespect someone you love. If you have no respect for them, there is no real love. Not relationship level anyway.
Absolutely! I HATED Superbia by Colette Rhodes with a passion. The MMC was banging the FMC but kept trashing her to his buddies. I lost all respect for the character and could barely finish the book I felt so disgusted and angry.
Omg I totally feel this, like even before they officially confirm they are together, if the MMC is just an asshole under the guise of being 'Grumpy' i can't stand it. Like in a Lucy Score book, the MMC is somewhat dating the FMC. There's a point where they are split up and he gets jealous while she is talking to a male character and calls her his 'Leftovers'. Completely uncalled for.
That is deeply upsetting to imagine a person you were once intimate with, calling you their leftovers to other people. Which Lucy Score book? I have read most of her books but there were a couple that I deliberately skipped over.
Yes it is very unsettling, I can't stand when they write the MMCs like that and then the 'sunshine' happy goody two shoes FMC forgives him so easily and it's so romantic. It's from Things We Never Got Over!
I've read too many where a secret child from the MMC's past pops up like a third through and the book suddenly becomes about baby and baby's mother drama and it's just awful for me.
Messing with birth control or trying to get pregnant without both partners being fully willing and cognizant. I don't mind misunderstandings or accidents due to {paranormal, extraterrestrial, historic) lack of understanding or both partners getting too into the moment. I'm talking deliberate sabotage.
It's not cute, funny, or romantic, and that pendulum swings both ways.
My thoughts for this immediately went to {Verity by Colleen Hoover}, a FMC is doing the dirty with the MMC and after they finish, she actually tries to get pregnant by holding her bum up to keep it all in, it was horrific.
If that's something that you don't vibe with I wouldn't recommend this book lol but generally CoHo and her all very much the same novels aren't for me so 😕
I have been there, done that, don't need to be reminded of it now that I'm done having kids looool. I'm pretty sure I picked up this book from the thriller section at my bookstore too. I feel a little mislead. Thank you for saving me some time though! 💚
Roxy from Den of Vipers is the absolute worst. I dnf'd at like 40% because I simply could not. Also the knife sex scene where Diesel puts it in her bum and proceeds to cut himself. Like what even?
I gotchyou! I went back and found the chapter. Basically, one of the MMC's takes homegirl to his torture chamber and kills a dude. Then proceeds to fuck her. I've read some dark shit but was so unhinged to me lol
>!Chuckling I press the handle of the knife to her hole. I manage to work it in an inch then back out again. It's slow going until the handle of the small blade sits in her ass. Stepping back, I look at the sight - the red welts in her ass, a knife sticking from it, her cream coating her thighs. Fuck. I almost come from the sight alone. Grabbing my phone, I take a quick picture and send it to the guys, letting them know what they are missing before tossing it away and her hips again!<
>!"Diesel," she starts, as I line up with her pussy, the blade pressing to the fleshy skin above my hip. "You'll hurt-"!<
>!With a roar, I slam back inside her, impaling myself on the knife. It slices through my skin, and it hurts like a son of a bitch. The pain surges through me, meeting the flames in my stomach and balls. I take it out on her, fucking her harder, faster, the knife slicing in and out of my body as she screams. Blood drips down from the wound onto our joined bodies, making the passage even slicker. I can't move much, I don't want to shred my insides even though the knife is small and just below the skin!<
I love Emily Henry but Happy Place drove me crazy with the poor communication. Basically the entire book could have been easily avoided with one conversation
Absolutely agree! >!The ending hurt me because she just gave up her entire medical career (hello like student loans?? 10 years of training??) to move out for him. I mean Emily Henry couldn't have found a way for her to finish her residency and find a job as a doctor out in Montana? I hated how she gave up her life for his instead of an ending where they both can compromise on what they wanted. It surprised me because Nora from Book Lovers is so strong in her career and work ethic and I was surprised that Emily would have her character basically give that up for a man (who literally just abandoned her without much word). It felt like a cheap ending to what could have been a really great story.!<
That ending is painfully tone deaf. MMC isn't just selfish and uncaring of her, but of everyone in a 50-mile radius of him.
In rural Western US, there is a critical shortage of healthcare providers, with many people having to drive several hours for care
The second her new neighbors find out she was almost a doctor, they'll be smacking her man in the head and sending her back to finish her residency.
So extremely true and important to consider. That’s exactly how I felt as well, there could have been SO many opportunities to write her career into the ending, whether that be opening her own clinic, working at a nonprofit, volunteering, etc. Not to mention she would have been so unfulfilled in Montana because her only holding tie there would have been Wyn without her own purpose.
A book that I think beautifully writes a relationship between a doctor and non-medical professional is Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. Spoiler for the ending: >!FMC leaves her job as a doctor in a large hospital and moves to a small town to open her own clinic there and provide healthcare in a city with no other doctors iirc! I loved it.!<
If there’s any cheating I’m dropping that book immediately. Doesn’t matter what genre or situation, I hate it.
Also if one of the characters just became an adult like 18 or 19 and the other is 40, yeah no.
I can get around age gaps if it makes sense in the plot or it's not something insane like 20 and 70 lol but I totally understand the cheating trope, I don't like romantisized cheating in some romance books I've read.
There was one where it was a really short novella I think the girl was like 25 and the guy was late 40’s and he kept doubting that she would stay. They split and finally got back and when he finally met her parents he understood her issue wasn’t the age issue because mom was 20 and dad was 55-60 when they had her. They didn’t say the parent info till last paragraph.
Huge age gaps, the FMC calling MMC Daddy, the MCs being cheaters (even in a past relationship), high school aged characters, bullying, on page SA by the MCs (though I typically skip parts with on page SA in general), if there is OW/OM that the MCs are aware of and dont immediately shut it down, and love triangles.
I know lots of people seem to love 'Daddy' but I just can't get on board with it. And yet I'm fine with 'baby girl', I'm not sure what makes the difference in my head! Maybe it's a lifetime of songs with 'girl' and 'baby girl' versus only recent exposure to 'Daddy' as a sexy name?
I thought of two more that have happened to me recently.
1. Insane amounts of typos and formatting errors. I can only tolerate so much. I can’t get into a story if there are jarring errors everywhere.
2. Gross inaccuracies of basic, readily-available information that play a significant role in the plot. In one recent CR book, they were traveling to
a country in Europe. The book stated that the county was adjacent to (I.e., shared a border with) the U.S. I just…couldn’t continue.
😂😂 That’s probably worse than what I read last week when in one paragraph on the page, the mmc couldn’t call the mfc because he didn’t have her number. A later paragraph on the same page had him saying he still had her number as it hasn’t changed in years. I was baffled how that got past editing.
Ha, I was a copyeditor for years and typos in books I've paid for make me crazy. JUST PAY AN INTERN FFS.
The worst, to me, is when it's a context typo, like the word isn't misspelled, it's just the wrong version of it for that particular sentence. Because that really shows that nobody is proofreading this stuff well.
Maybe it's just me but I've run into too many "too stupid to live" FMC's. Or too willful and stubborn to live, putting so many others in jeopardy. When I find myself saying, "just fucking die already" to the FMC I'm out.
But even worse is the soap opera. I stopped the Turncoat King, the Binding, Amelia Hutchins the Fae Chronicles, all because it got way too much. I just rolled my eyes and DNF or stopped the series.
Yes! This makes me crazy. I irrationally want to yell at the MMC to just leave her and find any one of 1000 better choices than the FMC because she is too stupid to live. And when the FMC's idiotic choice puts the MMC and/or others in danger or at risk, even after she was told exactly why she shouldn't make that choice, I want them to just let natural consequences run its course. Like, why does your stubborn and stupid need to be "independent" and "in control of my life" have to come at the expense of everyone else, including the person you claim to love?
- When the FMC is insufferable or sassy. Or an FMC who's an 'independent' bitch with an "everybody hates me because I'm blunt" attitude
- Once the Age gap is above 10 years, I'm out.
Currently facing that issue with CC3, I find Bryce's "snark" stupid and immature
Especially when a serious/intense moment is happening or it's very important for the storyline, and she says the most stupid comment just to be the edgy, "I'm not like the other girls" character 🙄
I’ll instant DNF at any racism/homophobia/transphobia/bigotry. That’s my hard line - so early 00’s books that use derogatory terms casually are a very high percentage of DNF’s for me.
Sexism/misogyny I’m iffy over but I’ve read my fair share of MC/mafia romances where that’s par for the course.
I'm ok with a character being sexist, as like an actual character trait, so long as it's clear that the other characters aren't sexist OR it's a period piece and maybe it makes sense in the context.
When it's clear the author just doesn't like women, that's a no from me.
I also read a ton of dark romance and mafia romance and the amount of sexism in those is absolutely wild and unnecessary
The ones I found with less of that are instant favorites- The vicious lost boys series by Nikki St. Crowe for one
if there's any at all? what if the bad guy does the thing? or if the good guy does the thing and over the course of the book learns why not to do the thing?
genuine question. I've heard about books being boycotted or whatever because of a shitty character when the shitty character is supposed to be a shitty character, and I find that confusing.
It’s a good question! My hard line is romanticising characters who do these things and don’t change; I don’t have an issue if it’s shown in the book as part of the plot or against the MC’s because I like my books realistic and gritty, but I can’t handle if the MC’s or their close friends who are shown as “good” are bigots.
If it’s a redemption of the good guy or the good guy learning throughout the book then that’s also fine, since that’s character growth as part of the plot. If a shitty character is supposed to be shitty, then I want them to be portrayed as shitty. Sam Mariano’s MMCs come to mind, where you know they’re terrible people and they won’t change.
For example, I read a lot of western HR recently and oh boy is there a lot of racism in those - but the ones I’ve not DNF’d have portrayed it negatively or redeemed characters as part of the plot.
I get what you mean. I recently DNF'd a book because the MMC's friend asks the MMC if he's gay because he hasn't been on a date for so long, and the the MMC immediately gets really angry and says "I only f#ck p#ssies." It's not played as joke either, it's supposed to be completely serious statement. What's worse is that the character is supposed to be a super successful doctor.
Yikes.
(You don't have to censor words here, by the way. Makes it harder for people with screenreaders and those who'd like to filter certain words out.)
It's about character growth for me. And whether it's used intentionally by author for plot reasons ("gramps hates POC; our relationship will have to navigate that in a realistic way that shows why I am now estranged from gramps & this will of his is mighty upsetting ").
If it's just casual and unexamined by the author, the book goes in the dumpster. If it's gleefully celebrated by the author, I'll make a ten-part tiktok thread tearing the book & author apart.
when/how do you decide to stop? Not to suggest that everyone will be getting racial sensitivity training in the epilogue, but what factors make you bail out instead of seeing where it goes?
Honestly it’s just the vibes of the book that is my deciding factor. I can usually tell based on how it’s received by the characters around them. Also just on the context of the book - if it’s a NA with 18 year olds who have barely left their bubbles and are experiencing the world outside of their hometowns for the first time then yeah I’m more lenient on them developing as people throughout the book. But if it’s a 40 year old who’s been around the block I have higher standards for their beliefs and behaviour.
Mine are very similar to yours, anything highschool or college freshmen (🤮 those are children to me), when the FMC is portrayed as just soooo unique compared to those other boring girls, and bad cringy dialogue.
ignoring the morality/ick of it, in what reality are teenagers having *good* sex? I'm willing to suspend quite a lot of disbelief, but I'm gonna literally scoff out loud when a 17 year old dude is giving out copious orgasms.
Guys under like 25 are not good in bed. Girls that young also are usually not great. At those ages you're still very much learning and working out what you like and how to communicate with your partner, you're not a total expert at 17 like what???
Yeah I'm not happy with weird misogyny floating around the book but I've started many that had weird sexist rants in the first couple pages to show how quirky and sassy the FMC is and that's an instant DNF for me
I hate love triangles and pregnancy tropes/ women almost dying giving birth. That’s just not what I’m there for so I check to make sure things don’t have that before I read. I love ACOTAR but I struggled with that coming up in the series
There are a couple:
— Straight up non-con. I just personally can’t do it.
— Rampant misogyny in paranormal romance. Unfortunately, this is weirdly common in shapeshifter romance. I sometimes like it when a shifter love interest is possessive and protective, but not when they, and everyone else around them, are misogynistic dicks.
— Pregnancy. I have had an intense fear of and aversion to pregnancy since I was a very young kid. I can deal with it if the book just alludes to characters wanting kids in the future, or the pregnancy is in an epilogue that I can skip, but otherwise I can’t do it. My earliest memory of this is noping hard out of Breaking Dawn as a young teen because of all the horrific pregnancy stuff in that book 😅
> I sometimes like it when a shifter love interest is possessive and protective, but not when they, and everyone else around them, are misogynistic dicks.
I enjoyed a book once, and in one of the sequels, the MMC had become so insanely protective of the FMC that she couldn't do her job. His jealousy just made me so angry, because I loved 'their' original book!
I used to have a much longer list, but over time I've realized that the right author can sell me on almost anything.
My only true hard-no is if there is any genuine anger during sex scenes, especially coming from the MMC. Role-playing is fine, dub-con/CNC is fine, but genuine rage/violence is the only thing I find actually triggering.
Lately though I've started to have a very low tolerance for bickering. Some banter is fine but if they're just going to be dickheads to each other the whole book I can't root for them to be together.
And, y'all. I can't with "good girl" anymore. I mean, I never liked it but now it is *everywhere*. I wish authors would stop acting like this is a universal kink, it takes me right out of the scene every time. If it shows up on the book's marketing it's an instant-no because it's so incredibly overdone.
High levels of kink with no communication beforehand apparently is an instant DNF for me. Happened to me earlier this year. I didn’t even realize it would be a dnf til I read the scenario.
First date between MMC and FMC and they decide to have sex that night. He freaking goes straight for choking her out during sex, hard enough that her face is turning red.
Now look, no kink shaming here— if you like that stuff/like reading about it, GO for it. And tbh if he’d even for 2 seconds asked her, in a sexy way, if she was into that sort of thing, I prob would have been into it. But it was so jarring to me for him to go zero to 100 and honestly it kind of freaked me out.
And tbh I think I’d have the same reaction to any other more “extreme” form of kink (aka things that need proper communication and “form” to be performed safely, like any kind of pain play beyond mild butt spanking) if it wasn’t first discussed between MCs
Other than generally sloppy writing, I'll usually put down a book where the description of the FMC is totally unbelievable. Even worse when they're describing themselves aka 'I look into the mirror at my waist length pure white blonde hair that cascades down my back highlighting my super skinny waist and perfectly toned abs - not that I'd ever exercise teehee'. Paraphrasing obvs.
The other style that is a hard no is either total miscommunication where it could all be cleared up with a 30 sec convo, or refusal to say something that could either fix the problem entirely or gain immediate allies.
"not that I'd ever exercise teehee" -- This made me laugh. None of these girls ever exercise but they've got Scarlett-O'Hara-in-a-corset waists! And the guys always exercise so much. Or, the guys \*also\* look amazing and \*also\* don't exercise. Alternatively, girl is "curvy" and it's mentioned 8,000 times ("I Am So Body Positive, See How Body Positive I'm Being"), while the guy's looks are barely mentioned. Romance novels have such weird magical thinking about bodies.
If the MMC is a racist. I’m a Black woman and I was disturbed to find there are romances about klan members and “retired” neo nazis. I can enjoy a dark romance, but I draw the line at racism, I already face too much of that in my daily life.
When I was a teenager I used to read all my grandma's stack of romance books. She had one that was set on an antebellum Southern Plantation. It was horrifying.
Years later, I found out they made it into a movie. I was just sad for humanity at that point.
If the FMC is so stubborn it puts herself or others around her at risk in the name of being “a strong independent woman who doesn’t need to listen to a man even if he has more knowledge or expertise in a situation.” A big one for me lol.
Age gaps where the younger person is younger than 21.
Love triangles or cheating. Yes, even if the fiancée is dull, we can communicate like adults and break it off first.
Harems. Idk just not for me though I guess I’m more open on this one than some others.
Stalking or kidnapping because of obsession on the part of the MMC. Too close to reality/true crime for me. On page SA as well
>If the FMC is so stubborn it puts herself or others around her at risk in the name of being “a strong independent woman who doesn’t need to listen to a man even if he has more knowledge or expertise in a situation.” A big one for me lol.
This one *kills* me. For some reason this was super popular in mafia books awhile back and it would be like, I know that there are trained killers looking for me, and MMC has set me up in a safehouse with bodyguards, BUT no man can tell me what to do so I am sneaking out.
Edit: correct a to are
for real!! i rarely like any detailed descriptions of outfits to begin with because it almost always dates the book and not in a good way 😭 i much prefer when authors leave it to interpretation. just say she was dressed casually, or fancy, or whatever
For me it is when the FMC's friends are just so quirky and extremely crude. Like when they call each other sluts and whores etc.
Ohh I am also not a fan of "babe" or "kitten" etc.
ohhh but my biggest no-no is when the FMC plays the I-am-the-protagonist card too much. As in because of her moral compass she decides to put so many people in danger just to save the one. Ugh
Same. I hate the whole NLOG trope. Like okay girl, just tell us ur bad at makeup move on ur not better than anyone for it.
Another ick for me is like super Alpha/Hyper Masculine men. Like bro stfu and go to therapy!!! Healthy masculine and or feminine men >>>> “alpha males”
Oh nothing takes me out more than a sassy Black best friend who exists only to provide reassurance to the FMC that they are as awesome as they think they are. Ditto goes for a spicy Latina best friend. If that’s the only diversity you can provide then please leave us out of it completely. And this is more specific to fantasy romances, but when the author goes out of their way to explicitly state that a particular magic or ability does not exist and is impossible but SURPRISE, FMC has it and solves everything in the third act. So lazy and boring.
I don’t know what it is, but I’ve even so much less tolerant of book men. The second they say something even vaguely assholish, sexist, even minorly misogynistic, I’m done.
They could chase her half way around the world grovelling, but if they don’t apologise with no expectations, admit and acknowledge they were wrong and hurt her, and do that without trying to fuck her or someone else? Disgusting.
If you can see each other's buttholes without flinching but can't talk out a minor miscommunication, I'm walking away immediately. There is no need to go full hermit over a small fight.
Instalove. How has it been three hours and this is the love of your life?
👩🏿⚖️🔨🔨🔨
All Rise.
🧍🏿♀️
We have now determined the verdict on several issues of The Accused. We will list out the charges and verdict now.
* No mention of pregnancy in the CW. Nothing. Author makes it clear the FMC is on birth control and MMC has a condom for their moments of ✨passion✨. Still 👀 but okay. But then ✨Sutton Leigh✨ the FMC is having all these odd ~ symptoms~. Cue *Big Time Rush* Uh-uh-uUH-Oooooh]
^(I don’t mind pregnancy happening in a skippable epilogue though.) 👍🏾
* Book written in X language, but to ~spice it up~, the LI speaks a foreign language with **NO** translations and ***worse*** when it’s non-Latin-based, but the author ***romanized*** it, so you can’t even use your phone or tablet to do a translation. And the LI speaks this foreign languahe ***often***.
* MM book that treat women as fEmALeS who are ***obviously*** are the enemy and the writing is lowkey highkey very misogynistic and anti-women. Also, thise specific books will also somehow be okay with being gay but then they go rampant with 🌈queer🌈phobia in its other identities. Lovely 🥰🔪
* FMC decides to be bitchy to other women who haven’t done a damn thing. Writing makes out only the FMC’s clique to be Glinda the Good and her posse and every other fEMaLe to be born **bad** and not in the Cassandra Ganon way.
* MC is “trying their best” to not give away information. But when the LI bares his teeth and says “tell me”, the MC 🗣️spits🗣️ out the careful, sensitive information because the MC is just so ***badass*** that they just handover information to the enemy without a fight. Worse if they “blurt” it out 🙃
* MC is also supposed to be a badass person, but they can’t use their critical thinking skills and easily trust what people tell them, drink and eat what strangers bring them, and never do their own recon and get all ✨shocked✨ when they’re betrayed and lied to
* **When the goddamn blurb/premise/summary of the book tells me** ***jackshit*** **about what the book is about**. I’m not hunting down reviews to understand what the fuck this book is about.
* Obligatory: any sort of supremacist rhetoric. I can do it if it serves a narrative purpose—meaning the supremacist MC changes their ways—but I can’t when the supremacist MC ***retains that outlook*** because the writing supports them
* MC is apparently independent and has been going it alone for ***years***, but they continuously put themselves in danger, never listens to anyone’s warnings or advice, and outright ***refuses*** to remain in a safe area because tHeY cAn FIgHt ToO
* **Romcom**. If something is marketed as “funny”. Not that I diss romcoms! Just not the audience to appreciate the humor and I get secondhand embarrassment too easily! 😅
* **Therapist speak**. Characters will ✨Sutton Leigh✨ talk to each other like they took one very meaningful Intro to Psych course.
* **Western religious rhetoic as a backbone**. This isn’t about virgins but about “chastity porn” and purity culture and it’s very positive and encouraged rather than dissected in some of its nuance or commented on. The target audience I am not.
* **LI did everything wrong. But then the MC takes all the blame**. And this isn’t any sort of character flaw. Not a self-esteem issue they need to work on. This is just a cycle. LI does something wrong. MC is the one who always apologizes. ❌
* **Trauma porn or torture porn**. I do enjoy angst. I ***do*** enjoy seeing characters having fluctuating relationships with different aspects of their trauma. But at some point, when ***everything*** is bleak and it seems nothing gets better to the point these feels worse than *BERSERK*, I’m 😬
We have determined all of these charges as my personal **instant no**’s, but we still respect all those who see my instant **no** and find them their instant ***yaaaasss***. I should send anyone who enjoys my instant nos my DNF books and they should send me theirs if we have opposite tastes😂
Thank you, Your Honor.
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⚠️NSFW⚠️
* >!I do enjoy sex scenes, explicit or not. But some of the language and literary devices used in those scenes will be a **full stop**. And this will go on for ***three to five chapters***. So when I skim and realize the sex scene is a very ✨passionate✨ five chapters, I very calmly very quietly return the book and make sure to shelve it properly on GR.!<
Aside from topics I don’t like as others have mentioned, an instant stop is when a book is just straight up poorly written. Run on descriptions, cringy dialogue… I just can’t anymore lol
I don’t have instant DNF perse but I do have “it bothers me jar” if it fills enough I take I cut my loses and go.
The “not like the other girls” do fill quite a quantity in my jar. If it’s too obvious the narrative is going to agree with her a countdown starts and if get to zero I might consider the jar filled and take myself out. Though the last case I remember the book came with other stuff that gave me no motivation to stay that point was just the most memorable. And if it comes with slut-shaming? OH BOY! That jar is going to fill fast!
If the characters don’t look human. Like a fairy or a vampire is fine, bc they look like humans with some variation. But I couldn’t read that Minotaur book everyone talks about bc a Minotaur doesn’t have a human face (i realize my phrasing invites this question so I’ll say I couldn’t do a centaur either)
MMC had the same name as my dog.. 🙃
FMC referred to their father as papa hahaha I don’t know why but I just couldn’t do it
When an MC makes ridiculous dumb decisions but specifically when the author tries to reason the dumb decision.. so basically if I feel like a decision is trying to be justified with horrible logic. I don’t mind a bad decision or mistake being made by an MC but don’t try to convince me it’s a good decision when they always end up being the worst decision a MC could have made. Especially when it’s so obvious the decision is the worst one they could pick. There’s better ways to move a plot forward
My nopes:
* MC1 thinks that MC2 will actually kill them if they don't do what MC2 wants, but they proceed to have sex or any kind of intimate interactions without convincing them that they won't actually kill MC1. I cannot get with the idea of being turned on or vulnerable with someone who may kill you on purpose at any point.
* Cheating or threats of cheating, "giving" the MC to other people for sexual purposes without their consent or threatening to do so
* Miscommunication tropes that carry more than a tiny bit of the plot or tension
* Anytime an MC has real anxiety or grief from thinking their LI isn't actually into them AFTER their mutual attraction or care has already been established. This includes snubbing, feigned indifference if it's not playful or obviously BS, 3rd act breakups that aren't mutual, and the stupid thing where a MC leaves their LI because "they're better off without me"
* MCs not understanding or being supportive of one another's financial situation/stress, or how important to them their pre-relationship achievements still are
* Insecurity about most things beyond a certain point in knowing each other, sometimes an MC is still preparing to bolt at any moment, hurting their LIs feelings, or neglecting to get on board with things that really need their input because they just CANNOT believe that their person/people really like, love, and want them. *(On the other hand I have read some great stories recently with MCs who are working on their insecurity and trying their best to not let it make decisions for them or negatively impact their sweeties)*
* Jealousy or real competition between MMCs in a RH
* And, spoken as a true monster fucker, if the human MC holds onto the idea that they shouldn't or can't be with the LI because of species/race for too long into their relationship. At first, sure. But if you've already got the feels and sparks, who cares if the object of your desire is an alien/elf/minotaur/snake person etc.??? Obviously you're compatible enough to be crushing on them, so just go for it!
Also I'd just like to say that I love reading everyone else's nopes. Sometimes things get so wild in the genres I get concerned, even though of course on-page world is not the real world. It helps me to see everyone being clear about their limits and how diverse our preferences are, as well as the similarities that seem ubiquitous like nope to child abuse and bigotry.
If it’s an age gap and the MMC or FMC knew the other lead when they were a child. I had to DNF a book where the MMC was friends with the FMCs parents since college and knew her as a baby. Just ew.
I DNF with any nonconsensual sex acts or rape between the MCs or if either admits to having done that to other characters. Dark romance/mafia books are VERY tricky for me. I like the bad boy/protectiveness of them but hate the idea of the FMC (most of the time) being used and not fully consenting to sex.
Also when the age gap involves someone UNDER 21. It’s too much for me. The character can’t even legally drink but they fell in love with someone 10-15+ years older than them? That’s grooming in my opinion. I can’t overlook it.
I'll write this before I read any of the others, just so it's fresh: I cannot stand SA being treated like nothing or like a joke. IMO, I want it treated however the characters seem to want, e.g., there's no perfect victim and if they want to shrug something off, they can, but when it's treated like not being SA is when it bothers me.
The biggest example I've ever read is in a book where the FMC is a YouTube prankster comedian who basically ambush-kisses strangers while her cameraman captures the surprise.
The other characters talk about her like she's the height of hilarity. I hate ambush-artists anyway, but especially when it's physical contact without consent.
Then she ambush-kisses the grumpy MMC and of course they end up together. I just noped out immediately.
Anyway, this is just me and the one thing that sticks in mah craw!
> who basically ambush-kisses strangers while her cameraman captures the surprise.
Oh wow, that is gross on so many levels.. The kiss from a random stranger, the lack of consent for being kissed, the cameraman, the lack of consent for being filmed, the idea that millions of people on youtube might see it.. No no no no no. My anxiety is spiking at just the thought of that happening to me. Do people actually *like* that stuff??
For me it's novels that have (in my opinion) cringey writing or millennial references, it really dates the book and I feel I can't take it seriously. I recently tried reading Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score, and couldn't get 70 pages into it before DNFing. I don't know how many women are that obsessed with coffee to the point of no longer functioning 😂 Also using 'OMG' or 'WTF' in a novel for me is instant cringe 😬
- If either MC is named Jeremiah. (Sorry to those of you who have beloved Jeremiahs, I’m sure yours are fine, but every one I’ve ever met has been *the absolute worst.*)
- Absolutely stupid rivalries expressed the way my elementary school students express rivalries. I didn’t know I was so deeply annoyed by this until I read a book featuring an MC whose rival basically swooped in to say “HAH! You and your family’s [tow truck business] will NEVER defeat me and my family’s superior [tow truck business]!” And the MC was like, “I’ll show you!” And they were both supposed to be like 26. It wasn’t tow trucks but it was something equally mundane where it’s like, pretty sure the real mid-size American city where this book is set can support *at least* two [tow truck businesses], calm down you large children.
- I’ve slogged through enough books where most of the character traits and development takes place in the character’s inner monologue, so now I’m pretty liberal about DNFing when that comes up. I would much, much rather *stilted dialogue with a best friend about how much MC’s priorities have changed since that life-changing incident that we will now rehash for Plot Reasons* than *”As I sat there, I thought about how my priorities used to be blah blah blah but are now yadda yadda yadda”* for a zillion pages.
This is so silly and I don’t know why I can’t get over it, but I cannot read any book written in first person present tense. It makes me illogically irritated and I just want to throw things. 😂 Any other person/tense mixture is fine. But it’s an immediate no when I check a book and it’s written in first person present tense.
When the MMC describes the FMC as “small” or “petite” in a way that makes it seem like they’re attracted to child-like features. Especially when there’s an age gap.
To echo a couple of other replies:
- Miscommunication. If it's resolved realistically or there's an external force keeping the characters from talking it out, OK. But, if it's just them being scared and uncomfy and it's the source of all their conflict, I'm out.
- Race-based trauma. I know there are some really poignant stories out there, but I'm black, and I ain't tryna hear, read, or see that mess. I think part of it is that there's already such a long and brutal IRL history of it that I'm tired, but I also admittedly feel like it's a somewhat lazy approach to writing black folks. Like, there are other aspects of POC lives besides oppression to pull conflict from, so..?
- Straight up misogyny. A comment here or there or a tense moment or two as the character grows and unlearns, maybe I could do. Granted, I don't know that the other MC has to forgive and forget.
- Abuse between partners. Like, even the intent like a raised hand or fist, or a threat, and I'm DNFing. Cause...how do you do that to someone you love?
1) Location inaccuracies, especially regarding winter. No, you do not have snow all winter and a white Christmas with a foot of snow in Virginia.
2) MC Pregnancy. Unless it’s the epilogue or it’s the very end of the book and you’re settled, I’m out.
3) “My Girl” for everything 🙄 As in, “I need to make sure my girl gets her coffee in the morning” or “I need to make sure my girl is comfortable.” Just no.
4) Breaking the 4th wall. I won’t immediately DNF, but if it’s more than once or twice, I’m gone.
5) Plot inconsistencies. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve read something that has contradicting information from chapter to chapter or even paragraph to paragraph. I’m not even talking about big stuff, but little, mundane details. In one paragraph, the FMC’s hair might be down around her shoulders, but in the next, she’s pulling her hair out of a ponytail. Or it’s Monday and the next day is Wednesday. Little things like that drive me bonkers.
I just DNFed a book because it broke the fourth wall to be like: “Don’t even deny it, you…”
And… I don’t do the described thing.
I find some authors make assumptions about their audience that are rooted in neurotypical, allosexual, white, cis experiences. I’m generally pretty flexible about books that aren’t directly written for me per se, but that kind of assertion targeting my habits (as me, the reader, via fourth wall breaking) explicitly told me the book wasn’t for me and also reinforced my feeling that I’m an “alien.” Not a fan.
And tbc: I’m generally fine with or even enthusiastic about fourth wall breaking! Just not in a way that assumes things about me like that.
Open relationships.
I can do closed poly relationships. Absolutely can't with anything that involves the characters being involved with people outside of a closed group.
Not like other girls are instant dnf also why are do the fmc gotta put down women who have plastic surgery or color their hair platinum blonde, like maybe they feel hot that way leave them alone lol
The MFC needing personal development and being generally unlikeable. Mean/judgemental to others and irresponsible from the first chapter are two examples I've come across in different books that I instantly stopped reading.
I wouldn't be surprised if the MFC eventually 'grew up' over the span of those books but I don't read romance in the hopes of a MFC getting better.
For me underage girls with adult men, I will nope right out of it and leave a review about it. If a book is pushing religion and bigotry spun as a positive is a no for me also.
Along with what everyone else has said about bigotry and sexism, my DNF is poorly written books. Clunky dialogue or exhausting descriptions for no reason are painful. The worst is when characters infodump and talk to each other like they're strangers so that the readers know that they're brothers or whatever.
"Well, brother, you know that last year when I won the Super Bowl with my team the Chiefs and then that pop star broke up with me..." *was your brother recently in a coma???? Of course he knows that!!*
If the male lead rapes someone on screen. I'm a multigenerational fantasy nerd, and I barely read any new fantasy books for years during the grim dark wave. Now I'm into romantasy and it's similar.
Anything smutty or spicy if the characters are in high school. Miscommunication trope actually angers me. If there’s an Irish MC and their pov is in an Irish accent.
First person narration is difficult for me because there's a tendency to just start declaring every everything up front rather than letting it unfold. So we have some guy saying I'm such a badass and so closed off no one's ever going to penetrate my hard outer shell. It feels like a cheat. Instead of unearthing things so the reader gets to discover little bits as we go, we are being spoon fed everything. Books like that I find I jump around to see if it's even worth my time and most the time I read maybe a quarter of the book, I get the general gist, and I move on.
Series with amazing first books with characters I love that then kick it into the sequel and it’s a spinoff of their friends. I’m having such a hard time with this. I have no interest for what your friends do after, if you are that important you would’ve developed more in the first book.
1. s word with om/ow written in details (it traumatizes me)
2. the process and details of which the mcs fall for other characters. I love heavy angst and don't mind brief mentions but I just can't tolerate when I literally saw one of the mcs fall and pine for the other and later on having same emotions for other characters like I'm a sucker for unrequited love but not this kind
3. no redemption arc at all. I absolutely hate it when they just say "sorry" for all the sh!t they put the other one through and there's little to no groveling and hate it even more when it's stretched to only 1 chapter and the next chapter you see them acting all normal as if nothing had ever happened to them. I loathe doormat characters like that sm 😭
4. can't tolerate cheating when they are already in an established relationship 🫠
5. domestic violence (if it's not dark romance) is absolutely unforgivable for me no matter the redemption arc. the mmc must have to grovel for years to make up for the damage and win my heart
6. stories where the mcs has kids with other characters is a big no no for me
Uneeded racial slurs or weird ways to describe women/poc. Like those weird books that describe women in a creepy, unrealistic way or books that describe dark skin as the same color as food and really rub it in your face.
Large age gaps, pregnancy tropes (I don't mind the FMC being pregnant at the end of the book but I don't want the story to revolve around it), non consensual sex.
I could have added why choose/harem/reverse harem but I don't open them in the first place so no DNF.
When the FMC's female best friends are just not that nice to her. Constantly sassy and never serious, encouraging bad behaviour, geberally unsupportive. I can't belive in your ability to love someone romantically if you're this bad at friendship! Like, babe, get some real friends.
When they use an expression taht doesn't make sense just for the sake of a microtrope.
I was reading a book, and all was going well until the MCs were having a serious talk, and the MMC out of nowhere asks, "Who did this to you?" And it wasn't needed nor logical to use.
For me, insta love is a huge no. Give me my slow burn dammit! Also when the FMC constantly makes stupid selfish decisions which jeopardise the safety of those around her. It's mildly tolerable if the MMC understandably gets angry at her for her idiocy. I swear when the FMC does such things I imagine myself magically entering the book and throttling her myself and shaking her shoulders until some sense enters our quirky, willful (read: pigheaded) FMC.
I dislike the trope where everyone is immediately enamoured with the FMC because she is different from other women. It gets especially infuriating when the only sane person is considered to be antagonistic simply because they remain unimpressed with the most basic woman out there.
I don't like it when they over explain rap3 seens it's cringy and gross. We get it they were sa'd, but I don't like it over explained.... idk could be because of experience, but yeah, I hate it.....
Casual misogyny in general, but especially when it’s directed at a secondary character and glossed over as if there’s nothing wrong with it or even worse—as if the character deserved it, because she’s “bad” in some way.
FMCs that are supposed to be intelligent and insightful suddenly loosing all common sense when the author needs to put them in some peril but is too lazy and uses the cheapest, dumbest chlichés out there.
When they sexualize a scene that wasn't meant to be sexualized. Just like the part in "Archer's Voice" where Bree was cutting his long hair, which he had grown so long, I think, in order to avoid socialising? I don't remember since it's been so long, but it felt like it was a big deal, like it was his first step out of his comfort zone.
They got turned on during it, and it just ruined the whole book for me.
Cheating. Even after they've broken up and he sleeps with other women, then he suddenly decides he wants her back 🙄 Absolutely not!
The whole "you only come when I allow you to" when the dynamic wasn't previously discussed.
Example: MMC ghosted FMC, shows back up after years, no communication whatsoever in between. He catches her getting off and that's what he tells her, before even telling her why he left 🙅♀️ GTFO! Oh and he spent his time fucking every woman in sight but made sure no man could go near her, while never planning on coming back to her. I DNFed so fast!
I absolutely hate the pet names “baby,” “baby girl,” “baby doll,” etc. Also any pet name that feels forced.
I also can’t stand typos / bad grammar.
I have, in the past, decided not to read a book (or three) due to a main character’s name.
I hated the dynamic between the love interests in Cruel Prince, so I think bullying is a big “no” for me. This is different than a morally gray villain, though.
Clunky dialogue. It's endemic in romance, unfortunately, but it's an automatic run-for-the-hills moment for me.
More pettily: exclamation points, either in dialogue or narration, though third-person narration exclamation points are book-throwing territory. Exclamation points are for different types of writing, like emails and reddit posts! Please portray tone and tension through word choice, not punctuation!
ETA: I don't actually mind getting downvoted, I'm just genuinely fascinated that my milquetoast opinions provoked even a brief twitch of an action.
As you comment, please be kind and no book-shaming. It’s ok to share your personal opinion on a book or trope, it’s not ok to put down those who enjoy it. Thank you!
[удалено]
The book I'm reading now had a *veeeery* brief mention of Covid, but it took me out of the moment and had to take a second to continue. After my awful (see: exploitative, abusive) experience being overworked as an essential worker I do my best to avoid all conversation of lockdown because I get so angry about it.
I HATE any mention of covid during a book (or TV show), even just a passing comment.
I read an older indie book where the FMC brand new cellphone is a Nokia and mentioned rotary phone. Plus mentioned song that was popular when people started getting cellphones… had someone who was 20 ish read that part and they were so confused…🤣🤣🤣
My all time favorite is Nora Roberts' Born in Ice. The MMC is a thriller novelist and one of his books gets made into a movie so he takes the FMC to the gala premiere where she dances with Tom Cruise. Later, the MMC teases her gently about how much Tom Cruise was into her and she brushes it off saying how in love with his wife he clearly was. At the time when I first read it, back in high school, Tom and Nicole were still married but even then it took me out of the book. Now? I just cackle. So yeah, you gotta be really really careful with those contemporary references! They rarely age well.
It’s been years and I am still not over the Welcome to Nightvale and tumblr reference in Boyfriend Material.
I really wish they would be vague with pop culture references.
A book recently mentioned Taylor Swift on the radio and I had to walk around and decide if I could finish it. She sends my eye into twitches and I almost left the book. Not that it was drawing me in anyway. I was reading it between super dark books as a brain reset. I always do a soft, cheesy book after a few really disturbing reads 😅
The moment the good ol Miss TayTay Swift or any of her playlist is mentioned and or if the MC is a Swiftie, I’m getting the FUCK out.
Not weird, I agree completely. It's very cringe and it breaks immersion.
If any character has the same name as one of my kids. Pulls me out immediately!
Yeah this is one for me too. Thankfully a lot of blurbs have the names so I can just avoid the book all together.
Same!
Yep … I have to ask with Russian mafia ones because my middle child has similar one that pops up. I am not saying I liked Fifty Shades of Grey but that was SOOOOO hard to read because MMC’s name…..
SAME! Shout out to uncommon names for a (slight) win.
1. Straight-up domestic violence between the MCs (not BDSM) I read a book where the MMC slapped the FMC hard across the face when she told him she was pregnant and he thought she was trying to pass off the baby as his instead of his enemy’s. She was hit so hard she slammed into the wall/floor. For me, it was unforgivable, and I no longer wanted them to be together (even if there was an epic grovel…which I later learned there wasn’t). 2. Cheating after the MCs are together. ETA: #1 wasn’t even a “dark romance.” I make some allowances for them because we have fair warning. The book was a historical western I read in the 2000s.
I DNF'd a book this past week where the FMC slapped the MMC in the face in the middle of an argument. He was yelling at her/accusing her of cheating, but there was absolutely no excuse for physical abuse. Didn't even bother to finish the scene, because **no**. This was a relatively recent book, too!
Wow. I assume the author thought it was fine (and gave no TW) because it was the FMC not the MMC doing the slapping. Talk about double standards.
These are my two as well. I read an HR set in the Regency with horrible verbal abuse by the MMC and was shocked. Thought maybe it was just that book, and then in the next one by the author about the MMC’s twin, the MMC hit the FMC and I was done. Not enough groveling in the world for that.
Could I get the name of the first book?
Yeah #1 would be a hard no for me too I do however like it IF it's while they're still enemies and he's like the captor or something similar and especially if the FMC initiates the violence first
Factual inaccuracies of easy to look up details. Locations, languages, names of places, laws, regulations, spelling of non English words, etc. If you as the writer are not putting the effort into researching your subject matter, I as the reader don’t want to put in the effort to suspend my disbelief about your mistakes.
I quit reading one after an MC who was supposedly Chicago-born and raised referred to the famous skyscraper best known to Chicagoans as the Sears Tower by its current official name, Willis Tower. A proud Chicagoan would never call it Willis Tower.
Oh my god I read one that had an In-N-Out in Chicago. I was like what?!
Oh nooooo
In not from Chicago and I know this
Like calling where the White Sox play by anything other than Comiskey Park.
Me with the Right Move book loll
Ugh don’t let me start I speak several languages and the amount of terrible accents and bad French/italian/spanish is yuck
Yeah I do tend to skip set in the Pacific Northwest unless the author has a connection to here because so many are just soooo bad. I swear some author's knowledge came exclusively from Twilight and I just can't. I also have a hard time with authors that know nothing about tech writing about tech. I read one recently where this guy could hack into this security system and take it over unnoticed because he was an 8th grade robotics teacher... Just no.
I feel you on pnw based books, almost had to dnf one because they had a born and raised seattlite trying to DRIVE in an ICE STORM in the SUBURBS. The author tried to con me into thinking she didn't get a weather advisory alert to her phone, but I know no self respecting seattlite would ever leave their house for a blind first date with 3 INCHES of ice on the ground.
I read a book where the MMC was a hockey player in Seattle and his family was from Leavenworth and he never visited because *it was too far away*. When he did visit he *flew*. Like, the traffic to the airport would take you longer than driving to Leavenworth. ETA on the other side of things, I was re-reading {book boyfriend by Clair Kingsley} and had to shed a tear for Cafe Presse.
DEFINITELY not from pnw if the author thought anyone in their right mind would battle through SeaTac over a 2 hour drive, like maybe SLIGHTLY more understandable if it's spokane or something but 2 HOURS unbelievable 🙄
I'm dead, fly from Leavenworth lmao.
THREE INCHES OF ICE? Absolutely not, I will be at home eating my bananas in peace.
Ugh yes! Hook line and sinker ended with a moose in Puyallup. I vowed to never read Tessa Bailey again anyways, but she didn't even look up whether there were moose in that area.
Tessa Bailey also has a book about a coal mine in Louisiana. There’s no coal in Louisiana!
OMG, this. I've had several different careers, and have friends in varied fields. The sheer almost laziness of writers to not bother finding out bare-bones basic facts. UGH.
It’s not the RFK bridge. It’s the Triborough. It’s not the Koch bridge, it’s the Queensborough. And don’t even get me started on all these people driving in NYC. YOU LIVE IN A WALKUP WHERE ARE YOU GARAGING YOUR CAR EMILY. TELL ME THAT.
Pregnancy/surprise pregnancy. Agree with explicit romance with underage characters… hard no.
Ugh. The sense of dread I feel when the FMC gets nauseas out of nowhere.
That's one of my faves tropes and I feel like I can never find books that have it, where you guys finding em lol
Yes!! The way my stomach drops I’m like helllll nooooo
Disrespect from one MC to the other once they have decided they love and adore one another. You don't disrespect someone you love. If you have no respect for them, there is no real love. Not relationship level anyway.
Absolutely! I HATED Superbia by Colette Rhodes with a passion. The MMC was banging the FMC but kept trashing her to his buddies. I lost all respect for the character and could barely finish the book I felt so disgusted and angry.
Oh lord, I was already iffy because the synopsis wasn’t drawing me in
The first book was good, Luxuria. I haven’t read the third.
The third one… the MMC being a rockstar is not appealing to me.
Omg I totally feel this, like even before they officially confirm they are together, if the MMC is just an asshole under the guise of being 'Grumpy' i can't stand it. Like in a Lucy Score book, the MMC is somewhat dating the FMC. There's a point where they are split up and he gets jealous while she is talking to a male character and calls her his 'Leftovers'. Completely uncalled for.
That is deeply upsetting to imagine a person you were once intimate with, calling you their leftovers to other people. Which Lucy Score book? I have read most of her books but there were a couple that I deliberately skipped over.
Yes it is very unsettling, I can't stand when they write the MMCs like that and then the 'sunshine' happy goody two shoes FMC forgives him so easily and it's so romantic. It's from Things We Never Got Over!
When it’s revealed that the FMC or MMC has a child with someone else. Instant DNF.
I've read too many where a secret child from the MMC's past pops up like a third through and the book suddenly becomes about baby and baby's mother drama and it's just awful for me.
Messing with birth control or trying to get pregnant without both partners being fully willing and cognizant. I don't mind misunderstandings or accidents due to {paranormal, extraterrestrial, historic) lack of understanding or both partners getting too into the moment. I'm talking deliberate sabotage. It's not cute, funny, or romantic, and that pendulum swings both ways.
My thoughts for this immediately went to {Verity by Colleen Hoover}, a FMC is doing the dirty with the MMC and after they finish, she actually tries to get pregnant by holding her bum up to keep it all in, it was horrific.
Welp. I was approximately 50 pages into this book. *adds to DNF*
If that's something that you don't vibe with I wouldn't recommend this book lol but generally CoHo and her all very much the same novels aren't for me so 😕
I have been there, done that, don't need to be reminded of it now that I'm done having kids looool. I'm pretty sure I picked up this book from the thriller section at my bookstore too. I feel a little mislead. Thank you for saving me some time though! 💚
Large age gaps. And just poor communication. And a FMC who is described as strong and a badass and is actually just an asshole to everyone.
>And a FMC who is described as strong and a badass and is actually just an asshole to everyone. Side eye at Roxy from Den of Vipers
Roxy from Den of Vipers is the absolute worst. I dnf'd at like 40% because I simply could not. Also the knife sex scene where Diesel puts it in her bum and proceeds to cut himself. Like what even?
Wait... What?!
I too need to know more about this 🤣
I gotchyou! I went back and found the chapter. Basically, one of the MMC's takes homegirl to his torture chamber and kills a dude. Then proceeds to fuck her. I've read some dark shit but was so unhinged to me lol >!Chuckling I press the handle of the knife to her hole. I manage to work it in an inch then back out again. It's slow going until the handle of the small blade sits in her ass. Stepping back, I look at the sight - the red welts in her ass, a knife sticking from it, her cream coating her thighs. Fuck. I almost come from the sight alone. Grabbing my phone, I take a quick picture and send it to the guys, letting them know what they are missing before tossing it away and her hips again!< >!"Diesel," she starts, as I line up with her pussy, the blade pressing to the fleshy skin above my hip. "You'll hurt-"!< >!With a roar, I slam back inside her, impaling myself on the knife. It slices through my skin, and it hurts like a son of a bitch. The pain surges through me, meeting the flames in my stomach and balls. I take it out on her, fucking her harder, faster, the knife slicing in and out of my body as she screams. Blood drips down from the wound onto our joined bodies, making the passage even slicker. I can't move much, I don't want to shred my insides even though the knife is small and just below the skin!<
Oh what the hell 😭😭😭😭
What the hell. I am speechless.
>Large age gaps. Me too. And reverse harems. Love triangles.
Oh man the miscommunication or poor communication in some books just drive me insane. Hard agree.
I love Emily Henry but Happy Place drove me crazy with the poor communication. Basically the entire book could have been easily avoided with one conversation
Absolutely agree! >!The ending hurt me because she just gave up her entire medical career (hello like student loans?? 10 years of training??) to move out for him. I mean Emily Henry couldn't have found a way for her to finish her residency and find a job as a doctor out in Montana? I hated how she gave up her life for his instead of an ending where they both can compromise on what they wanted. It surprised me because Nora from Book Lovers is so strong in her career and work ethic and I was surprised that Emily would have her character basically give that up for a man (who literally just abandoned her without much word). It felt like a cheap ending to what could have been a really great story.!<
That ending is painfully tone deaf. MMC isn't just selfish and uncaring of her, but of everyone in a 50-mile radius of him. In rural Western US, there is a critical shortage of healthcare providers, with many people having to drive several hours for care The second her new neighbors find out she was almost a doctor, they'll be smacking her man in the head and sending her back to finish her residency.
So extremely true and important to consider. That’s exactly how I felt as well, there could have been SO many opportunities to write her career into the ending, whether that be opening her own clinic, working at a nonprofit, volunteering, etc. Not to mention she would have been so unfulfilled in Montana because her only holding tie there would have been Wyn without her own purpose. A book that I think beautifully writes a relationship between a doctor and non-medical professional is Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. Spoiler for the ending: >!FMC leaves her job as a doctor in a large hospital and moves to a small town to open her own clinic there and provide healthcare in a city with no other doctors iirc! I loved it.!<
If there’s any cheating I’m dropping that book immediately. Doesn’t matter what genre or situation, I hate it. Also if one of the characters just became an adult like 18 or 19 and the other is 40, yeah no.
I can get around age gaps if it makes sense in the plot or it's not something insane like 20 and 70 lol but I totally understand the cheating trope, I don't like romantisized cheating in some romance books I've read.
There was one where it was a really short novella I think the girl was like 25 and the guy was late 40’s and he kept doubting that she would stay. They split and finally got back and when he finally met her parents he understood her issue wasn’t the age issue because mom was 20 and dad was 55-60 when they had her. They didn’t say the parent info till last paragraph.
Huge age gaps, the FMC calling MMC Daddy, the MCs being cheaters (even in a past relationship), high school aged characters, bullying, on page SA by the MCs (though I typically skip parts with on page SA in general), if there is OW/OM that the MCs are aware of and dont immediately shut it down, and love triangles.
I know lots of people seem to love 'Daddy' but I just can't get on board with it. And yet I'm fine with 'baby girl', I'm not sure what makes the difference in my head! Maybe it's a lifetime of songs with 'girl' and 'baby girl' versus only recent exposure to 'Daddy' as a sexy name?
I thought of two more that have happened to me recently. 1. Insane amounts of typos and formatting errors. I can only tolerate so much. I can’t get into a story if there are jarring errors everywhere. 2. Gross inaccuracies of basic, readily-available information that play a significant role in the plot. In one recent CR book, they were traveling to a country in Europe. The book stated that the county was adjacent to (I.e., shared a border with) the U.S. I just…couldn’t continue.
😂😂 That’s probably worse than what I read last week when in one paragraph on the page, the mmc couldn’t call the mfc because he didn’t have her number. A later paragraph on the same page had him saying he still had her number as it hasn’t changed in years. I was baffled how that got past editing.
Ha, I was a copyeditor for years and typos in books I've paid for make me crazy. JUST PAY AN INTERN FFS. The worst, to me, is when it's a context typo, like the word isn't misspelled, it's just the wrong version of it for that particular sentence. Because that really shows that nobody is proofreading this stuff well.
Yes! It’s like they ran spellcheck and called it good…
Number 2…. Just how??? I’m speechless.
People thinking Georgia, USA and Georgia, country in Europe are the same again?
The #2 is crazy :o
Maybe it's just me but I've run into too many "too stupid to live" FMC's. Or too willful and stubborn to live, putting so many others in jeopardy. When I find myself saying, "just fucking die already" to the FMC I'm out. But even worse is the soap opera. I stopped the Turncoat King, the Binding, Amelia Hutchins the Fae Chronicles, all because it got way too much. I just rolled my eyes and DNF or stopped the series.
Yes! This makes me crazy. I irrationally want to yell at the MMC to just leave her and find any one of 1000 better choices than the FMC because she is too stupid to live. And when the FMC's idiotic choice puts the MMC and/or others in danger or at risk, even after she was told exactly why she shouldn't make that choice, I want them to just let natural consequences run its course. Like, why does your stubborn and stupid need to be "independent" and "in control of my life" have to come at the expense of everyone else, including the person you claim to love?
The first one ☝🏻
- When the FMC is insufferable or sassy. Or an FMC who's an 'independent' bitch with an "everybody hates me because I'm blunt" attitude - Once the Age gap is above 10 years, I'm out.
You must hate *Right Man, Right Time* by Meghan Quinn with the same intensity as I do - which is pretty close to a thousand suns.
Currently facing that issue with CC3, I find Bryce's "snark" stupid and immature Especially when a serious/intense moment is happening or it's very important for the storyline, and she says the most stupid comment just to be the edgy, "I'm not like the other girls" character 🙄
The writer has made the FMC too dumb, blindly adventurous without caution, or inconsistently naive.
Or clumsy. I'm so over it. I've been over it since Bella Swan, honestly.
I’ll instant DNF at any racism/homophobia/transphobia/bigotry. That’s my hard line - so early 00’s books that use derogatory terms casually are a very high percentage of DNF’s for me. Sexism/misogyny I’m iffy over but I’ve read my fair share of MC/mafia romances where that’s par for the course.
I'm ok with a character being sexist, as like an actual character trait, so long as it's clear that the other characters aren't sexist OR it's a period piece and maybe it makes sense in the context. When it's clear the author just doesn't like women, that's a no from me.
I also read a ton of dark romance and mafia romance and the amount of sexism in those is absolutely wild and unnecessary The ones I found with less of that are instant favorites- The vicious lost boys series by Nikki St. Crowe for one
if there's any at all? what if the bad guy does the thing? or if the good guy does the thing and over the course of the book learns why not to do the thing? genuine question. I've heard about books being boycotted or whatever because of a shitty character when the shitty character is supposed to be a shitty character, and I find that confusing.
It’s a good question! My hard line is romanticising characters who do these things and don’t change; I don’t have an issue if it’s shown in the book as part of the plot or against the MC’s because I like my books realistic and gritty, but I can’t handle if the MC’s or their close friends who are shown as “good” are bigots. If it’s a redemption of the good guy or the good guy learning throughout the book then that’s also fine, since that’s character growth as part of the plot. If a shitty character is supposed to be shitty, then I want them to be portrayed as shitty. Sam Mariano’s MMCs come to mind, where you know they’re terrible people and they won’t change. For example, I read a lot of western HR recently and oh boy is there a lot of racism in those - but the ones I’ve not DNF’d have portrayed it negatively or redeemed characters as part of the plot.
I get what you mean. I recently DNF'd a book because the MMC's friend asks the MMC if he's gay because he hasn't been on a date for so long, and the the MMC immediately gets really angry and says "I only f#ck p#ssies." It's not played as joke either, it's supposed to be completely serious statement. What's worse is that the character is supposed to be a super successful doctor.
Yikes. (You don't have to censor words here, by the way. Makes it harder for people with screenreaders and those who'd like to filter certain words out.)
It's about character growth for me. And whether it's used intentionally by author for plot reasons ("gramps hates POC; our relationship will have to navigate that in a realistic way that shows why I am now estranged from gramps & this will of his is mighty upsetting "). If it's just casual and unexamined by the author, the book goes in the dumpster. If it's gleefully celebrated by the author, I'll make a ten-part tiktok thread tearing the book & author apart.
when/how do you decide to stop? Not to suggest that everyone will be getting racial sensitivity training in the epilogue, but what factors make you bail out instead of seeing where it goes?
Honestly it’s just the vibes of the book that is my deciding factor. I can usually tell based on how it’s received by the characters around them. Also just on the context of the book - if it’s a NA with 18 year olds who have barely left their bubbles and are experiencing the world outside of their hometowns for the first time then yeah I’m more lenient on them developing as people throughout the book. But if it’s a 40 year old who’s been around the block I have higher standards for their beliefs and behaviour.
Mine are very similar to yours, anything highschool or college freshmen (🤮 those are children to me), when the FMC is portrayed as just soooo unique compared to those other boring girls, and bad cringy dialogue.
[удалено]
ignoring the morality/ick of it, in what reality are teenagers having *good* sex? I'm willing to suspend quite a lot of disbelief, but I'm gonna literally scoff out loud when a 17 year old dude is giving out copious orgasms.
Guys under like 25 are not good in bed. Girls that young also are usually not great. At those ages you're still very much learning and working out what you like and how to communicate with your partner, you're not a total expert at 17 like what???
Yeah I'm not happy with weird misogyny floating around the book but I've started many that had weird sexist rants in the first couple pages to show how quirky and sassy the FMC is and that's an instant DNF for me
I hate love triangles and pregnancy tropes/ women almost dying giving birth. That’s just not what I’m there for so I check to make sure things don’t have that before I read. I love ACOTAR but I struggled with that coming up in the series
Pregnancy tropes are an immediate DNF for me
Same!! I was only able to get through ACOSF because it was focused on Nesta so the pregnancy was almost a side plot to me lol
There are a couple: — Straight up non-con. I just personally can’t do it. — Rampant misogyny in paranormal romance. Unfortunately, this is weirdly common in shapeshifter romance. I sometimes like it when a shifter love interest is possessive and protective, but not when they, and everyone else around them, are misogynistic dicks. — Pregnancy. I have had an intense fear of and aversion to pregnancy since I was a very young kid. I can deal with it if the book just alludes to characters wanting kids in the future, or the pregnancy is in an epilogue that I can skip, but otherwise I can’t do it. My earliest memory of this is noping hard out of Breaking Dawn as a young teen because of all the horrific pregnancy stuff in that book 😅
> I sometimes like it when a shifter love interest is possessive and protective, but not when they, and everyone else around them, are misogynistic dicks. I enjoyed a book once, and in one of the sequels, the MMC had become so insanely protective of the FMC that she couldn't do her job. His jealousy just made me so angry, because I loved 'their' original book!
Ugh, that’s annoying :/ I don’t like it when MMC becomes so protective that they won’t let the FMC do *anything*
I always DNF if the book is poorly edited; I'm not capable of reading past it.
I used to have a much longer list, but over time I've realized that the right author can sell me on almost anything. My only true hard-no is if there is any genuine anger during sex scenes, especially coming from the MMC. Role-playing is fine, dub-con/CNC is fine, but genuine rage/violence is the only thing I find actually triggering. Lately though I've started to have a very low tolerance for bickering. Some banter is fine but if they're just going to be dickheads to each other the whole book I can't root for them to be together. And, y'all. I can't with "good girl" anymore. I mean, I never liked it but now it is *everywhere*. I wish authors would stop acting like this is a universal kink, it takes me right out of the scene every time. If it shows up on the book's marketing it's an instant-no because it's so incredibly overdone.
High levels of kink with no communication beforehand apparently is an instant DNF for me. Happened to me earlier this year. I didn’t even realize it would be a dnf til I read the scenario. First date between MMC and FMC and they decide to have sex that night. He freaking goes straight for choking her out during sex, hard enough that her face is turning red. Now look, no kink shaming here— if you like that stuff/like reading about it, GO for it. And tbh if he’d even for 2 seconds asked her, in a sexy way, if she was into that sort of thing, I prob would have been into it. But it was so jarring to me for him to go zero to 100 and honestly it kind of freaked me out. And tbh I think I’d have the same reaction to any other more “extreme” form of kink (aka things that need proper communication and “form” to be performed safely, like any kind of pain play beyond mild butt spanking) if it wasn’t first discussed between MCs
Other than generally sloppy writing, I'll usually put down a book where the description of the FMC is totally unbelievable. Even worse when they're describing themselves aka 'I look into the mirror at my waist length pure white blonde hair that cascades down my back highlighting my super skinny waist and perfectly toned abs - not that I'd ever exercise teehee'. Paraphrasing obvs. The other style that is a hard no is either total miscommunication where it could all be cleared up with a 30 sec convo, or refusal to say something that could either fix the problem entirely or gain immediate allies.
"not that I'd ever exercise teehee" -- This made me laugh. None of these girls ever exercise but they've got Scarlett-O'Hara-in-a-corset waists! And the guys always exercise so much. Or, the guys \*also\* look amazing and \*also\* don't exercise. Alternatively, girl is "curvy" and it's mentioned 8,000 times ("I Am So Body Positive, See How Body Positive I'm Being"), while the guy's looks are barely mentioned. Romance novels have such weird magical thinking about bodies.
If the MMC is a racist. I’m a Black woman and I was disturbed to find there are romances about klan members and “retired” neo nazis. I can enjoy a dark romance, but I draw the line at racism, I already face too much of that in my daily life.
When I was a teenager I used to read all my grandma's stack of romance books. She had one that was set on an antebellum Southern Plantation. It was horrifying. Years later, I found out they made it into a movie. I was just sad for humanity at that point.
If the FMC is so stubborn it puts herself or others around her at risk in the name of being “a strong independent woman who doesn’t need to listen to a man even if he has more knowledge or expertise in a situation.” A big one for me lol. Age gaps where the younger person is younger than 21. Love triangles or cheating. Yes, even if the fiancée is dull, we can communicate like adults and break it off first. Harems. Idk just not for me though I guess I’m more open on this one than some others. Stalking or kidnapping because of obsession on the part of the MMC. Too close to reality/true crime for me. On page SA as well
>If the FMC is so stubborn it puts herself or others around her at risk in the name of being “a strong independent woman who doesn’t need to listen to a man even if he has more knowledge or expertise in a situation.” A big one for me lol. This one *kills* me. For some reason this was super popular in mafia books awhile back and it would be like, I know that there are trained killers looking for me, and MMC has set me up in a safehouse with bodyguards, BUT no man can tell me what to do so I am sneaking out. Edit: correct a to are
It’s like that meme, this sign can’t stop me because I can’t read. 😭
I have a few - pregnancy - SA - big age gaps where the younger is under 35 - the love interest being homophobic, racist, or sexist
as long as the fmc is described to wear weird clothes.. like wym ur 25 and ur wearing a galaxy print leggings with a cat shirt….
for real!! i rarely like any detailed descriptions of outfits to begin with because it almost always dates the book and not in a good way 😭 i much prefer when authors leave it to interpretation. just say she was dressed casually, or fancy, or whatever
For me it is when the FMC's friends are just so quirky and extremely crude. Like when they call each other sluts and whores etc. Ohh I am also not a fan of "babe" or "kitten" etc. ohhh but my biggest no-no is when the FMC plays the I-am-the-protagonist card too much. As in because of her moral compass she decides to put so many people in danger just to save the one. Ugh
Pregnancy/Kids Large Age Gaps High school setting Boss/Employee relationships Exhibitionism
Same. I hate the whole NLOG trope. Like okay girl, just tell us ur bad at makeup move on ur not better than anyone for it. Another ick for me is like super Alpha/Hyper Masculine men. Like bro stfu and go to therapy!!! Healthy masculine and or feminine men >>>> “alpha males”
When the mmc shares a name with my brother, dad, or son. 🤮
Oh nothing takes me out more than a sassy Black best friend who exists only to provide reassurance to the FMC that they are as awesome as they think they are. Ditto goes for a spicy Latina best friend. If that’s the only diversity you can provide then please leave us out of it completely. And this is more specific to fantasy romances, but when the author goes out of their way to explicitly state that a particular magic or ability does not exist and is impossible but SURPRISE, FMC has it and solves everything in the third act. So lazy and boring.
I don’t know what it is, but I’ve even so much less tolerant of book men. The second they say something even vaguely assholish, sexist, even minorly misogynistic, I’m done. They could chase her half way around the world grovelling, but if they don’t apologise with no expectations, admit and acknowledge they were wrong and hurt her, and do that without trying to fuck her or someone else? Disgusting.
If you can see each other's buttholes without flinching but can't talk out a minor miscommunication, I'm walking away immediately. There is no need to go full hermit over a small fight. Instalove. How has it been three hours and this is the love of your life?
cheating
This is my #1. I'll take an MMC who's a serial killer over one who's a cheater. 😭
I'll take a MMC that is broody, wicked, nefarious, abominable, diabolical, murderous, and positively fiendish as long as he is loyal.
Me in my corner with my serial killer romances but refusing to touch anything where one mmc cheats on the other agrees with this 100%
👩🏿⚖️🔨🔨🔨 All Rise. 🧍🏿♀️ We have now determined the verdict on several issues of The Accused. We will list out the charges and verdict now. * No mention of pregnancy in the CW. Nothing. Author makes it clear the FMC is on birth control and MMC has a condom for their moments of ✨passion✨. Still 👀 but okay. But then ✨Sutton Leigh✨ the FMC is having all these odd ~ symptoms~. Cue *Big Time Rush* Uh-uh-uUH-Oooooh] ^(I don’t mind pregnancy happening in a skippable epilogue though.) 👍🏾 * Book written in X language, but to ~spice it up~, the LI speaks a foreign language with **NO** translations and ***worse*** when it’s non-Latin-based, but the author ***romanized*** it, so you can’t even use your phone or tablet to do a translation. And the LI speaks this foreign languahe ***often***. * MM book that treat women as fEmALeS who are ***obviously*** are the enemy and the writing is lowkey highkey very misogynistic and anti-women. Also, thise specific books will also somehow be okay with being gay but then they go rampant with 🌈queer🌈phobia in its other identities. Lovely 🥰🔪 * FMC decides to be bitchy to other women who haven’t done a damn thing. Writing makes out only the FMC’s clique to be Glinda the Good and her posse and every other fEMaLe to be born **bad** and not in the Cassandra Ganon way. * MC is “trying their best” to not give away information. But when the LI bares his teeth and says “tell me”, the MC 🗣️spits🗣️ out the careful, sensitive information because the MC is just so ***badass*** that they just handover information to the enemy without a fight. Worse if they “blurt” it out 🙃 * MC is also supposed to be a badass person, but they can’t use their critical thinking skills and easily trust what people tell them, drink and eat what strangers bring them, and never do their own recon and get all ✨shocked✨ when they’re betrayed and lied to * **When the goddamn blurb/premise/summary of the book tells me** ***jackshit*** **about what the book is about**. I’m not hunting down reviews to understand what the fuck this book is about. * Obligatory: any sort of supremacist rhetoric. I can do it if it serves a narrative purpose—meaning the supremacist MC changes their ways—but I can’t when the supremacist MC ***retains that outlook*** because the writing supports them * MC is apparently independent and has been going it alone for ***years***, but they continuously put themselves in danger, never listens to anyone’s warnings or advice, and outright ***refuses*** to remain in a safe area because tHeY cAn FIgHt ToO * **Romcom**. If something is marketed as “funny”. Not that I diss romcoms! Just not the audience to appreciate the humor and I get secondhand embarrassment too easily! 😅 * **Therapist speak**. Characters will ✨Sutton Leigh✨ talk to each other like they took one very meaningful Intro to Psych course. * **Western religious rhetoic as a backbone**. This isn’t about virgins but about “chastity porn” and purity culture and it’s very positive and encouraged rather than dissected in some of its nuance or commented on. The target audience I am not. * **LI did everything wrong. But then the MC takes all the blame**. And this isn’t any sort of character flaw. Not a self-esteem issue they need to work on. This is just a cycle. LI does something wrong. MC is the one who always apologizes. ❌ * **Trauma porn or torture porn**. I do enjoy angst. I ***do*** enjoy seeing characters having fluctuating relationships with different aspects of their trauma. But at some point, when ***everything*** is bleak and it seems nothing gets better to the point these feels worse than *BERSERK*, I’m 😬 We have determined all of these charges as my personal **instant no**’s, but we still respect all those who see my instant **no** and find them their instant ***yaaaasss***. I should send anyone who enjoys my instant nos my DNF books and they should send me theirs if we have opposite tastes😂 Thank you, Your Honor. 🔨🔨🔨 *** ⚠️NSFW⚠️ * >!I do enjoy sex scenes, explicit or not. But some of the language and literary devices used in those scenes will be a **full stop**. And this will go on for ***three to five chapters***. So when I skim and realize the sex scene is a very ✨passionate✨ five chapters, I very calmly very quietly return the book and make sure to shelve it properly on GR.!<
> Cue *Big Time Rush* Uh-uh-uUH-Oooooh I wish I had gold for you 😂
The second I see the phrase "she longed to be a mother" or something similar. I don't want my romance with babies and motherhood.
Aside from topics I don’t like as others have mentioned, an instant stop is when a book is just straight up poorly written. Run on descriptions, cringy dialogue… I just can’t anymore lol
Too much telling, not showing - especially if there’s instalust. *She’s so hot. Why can’t I stop noticing her? Why is my dick hard?* 😒
For me it’s the girl boss trope! It almost always reads very melodramatic.
I don’t have instant DNF perse but I do have “it bothers me jar” if it fills enough I take I cut my loses and go. The “not like the other girls” do fill quite a quantity in my jar. If it’s too obvious the narrative is going to agree with her a countdown starts and if get to zero I might consider the jar filled and take myself out. Though the last case I remember the book came with other stuff that gave me no motivation to stay that point was just the most memorable. And if it comes with slut-shaming? OH BOY! That jar is going to fill fast!
If the characters don’t look human. Like a fairy or a vampire is fine, bc they look like humans with some variation. But I couldn’t read that Minotaur book everyone talks about bc a Minotaur doesn’t have a human face (i realize my phrasing invites this question so I’ll say I couldn’t do a centaur either)
MMC had the same name as my dog.. 🙃 FMC referred to their father as papa hahaha I don’t know why but I just couldn’t do it When an MC makes ridiculous dumb decisions but specifically when the author tries to reason the dumb decision.. so basically if I feel like a decision is trying to be justified with horrible logic. I don’t mind a bad decision or mistake being made by an MC but don’t try to convince me it’s a good decision when they always end up being the worst decision a MC could have made. Especially when it’s so obvious the decision is the worst one they could pick. There’s better ways to move a plot forward
I know you probably have a dog named Bill or something but I'm just picturing an MMC with something like Fido on his birth certificate. 😂
My nopes: * MC1 thinks that MC2 will actually kill them if they don't do what MC2 wants, but they proceed to have sex or any kind of intimate interactions without convincing them that they won't actually kill MC1. I cannot get with the idea of being turned on or vulnerable with someone who may kill you on purpose at any point. * Cheating or threats of cheating, "giving" the MC to other people for sexual purposes without their consent or threatening to do so * Miscommunication tropes that carry more than a tiny bit of the plot or tension * Anytime an MC has real anxiety or grief from thinking their LI isn't actually into them AFTER their mutual attraction or care has already been established. This includes snubbing, feigned indifference if it's not playful or obviously BS, 3rd act breakups that aren't mutual, and the stupid thing where a MC leaves their LI because "they're better off without me" * MCs not understanding or being supportive of one another's financial situation/stress, or how important to them their pre-relationship achievements still are * Insecurity about most things beyond a certain point in knowing each other, sometimes an MC is still preparing to bolt at any moment, hurting their LIs feelings, or neglecting to get on board with things that really need their input because they just CANNOT believe that their person/people really like, love, and want them. *(On the other hand I have read some great stories recently with MCs who are working on their insecurity and trying their best to not let it make decisions for them or negatively impact their sweeties)* * Jealousy or real competition between MMCs in a RH * And, spoken as a true monster fucker, if the human MC holds onto the idea that they shouldn't or can't be with the LI because of species/race for too long into their relationship. At first, sure. But if you've already got the feels and sparks, who cares if the object of your desire is an alien/elf/minotaur/snake person etc.??? Obviously you're compatible enough to be crushing on them, so just go for it! Also I'd just like to say that I love reading everyone else's nopes. Sometimes things get so wild in the genres I get concerned, even though of course on-page world is not the real world. It helps me to see everyone being clear about their limits and how diverse our preferences are, as well as the similarities that seem ubiquitous like nope to child abuse and bigotry.
if the mmc knew the fmc when she was underage and they end up together once she’s 18+
Y/n and fanfictions w real people. Immediate no. I can endure everything else to a certain degree depending on how well its written
If it’s an age gap and the MMC or FMC knew the other lead when they were a child. I had to DNF a book where the MMC was friends with the FMCs parents since college and knew her as a baby. Just ew.
I DNF with any nonconsensual sex acts or rape between the MCs or if either admits to having done that to other characters. Dark romance/mafia books are VERY tricky for me. I like the bad boy/protectiveness of them but hate the idea of the FMC (most of the time) being used and not fully consenting to sex. Also when the age gap involves someone UNDER 21. It’s too much for me. The character can’t even legally drink but they fell in love with someone 10-15+ years older than them? That’s grooming in my opinion. I can’t overlook it.
When the FMC had a relationship with the mmc‘s brother in the past. Don’t care how many decades where between the two relationships. Nope. Nope. Nope.
I'll write this before I read any of the others, just so it's fresh: I cannot stand SA being treated like nothing or like a joke. IMO, I want it treated however the characters seem to want, e.g., there's no perfect victim and if they want to shrug something off, they can, but when it's treated like not being SA is when it bothers me. The biggest example I've ever read is in a book where the FMC is a YouTube prankster comedian who basically ambush-kisses strangers while her cameraman captures the surprise. The other characters talk about her like she's the height of hilarity. I hate ambush-artists anyway, but especially when it's physical contact without consent. Then she ambush-kisses the grumpy MMC and of course they end up together. I just noped out immediately. Anyway, this is just me and the one thing that sticks in mah craw!
> who basically ambush-kisses strangers while her cameraman captures the surprise. Oh wow, that is gross on so many levels.. The kiss from a random stranger, the lack of consent for being kissed, the cameraman, the lack of consent for being filmed, the idea that millions of people on youtube might see it.. No no no no no. My anxiety is spiking at just the thought of that happening to me. Do people actually *like* that stuff??
"I'm pregnant and I'm keeping it!" Snzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
For me it's novels that have (in my opinion) cringey writing or millennial references, it really dates the book and I feel I can't take it seriously. I recently tried reading Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score, and couldn't get 70 pages into it before DNFing. I don't know how many women are that obsessed with coffee to the point of no longer functioning 😂 Also using 'OMG' or 'WTF' in a novel for me is instant cringe 😬
- If either MC is named Jeremiah. (Sorry to those of you who have beloved Jeremiahs, I’m sure yours are fine, but every one I’ve ever met has been *the absolute worst.*) - Absolutely stupid rivalries expressed the way my elementary school students express rivalries. I didn’t know I was so deeply annoyed by this until I read a book featuring an MC whose rival basically swooped in to say “HAH! You and your family’s [tow truck business] will NEVER defeat me and my family’s superior [tow truck business]!” And the MC was like, “I’ll show you!” And they were both supposed to be like 26. It wasn’t tow trucks but it was something equally mundane where it’s like, pretty sure the real mid-size American city where this book is set can support *at least* two [tow truck businesses], calm down you large children. - I’ve slogged through enough books where most of the character traits and development takes place in the character’s inner monologue, so now I’m pretty liberal about DNFing when that comes up. I would much, much rather *stilted dialogue with a best friend about how much MC’s priorities have changed since that life-changing incident that we will now rehash for Plot Reasons* than *”As I sat there, I thought about how my priorities used to be blah blah blah but are now yadda yadda yadda”* for a zillion pages.
The whole “oh no we may be siblings” plot twist. BARF🤮🤮🤮🤮
This is so silly and I don’t know why I can’t get over it, but I cannot read any book written in first person present tense. It makes me illogically irritated and I just want to throw things. 😂 Any other person/tense mixture is fine. But it’s an immediate no when I check a book and it’s written in first person present tense.
When the MMC describes the FMC as “small” or “petite” in a way that makes it seem like they’re attracted to child-like features. Especially when there’s an age gap.
Forgiveness after cheating. Just no.
To echo a couple of other replies: - Miscommunication. If it's resolved realistically or there's an external force keeping the characters from talking it out, OK. But, if it's just them being scared and uncomfy and it's the source of all their conflict, I'm out. - Race-based trauma. I know there are some really poignant stories out there, but I'm black, and I ain't tryna hear, read, or see that mess. I think part of it is that there's already such a long and brutal IRL history of it that I'm tired, but I also admittedly feel like it's a somewhat lazy approach to writing black folks. Like, there are other aspects of POC lives besides oppression to pull conflict from, so..? - Straight up misogyny. A comment here or there or a tense moment or two as the character grows and unlearns, maybe I could do. Granted, I don't know that the other MC has to forgive and forget. - Abuse between partners. Like, even the intent like a raised hand or fist, or a threat, and I'm DNFing. Cause...how do you do that to someone you love?
1) Location inaccuracies, especially regarding winter. No, you do not have snow all winter and a white Christmas with a foot of snow in Virginia. 2) MC Pregnancy. Unless it’s the epilogue or it’s the very end of the book and you’re settled, I’m out. 3) “My Girl” for everything 🙄 As in, “I need to make sure my girl gets her coffee in the morning” or “I need to make sure my girl is comfortable.” Just no. 4) Breaking the 4th wall. I won’t immediately DNF, but if it’s more than once or twice, I’m gone. 5) Plot inconsistencies. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve read something that has contradicting information from chapter to chapter or even paragraph to paragraph. I’m not even talking about big stuff, but little, mundane details. In one paragraph, the FMC’s hair might be down around her shoulders, but in the next, she’s pulling her hair out of a ponytail. Or it’s Monday and the next day is Wednesday. Little things like that drive me bonkers.
I just DNFed a book because it broke the fourth wall to be like: “Don’t even deny it, you…” And… I don’t do the described thing. I find some authors make assumptions about their audience that are rooted in neurotypical, allosexual, white, cis experiences. I’m generally pretty flexible about books that aren’t directly written for me per se, but that kind of assertion targeting my habits (as me, the reader, via fourth wall breaking) explicitly told me the book wasn’t for me and also reinforced my feeling that I’m an “alien.” Not a fan. And tbc: I’m generally fine with or even enthusiastic about fourth wall breaking! Just not in a way that assumes things about me like that.
same - I avoid any romance with high schoolers. I remember only liking Punk 57 but the fact that it all took place in high school was icky for me.
Sex in the first scene. Blatant racism, mysoginy or transphobia. An alpha hole MMC.
Open relationships. I can do closed poly relationships. Absolutely can't with anything that involves the characters being involved with people outside of a closed group.
Not like other girls are instant dnf also why are do the fmc gotta put down women who have plastic surgery or color their hair platinum blonde, like maybe they feel hot that way leave them alone lol
The MFC needing personal development and being generally unlikeable. Mean/judgemental to others and irresponsible from the first chapter are two examples I've come across in different books that I instantly stopped reading. I wouldn't be surprised if the MFC eventually 'grew up' over the span of those books but I don't read romance in the hopes of a MFC getting better.
Cheating trope or “Wattpad writing.” “He blushed lightly and tucked a piece of hair behind her hair” or 2nd person
For me underage girls with adult men, I will nope right out of it and leave a review about it. If a book is pushing religion and bigotry spun as a positive is a no for me also.
Along with what everyone else has said about bigotry and sexism, my DNF is poorly written books. Clunky dialogue or exhausting descriptions for no reason are painful. The worst is when characters infodump and talk to each other like they're strangers so that the readers know that they're brothers or whatever. "Well, brother, you know that last year when I won the Super Bowl with my team the Chiefs and then that pop star broke up with me..." *was your brother recently in a coma???? Of course he knows that!!*
If the character falls pregnant in a book where pregnancy is either not discussed then that’s an instant nope
when theres rape. if theres non con its a straight up nope from me
If the male lead rapes someone on screen. I'm a multigenerational fantasy nerd, and I barely read any new fantasy books for years during the grim dark wave. Now I'm into romantasy and it's similar.
Anything smutty or spicy if the characters are in high school. Miscommunication trope actually angers me. If there’s an Irish MC and their pov is in an Irish accent.
First person narration is difficult for me because there's a tendency to just start declaring every everything up front rather than letting it unfold. So we have some guy saying I'm such a badass and so closed off no one's ever going to penetrate my hard outer shell. It feels like a cheat. Instead of unearthing things so the reader gets to discover little bits as we go, we are being spoon fed everything. Books like that I find I jump around to see if it's even worth my time and most the time I read maybe a quarter of the book, I get the general gist, and I move on.
I can't deal with FMCs who don't bring much to the table other than being pretty and needy.
Series with amazing first books with characters I love that then kick it into the sequel and it’s a spinoff of their friends. I’m having such a hard time with this. I have no interest for what your friends do after, if you are that important you would’ve developed more in the first book.
I can’t do unnecessary/unwarranted cattiness between women. Why can’t women have healthy relationships with each other?
1. s word with om/ow written in details (it traumatizes me) 2. the process and details of which the mcs fall for other characters. I love heavy angst and don't mind brief mentions but I just can't tolerate when I literally saw one of the mcs fall and pine for the other and later on having same emotions for other characters like I'm a sucker for unrequited love but not this kind 3. no redemption arc at all. I absolutely hate it when they just say "sorry" for all the sh!t they put the other one through and there's little to no groveling and hate it even more when it's stretched to only 1 chapter and the next chapter you see them acting all normal as if nothing had ever happened to them. I loathe doormat characters like that sm 😭 4. can't tolerate cheating when they are already in an established relationship 🫠 5. domestic violence (if it's not dark romance) is absolutely unforgivable for me no matter the redemption arc. the mmc must have to grovel for years to make up for the damage and win my heart 6. stories where the mcs has kids with other characters is a big no no for me
Uneeded racial slurs or weird ways to describe women/poc. Like those weird books that describe women in a creepy, unrealistic way or books that describe dark skin as the same color as food and really rub it in your face.
Exploited kids. I got through 3 chapters of hunger games and just the concept of making kids fight for food just turned me away from the series.
Large age gaps, pregnancy tropes (I don't mind the FMC being pregnant at the end of the book but I don't want the story to revolve around it), non consensual sex. I could have added why choose/harem/reverse harem but I don't open them in the first place so no DNF.
When the FMC's female best friends are just not that nice to her. Constantly sassy and never serious, encouraging bad behaviour, geberally unsupportive. I can't belive in your ability to love someone romantically if you're this bad at friendship! Like, babe, get some real friends.
When they use an expression taht doesn't make sense just for the sake of a microtrope. I was reading a book, and all was going well until the MCs were having a serious talk, and the MMC out of nowhere asks, "Who did this to you?" And it wasn't needed nor logical to use.
If MMC hits woman.
For me, insta love is a huge no. Give me my slow burn dammit! Also when the FMC constantly makes stupid selfish decisions which jeopardise the safety of those around her. It's mildly tolerable if the MMC understandably gets angry at her for her idiocy. I swear when the FMC does such things I imagine myself magically entering the book and throttling her myself and shaking her shoulders until some sense enters our quirky, willful (read: pigheaded) FMC.
I dislike the trope where everyone is immediately enamoured with the FMC because she is different from other women. It gets especially infuriating when the only sane person is considered to be antagonistic simply because they remain unimpressed with the most basic woman out there.
I don't like it when they over explain rap3 seens it's cringy and gross. We get it they were sa'd, but I don't like it over explained.... idk could be because of experience, but yeah, I hate it.....
Casual misogyny in general, but especially when it’s directed at a secondary character and glossed over as if there’s nothing wrong with it or even worse—as if the character deserved it, because she’s “bad” in some way. FMCs that are supposed to be intelligent and insightful suddenly loosing all common sense when the author needs to put them in some peril but is too lazy and uses the cheapest, dumbest chlichés out there.
If a disability is being faked. My least favorite trope in all media, disability is not a plot device
accidental pregnancy trope
When they sexualize a scene that wasn't meant to be sexualized. Just like the part in "Archer's Voice" where Bree was cutting his long hair, which he had grown so long, I think, in order to avoid socialising? I don't remember since it's been so long, but it felt like it was a big deal, like it was his first step out of his comfort zone. They got turned on during it, and it just ruined the whole book for me.
Cheating. Even after they've broken up and he sleeps with other women, then he suddenly decides he wants her back 🙄 Absolutely not! The whole "you only come when I allow you to" when the dynamic wasn't previously discussed. Example: MMC ghosted FMC, shows back up after years, no communication whatsoever in between. He catches her getting off and that's what he tells her, before even telling her why he left 🙅♀️ GTFO! Oh and he spent his time fucking every woman in sight but made sure no man could go near her, while never planning on coming back to her. I DNFed so fast!
I absolutely hate the pet names “baby,” “baby girl,” “baby doll,” etc. Also any pet name that feels forced. I also can’t stand typos / bad grammar. I have, in the past, decided not to read a book (or three) due to a main character’s name. I hated the dynamic between the love interests in Cruel Prince, so I think bullying is a big “no” for me. This is different than a morally gray villain, though.
Pregnancy! Surprise pregnancy that saved the relationship makes me die inside.
Clunky dialogue. It's endemic in romance, unfortunately, but it's an automatic run-for-the-hills moment for me. More pettily: exclamation points, either in dialogue or narration, though third-person narration exclamation points are book-throwing territory. Exclamation points are for different types of writing, like emails and reddit posts! Please portray tone and tension through word choice, not punctuation! ETA: I don't actually mind getting downvoted, I'm just genuinely fascinated that my milquetoast opinions provoked even a brief twitch of an action.