I just DNF'd a book because of excessive physical description of the love interest. I don’t mind it usually it’s good to have an indicator that the character finds another character physically attractive but I think the instance it was so excessive turned me off the book entirely.
we were like on chapter 3.
does anyone have the same pet peeve?
by BetterGrass709
9 Comments
I just instantly hurl any fiction book into the nearest fire if anyone directly references extremely mainstream real life pop culture “nerd” media to establish a character’s nerd cred.
Rape scenes
First person pov
I really dislike books with a lot of swear words and storylines involving social media and texting. I prefer reading stories that take place in a simpler world.
I really like Grisham (I know) and other legal thrillers, but having to deal with the two-word description of a man and the four lines about how attractive a woman looks in her dress (particularly through the eyes of the lead male character) but how she uses her sexuality to succeed in her job so it’s fine, is pretty off putting. Thankfully this is improving.
– over describing or over explaining things: I’m not an idiot. OK, I am sometimes but this is still insulting 😆 and no, I don’t need to know every little detail.
– bad character description: using some cliches or (again) describing a character a bit too much. Especially if it’s a first person pov. Nobody would ever describe someone by talking about their glowing eyes and auburn (!) hair.
– unnatural or pointless dialogues. Seriously.
Romance and love. It’s so boring.
Description of clothes. I’ll skim to the next page and if there’s a lot of it, I’ll move on to a new book.
Criminals who happen to have a personal connection to the investigator. I’m sure you were in the same orphanage, I just don’t give a ****.
Also criminal who don’t want to get away with it. The type that wants to do X number of kills and then die in a shootout. (Most recently the serial killer invited a guy who intervened in his last kill to come catch him because he admired him so. What a way to reduce your stakes to zero.)
I didn’t realize how much this bored me in the past, but since people in this sub pointed out the “character looks in mirror and describes self” I can’t read past that scene anymore.
Present tense.
First person POV (sometimes)
Very detailed descriptions, in Sci Fi novels, to the point that I get lost. I’m not great a visualizing, and sometimes need illustrations/visual companions for complex alien environments, spaceships, etc. Not the author’s fault, but still.
Too many characters.
In every single Frieda McFadden book, the beautiful woman are blonde with blue eyes and all the “average” or unattractive woman have dark hair and eyes. Granted, she’s not a good author, she’s fun for quick, easy to read for road trips abs airplanes. It’s ok to find blondes beautiful, but after reading 4 books where every ugly woman has dark features, I’m beginning to sense a bit of supremacy 😟