Reading Dealbreakers: What’s Yours?

I have to start a series from the beginning and it has to be read in order. I refuse to jump in in the middle of the action. As far as books themselves go, I'm hard on books so I don't care if it's beat up. I'm a huge fan of half.com and Half Price Books. I don't mind hardcover books but prefer digital or paperback. I hate when a series switches from paperback to hardcover in the middle of a series. It is beyond irritating.

Yeah, me too. I cannot start a series in the middle. And if it is an old series and the first one is out of print or too difficult to get, I won't read the series.

I have to read the series in order, too. And it drives me NUTS when I recommend a series to a friend and they read it out of order, then ask me a bunch of bloody questions. grrr.

I have to read a series in order as well - I couldn't start a series knowing that I was somewhere in the middle. I actually stopped reading Christine Warren's Other's series because it was too confusing to figure out the order of the books. By the time I found it on her website, I had already read book 9 (!) thinking it was book 1.

I don't like when older characters from a series dominate the current storylines. If there's an over-abundance of meddling family or the old characters solve more of the crime than the "new characters," then I just stop reading cold-turkey. I feel like once I close the book on one story, alluding to characters enough to remind me they're linked is okay, but I don't want a cast of a hundred people just because they're linked.

Pet peeves: in the middle of a series going from trade paperback to hardcover and no digital edition, or the worst.....only digital in one format (like publishing for Kindle and therefore no other reader can download the book).

I absolutey can not read a book that's in the middle of the series. If I haven't read book 1 and I get book 5 to read, I won't read it. I'll give the book away. Now if it's book 2 or 3 of the series, then I may go ahead and purchase the first book (s) and read them, especially if it's a series that everyone raves about.

I hate when books have been in mmpb and then switch to HC in the middle of a series! It's so annoying and messes up my bookshelves and organization. Why oh why do publishers do that? If it's a series I've already been reading, I end up buying the ebook or wait for the paperback (a year later).

I can't stand if one partner cheats on the other in a book. That is a TOTAL dealbreaker for me. For some reason, I can handle "reunion" romances when they get together years later, but actual cheating during the course of the book ticks me off.

I have a hard time reading any book where the heroine is described as feisty, zanny or mad-cap. To me that's code for "you'll loath this character; don't bother!"

Stupid names. I won't read JR Ward because having to wade through all those phonetically-spelled names would drive me bonkers. Ditto historicals with clearly anachronistic names; if you can't get the names right you clearly have not done your research.

Oh, for me it has to be cliffhangers... I just can't stand to wait when I'm emotionally invested in series and characters. That is why I stopped reading Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampires series. Moning's Fever series I started to read this year when final book came out, and I'm glad because of that. Also, for me is a dealbreaker when authors don't finish series . I wanted to read Dante Valentine series, but I read in reviews that ending isn't so good and that many questions are left unanswered. Don't like when they do that with TV shows also.

I agree with Dolly. I can't stand when characters from previous books play too much a role in the newer book. Especially when it's an ongoing series. For example, the Psy books by Nalini Singh where the only people that show up every book and have sizable parts are Sasha and Lucas. Why are they so special? I didn't like their book and I don't like when they show up nearly every other chapter in the subsequent books I do like. It actually made me stop reading the series. Lisa Kleypas did that too with Lillian in her Wallflower series. I couldn't stand Lillian and she got way too much perspective in the last book about her sister.

I blame the following pet peeves on my sign (Virgo) and my occupation (librarian):

--I will not buy a used book if the pages are yellowing.
--I will not borrow a book from the library is pages are yellowing.
--I will not fiction books that have notes in it. (Don't care about text books having notes.)
--I don't read Sci-Fi or Fantasy. Someone or something really must convince me...
--Most books over 400 pages. I find most of them self-indulgent or a sign of either very bad writing or a very weak editor. Fortunately, my husband read the Harry Potter series to me. If he hadn't, I wouldn't have touched them with a ten foot pole.

Deal-breakers for me - I will NOT read a series out of order. -If I know a series has cliffhangers, I won't read the series until it's finished eg. Tairen Soul and Fever series (same with overarching trilogies) -Unless it is YA or children's, having NO romance. I don't care if it is even a background story - but I have to have a touch of romance in anything I read.

Lege Artis, everyone hates cliffhangers.

Starting in the middle of a series doesn't bother me. Neither does reading it out of order. I've got a good memory for text, so the overall storyline reassembles itself in my head as I add new sections to it.

What does turn me off:

Stupid or non-coping main characters. If she's stuck in a huge gloomy underpopulated country house and she honestly believes someone is trying to kill her, I want her to at least try to swipe a steak knife during dinner. What I don't want her to do is go on long walks at twilight through deserted stands of head-high weeds.

Constant painful suspense for its own sake. In real life, the sane response to constant uncertainty is to try to reduce the uncertainty, or if it's irreducible to go somewhere else where life is more predictable. If they do remain in an environment of constant uncertainty, they've got a good reason for it -- like, there's a war on. Only in bad fiction do characters put up with constant life-threatening uncertainty for no damned reason at all.

Putting all the revelations and explanations into the last chapter. You've been carrying all these un-closed-off possibilities in your head throughout the book, and looking forward to interesting closure on them. Shoving all the closure into one last short chapter doesn't give you space and time to sort them out, assimilate their implications, and just enjoy thinking about them.

I can stand it when a writer bends history or economics or physics, but if they break it, I'm out of there. The big bad Norman love interest who carries off the Anglo-Saxon heroine to London does not go to a shop and buy her a half-dozen readymade dresses, some of which are dyed in aniline colors and one of which is velvet. And it's not necessarily a dealbreaker, but I'm very put off by books in which traditional medical procedures and locally made herbal remedies produce effects that rival current medical practice.

Particular bugaboo: inept names. Modern names in historical settings. Etymologically impossible or inappropriate names. Non-Christian names in times and places where children were never given them. Books where you can spot the characters the author likes because they all have overelaborate too-beautiful names, or because they have cute likeable names when everyone else is named Clotar or Nahum or Hjordis.

If a character says something while falling through the air and lands without serious injury, they get three words absolute max. Four to five words, they're going to break something unless they're falling into deep water. More than that, they're most likely going to be hurt even if they do fall into deep water, and they'll be AFU if they land on solid ground. Furthermore, even pedants don't speak in complete sentences when they're warning someone about a poisonous snake, a falling rock, or an armed assailant who's come out of nowhere.

I'm generally bothered by bad exposition. I intensely dislike scenes that exist only so that necessary information can be planted in the dialogue, especially when none of that information directly concerns the characters having the conversation. If the characters can tell it to each other, the author can tell it to me and get on with it.

Ditto, endless descriptions and reiterations of the characters' internal emotional states. I'm sure you've seen it. One character delivers a line of dialogue. The second character ruminates about what they mean by it for half a page or more. The second character emits a line of dialogue. The first character blathers on about it internally for another full page. Et cetera. This does not happen in real life. People do not normally process sixteen different emotionally significant things between sentences.

Equally bad: books where the omniscient narrator interrupts every conversation between Farley and Genevieve -- and they have a lot of conversations -- to remind us that Farley is so insecure that he has trouble believing anyone could love him, while Genevieve is laboring under the mistaken belief that Farley is in love with her second cousin Earlene. Since we have been reminded of this repeatedly over the course of the book, and slogged through a half-dozen scenes that exist only to illustrate the point, it seems downright unkind of the author to assume we need to hear it again. If this were a Warner cartoon, one of the characters would by now have produced a gun and shot the narrator, just to shut them up.

Here's my list:
1. Virgin hero in a modern book (especially if she's looking @ 30)

2. The "gay for you" trope

3. A full figured heroine that only thinks about her weight

4. Polyamour with brothers (I've only read a few that actually didn't skeeve me out)

5. LOVE bdsm books but why oh why does everyone have a club? The ones I love are where the it's not an activity but actually who the characters are, if you know what I mean.

My peeves that can drive me from a book...

1. As listed above, I cannot read a series if I do not start from the beginning. The first book may stink on ice, but I always read the first 2 in a series, then decide..

2. Am I the only person who is totally bothered by dog earred pages? Ugg...like there Ian't SOME scrap of paper a person can use to mark their spot? It totally bothers me and if I pick up a used book that has a bunch of them, I won't read it.

3. Torn dust jackets. Honestly, I'm not sure why... Maybe its because I grew up relatively poor and books were gifts or borrowed from a library, they were to be respected...or, maybe I'm just mental...

4. Book reviews that are FULL of spoilers. If I read one that tells me all the high plot points, chances are I won't read the book. I'd have no interest in it after I already know what will happen. Don't get me wrong, I live a tease, but don't spoil the story!

5. Ok, I may be in the minority, but when it comes to series, I LOVE the cliffhanger! That's one of the reasons I keep coming back!

6. Ok...I love a good "take me someplace I've never been" fantasy type book, but please, give me some roots! I love a book that after I read some and need to run an errand, I wonder things like "I bet that's what such & such character's home would look like" or "this would be the song they danced to". Let the story involve me so much that it li.here with me even after i've finished reading it...

7. Cussing in a story for no other reason than to swear. Look, if the character is frustrated because the plan didn't work, ok, give me the "Damn!" But if the character stunned their toe, I don't have to read the curse to know they may have muttered it.

8. Ok...if its a YA romance and the characters have come to a point where they decide to sleep together, well, seriously, you don't have to leave a gap & frustrate the readers. Chances are, if the reader is old enough to read & grasps the emotional concepts that brought the characters to that point, chances are they'll be okay reading it. However, write it classy, don't make it nasty, don't drop those "C" words to describe things. If the author thinks the characters were ready, then they should be able to write it, too.

9. Predictability. Hate it. I love twists, turns, plays on assumptions. Let me guess, let the wonder stick with me all day so I can't wait to read more.

Oooh - good question!

Regarding other readers:
1) Dog-earring books. I will not lend books to folks who don't know what a book mark is!
2) Not recognizing that I'm never going to read that high-brow literary book about a self-loathing man's desire to get laid.

Regarding authors: 1) Telling, not showing. Drives me nuts.
2) Misogeny/racism/etc., and pretending to be so sympathetic to a cause by including the most obnoxiously tokenized gay and other minority characters.
3) Creating fake sympathy by having the heroine be abused and/or raped in her past (especially when it's not well dealt with and has no repercussions in the plot). I guess it's a form of telling, not showing.
4) Silly names.
5) Forced humour on every line. We get it! You think you're hilarious! Bah. You're not. At least not to everyone. Tone it down!
6) Saying 'I love you' after three days.
7) TSTL main characters!

Regarding books themselves:
1) Hard cover
2) Insane prices

Funny enough, I actually love a lot of things that are dealbreakers for other readers - first person narrative, cliff-hangers, etc.

I do not have much choice on books right now; I can choose between daisy/text books and talking books from library of congress etc. It can be good or bad; I do not have a million bucks to buy books so what I read is basically stuff from a library where I get to keep it once I download it. I have put off trying to get e books to work; I have not researched whether or not I can get a version to work on my Victor Reader... If I don’t look I wont be tempted, I am rather weird about what I read, my books collection right now is kinda too big. (Text does not take up a lot of disk space.) Deal breakers for me: 1. Absolutely idiotic heroines. I so hate books where the heroine is a ninny... I recently deleted a book right off my victor and computer after reading 45% of it because it ticked me off so bad. It was book 2 out of like 20 in this series; I had been keeping an eye out to read books I had been missing. I saw it and went Ooo I have not read it lemme read it. I so wish I hadn’t, I have read some books where I think the MC is a moron, but seriously this ... It was like girl meets guy, finds out what he is, the soul mate thing happens, she wont accept it, she runs from it, keeps denying it even though it is painfully obvious, keeps denying it till she almost gets whacked, then wow! True love so grand... I know I am cynical, but seriously how many times does someone have to be whacked with the duh stick to get something that is supposed to be obvious and why the hell do people find that entertaining? I can see denying it a couple of times, but not so strong it seems fake... 2. Cheater themes, just no. I do not know why, but people find that to be okay. It may be my personal history or beliefs but nope aint cool at all. I had a 4 books series I was reading; it was entertaining till book 2. I shoulda known in book 1 when the heroine slept with the hero even though he was engaged and it was simply an arranged marriage. Then those two get together, the heroine ends up cheating on the hero ... he cheats on her with this other chick... I admit I cheated and skimmed through the last 2 books and just went “no thanks funny aint worth enough for that to me”. I read summaries and if I see anything like that I do not read it. 3. Before my stroke when I could still see I was so not particular about how a book looked, if it was readable I read it. I remember reading a book in pieces; it was a paper back and was like 800 pages I think. It was poorly made so the binding broke and it broke the book up into like 100 pages here 20 pages there... I slogged through it and read it all. 4. Graphic novels... not that I would not read them if they go along with a series I have read, but I just can’t so it is massively frustrating since I feel I might be missing something. 5. Cussing is like anything if you over use it it loses its oomph. I read a book, it was like 5 or 6 in a series... each book ties into a whole but each book is a pair of characters that ties into it. The two MC’s in this book, well the heroine was cool but the hero said the f word like in every sentence... Using it to emphasize yeah I get it, but saying it every 5 words gets old. Dunno why some people are using that to make a character seem tougher or something. There was another book I read where the hero was the same way, he was supposed to be a cop... The character development was shot if she used using the f word all the time to make him look tough. 6. Obvious stuff, like the bad guy is totally bad guy looking, if I made sense with that. Following the guidelines for a something like “How to create and write a vampire in books”, replacing vampire with were wolf, stuff like that. Yeah there are some characteristics people use to let the reader know what or who somethin is, but some originality would be so nice. For instance to know someone is a vamp they got fangs, k expand on that some please and do not add every misconception listed for vamps to it while you are at it. I came up with a whole big list about this and I so do not need to share my silliness. 7. Reading books outta order, I do not always get this... I will read a series if a book sounds good. Like if I look at the new books list for the site I get the majority of my books from and find book 10 has an interesting plot I will go to the list to see how many there are and get 1 first and work my way through. I have done it before where I will read a series that has no 1 book; my limit is missing 1 book outta the whole series. Deal breaker for me is missing 2 in a row... I feel I would miss too much, if I am just missing 1 book I can make it up.

You guys! ALL of these things are on my dealbreakers list, too--actually, I cannot stand dog-earing pages SO MUCH I will not start a book unless I have an accompanying bookmark. And unless I know where the bookmark is AT ALL TIMES during the reading of the book, I am not comfortable. It's a phobia, honestly.

And I absolutely WILL NOT read a series out of order, and feel like I cheated if I do, accidentally. And the pleasure I got out of reading the book is diminished.

We'll definitely do a post addressing the dealbreakers inside the book, too, which some of you mentioned. Adultery, TSTL, feisty, silly names0--so many issues! Thanks for all your comments.

No dealbreakers for me. While I prefer to read a series in order, I will read out of order if not given a choice. Although I think e-readers are easier to hold, I did carry Wolf Hall around in hardcover until I thought I'd need rotator cuff surgery. I dog ear (although I'm careful to use a bookmark if I've borrowed a book from Megan). I've read books held together by a rubber band. I do have content dealbreakers, but I'll save those for later. Just give me a book and I'll make do. I once signed myself out of a hospital against medical advice because I had nothing to read.

This is probably going to sound ridiculous, but I hate previous marriages for my heroines...

@Eb__Rai

I'm right with there regrading virgins. I was reading a book that I was looking forward to, and then when it was revealed that she was a virgin I threw the book across the room and stopped reading it cold.

I do not read a series out of order. Even if I have the series and a new book comes out I have to start with the first book in the order.

Though not a dealbreaker because I don’t know until I buy the book and start reading it, but, I absolutely hate looking at a Yummy Guy on the front cover of a book and then reading the book and the character does not even come close to the Yummy Guy on the front (i.e. wrong color hair, etc.). What’s up with that?

I sooo agree with you Good Witch...Hate when cover art does not even remotely resemble the discription of a hero/heroine!!!!
Also.....when there are silly editing errors in a book...these people are professional WRITERS, I KNOW they have people that read their books before they are published. Why is it no one noticed that you used the wrong name for the heroine in the book...more then once!!! ugh,that drove me crazy LL!!!
My other dealbreaker is if the hero is soooo ME MAN,YOU WOMAN you want to wring his neck...HINT CHRISTINE FEEHAN.....I love her GAME books, but seriously thought about giving it up with the last hero....ugh
When an author starts a new series and you know she/he is all kinds of excited about it but its NO WHERE near as good as the previous one and now you have to wait even LONGER for the good series....ugh.
YA books...teenage angst? no thanks had that enough 20 yrs a go...
Not dealbreakers to me..... yellow-ish pages, as long as the book is old
Cliffhangers....LOVE THEM...keeps me coming back!

"Comfort read" books. You know the ones. The 'taller' mass market paperbacks. I *hate* those with a passion! Make it standard MM or TPB size. No in-between *grumbles* I also can't stand people that bend the covers of books back to the back cover. Makes me wince! And, as I've gotten more picky about my books, yeah, less dog-earing and taking care of a dust jacket is a necessity!

I don't like reading series' out of order. If it's a collection, then that's fine, but series? Nope. Have to start from book one.

As for in the book itself, I don't like chest-thumping alpha males coupled with limp-wristed females. One woman in a store recommended a book to me and in the first chapter or so, the FMC essentially gets kidnapped by the MMC because it's one of those "chosen bride" sort of things but she was such a simp I couldn't stomach it. I also don't like, well, not sure what to call this. It's not quite an anachronism, but the male lead was from an isolated viking-like society and had to have the word "Cool!" explained to him. However, when he and the FMC were finally going at it later in the story, he knew exactly what she wanted when she used a slangish term for oral sex. Explain that one to me. I also don't like the notion of a gay couple needing a member of the opposite sex to suddenly reach a new level of fulfillment in their relationship. It's like, you were fine before, what do you need her (since it's usually 'her,' but not always) for?

I'm sure there's more, but that's about all I can think of at the moment. Good bit has already been said, but for now, those are my biggies.

I won't read a series of books unless I can get at least the first three books, even if it's a relatively new series. I need to have the others on standby in case I like the first one. I will absolutly not read a book if within the first three pages there are more than 10 adjectives about one character. If the cover art is just a set of abs without a face I won't read a book. It feels like the author's content wasn't good enough to sell the book so the publisher place something pretty to attract the reader. When the heroine is perfect, I understand that the heroine needs to be likable but when she is so smart and so pretty and so great it makes me instantly hate her. Oh, in series when the author comes to the book for the 'bad guy' and they totally changes that character's personality. And last but not least when an author of a romance book puts a page of romance into the entire book, I feel like I wasted my time and energy evolving with a character if the author builds the tension and all you get is "he took her in his arms and made her his" It literally makes me want to scream in frustration.

Here are some dealbreakers for me.

I dislike weird or idiotic names. For me they take away from how I envision the character. When I read the words where the hero and heroine speak to each other, I'd like for them to be able to say each other's name without stumbling over a lot of syllables, because I have to stumble over them too. By the time I figure it out, I'm tired!

A series that started out in paperback and switches to hardcover. That means all of my books are out of alignment on my shelf. Later the publisher offers the paperbacks in hardcover. Really? I don't have that kind of money just to make my collection match!

I abhor creased spines, dog eared and yellow pages and creased covers on paperbacks

I'd rather trade paperbacks and mass market instead of hardcovers

Only one good author in an anthology. The publishers give you a leading author and the rest are below par. I don't mind discovering new authors, but this has got to stop!

An author's story offered in an anthology is later offered as a stand alone e-book and you have the anthology. Only you paid more for the book. This is so wrong!

Cover art that doesn't remotely relate to the story

No matter how good the recommendation is for a YA book, I won't read it. The only exception is The Chronicles of Nick and that's because I met Nick in The Dark Hunter series. His YA story is related to the DH books.

Typos, typos, typos! What's with those! In this day and age you'd think editors could do better. One or two, but no more. Don't they care about what they put out here.

Bed-hopping heroes and heroines. I can't stand that! He may as well be a manwhore and she may as well be a slut.

I like kids, but I'm not particularly stepkids. I just want the hero and heorine to build a family of their own.

I like Alpha males, but not to the point of them being cavemen.

No wimpy, crying, sniveling heroines. I can't stand that. I like a heoine who can stand on her own two feet.

I hate threesomes, no matter the gender combination. They can be written by a favorite author or have a good recommendation. It doesn't matter. They just turn me off!

I hate it when an author is writing a series and doesn't give an update on the previous couple. I want to know what's going on with them.

No Sci-Fi ever! Can't read it. Movies are fine.

A character from another book completely takes over another characters book. I don't get enough of the story that I bought the book for. A great example of this is Lover Unleashed. Everytime I look at that book on my bookshelf, I get mad. I'll never read it again. It was supposed to be the love story of Manny & Payne, instead it turned out to be all about Vishous. I so love him, but it wasn't his book!

I'm sure if I think about it I could write a long list, but for now I'll just say that I absolutely cannot get into any kind of paranormal romance...the characters have to be normal human beings, with their only extraordinary skills being of the Jack Bauer variety---period.
(I'm a huge fan of the romantic suspense genre, particularly with military and special agent Alpha Males.)

I have actually begun reading books not realizing the characters were going to be gifted with magical powers, and upon discovering this, immediately put the book down and said, "Yeeeah...that's okay. Thanks anyway." (I keep wanting to read Cherry Adair's T-Flac series, but the paranormal stuff just keeps stopping me cold.)

Funny thing is, I love sci fi and fantasy everywhere else, just not in my RS stories...there has to be at least the notion that these characters could possibly exist...For me, there's enough fantasy involved in the fact that the guys are always perfect-looking hard bodies with unbelievable bedroom talent, bad-ass special-ops skills, unshakable integrity and loyalty to their service (and their comrades) and undying and committed love for their women.
(They don't have to be able to shapeshift, read minds or breathe fire, as well.)

On a similar note, I don't like it when these same type of stories feature fake government agencies sending agents out to fictional third-world countries, etc. Not exactly a deal breaker, since as long as it's not magical, I'll still read it, but it feels kind of lazy on the part of the writer...you decided to write about crackerjack government agents fighting terrorists, but you didn't feel like researching anything about the real CIA or FBI, so you made up the "Bureau of Governmental Security"? Really? And where exactly is the country of "Ammenikanistan" (with its oppressive regime) located, anyway?

I like historical romances, too..but again, I like the ones that feature real places, no magic spells, and if the author has real historical events (like a war) occurring in the background, that's a bonus.

Before reading the book? Well, dog-eared pages are my #1 irritant, unless I'm buying (or have received) the book used, then I'll give a lot of leeway on condition. It still annoys me, though. If I loan a book out, it goes with a bookmark and the request to use it. I keep a nice-sized stash of bookmarks, :>.
I agree on the getting a book in the middle of a series and it is doubly irritating when the first in the series is either in an out of print anthology or just out of print.
First person used to bother me a lot but I've gotten where I will read one now but my daughter won't touch one.
Names are sometimes a big turn-off for me, ex: Destiny, Chastity, Desiree and jewel names, very off-putting. Or unpronounceable names, if there are no vowels in it, please give some kind of indication how to pronounce it, PLEASE!
Stupid titles that have nothing to do with anything, some don't even make sense!
And, Please, do we really need so many billionaire stories? I cannot possibly conceive how a person exists with a billion dollars to deal with but I'm sure it ain't easy! Your family can be very eccentric and only be worth a million or less. A figure I'm much more capable of wrapping my mind around. Billionaires are not regular people, I cannot believe that! And inevitably one of them talks about how money isn't everything. Of course it's not if you have a billion dollars! Try living on $20,000 a year then explain how unimportant money is!
I guess that's my rant for today. :D

I don't read series out of order.
I rarely buy anything but e-books now since I live a life of moving constantly & have no room to pack physical books.
TOTALLY agree with other commenters to this effect: "Pet peeves: in the middle of a series going from trade paperback to hardcover and no digital edition, or the worst.....only digital in one format (like publishing for Kindle and therefore no other reader can download the book)."
I don't care for paranormal stories, or time travel. I'm not a big fan of mistaken identities either. That whole "I couldn't tell you, then I didn't know how, yada, yada, yada..." It worked in the movie "While You Were Sleeping" and that's about it, for me!
And, I'm not wild about stupid titles either, especially the "Billionaire" ones - how ridiculous!

Since this is about deal breakers before you read the book, I have to say: I really don't like to read series out of order either. In addition, I really hate to read the "blurb" on the back of the book that describes the heroine as intrepid. That just means she's going to go stumbling into trouble and expect our hero to bail her out, but be too proud to say thank you for saving by butt! Also don't like when a book is not availabe for my favorite e-reader! Drives me nuts! Not a big fan of we were married and now we're divorced, but we still love each other, so let's get married again books. What's the point?

I won't read a book if it doesn't catch my interest within the first fifty pages. To me it doesn't matter where I start in a book series if each book is about an individual character of that series or even if it's part of an overall series. It's easy to follow the flow from that point on and usually authors make mention in some way of what happens in a previous books so it is easy to piece things together.

My main gripe is horrendously expensive books, both paper and electronic. Especially electronic. There is NO reason that an electronic book should be as expensive as a paper copy.

Poor editing. I used to edit, it makes me crazy when I have to stop because someone has not been doing their job and I catch it, especially more than once.

Stupid characters. Everyone knows not to go out in the woods on the full moon if your area has werewolves. Vampires lurk at night. Tempting fate may be fun but there is fun and then there is just plain stupid. The bad guy is there for drama, but there are some characters that are so dumb that I have to put the book down.

Plagerism. I have only burned one book in my life. It was a fantasy book written so much like one of the Lord of the Rings books, it was like reading it all over again. Seven heros, a quest, a silver ring, elves, dwarfs, dragon, orcs. The whole thing. I read 2/3 of it and then got the barbque starter. I have no use for the lack of originality coupled with theft of material.

Ok, it takes a bit to take me out of a book. I do not have a problem with reading out of order. I read most of Mercedes Lackey Valdemar series completely out of order. Though these days I do read them in chronological order (time in book not publication date). What gets me and I do mean gets me. I suppose that it is the fangirl in me. Breaking canon. Mixed race spidey...yep. The whole SW clone wars...won't watch it. Chronicles of Nick I'm having trouble reading. I don't care that Sherrilyn Kenyon is creating an alternate universe. I'm actually fine with that. What bothers me is that Nick who is only a few years younger than me is using a cellphone, texting, and shopping for Farragamo (sp) on the internet it the early 90s. Cellphones were few and far between in the early 90s. Texting wasn't even a dream. And shopping on the internet wasn't what it is today. I understand that she is trying to appeal to a younger generation, but it truly bugs me. Oh and I totally agree with Shadowfox. The story had better grip from the beginning or right back to the used bookstore you go. Everything else I can deal with.

Ok I agree with most of what everyone is saying, and why I do not like it none of the above irratants are a real deal breaker to me. I am an extremely loyal reader once you get me hooked and will continue to read a series even if the story goes down hill. So I was orginally thinking I had no true deal breakers, then last night I started a new book and found my deal breaker (which I had come across before and forgotten about). It is the wimpy girl. I Hate that. I feel like saying grow a spine, and cannot stand a wimpy heroine and so that would be my deal breaker. Needless to say last nights book has been put down never to be picked back up.

My biggest turn offs while reading is constant misspellings, and grammatical errors… I know that I spell things incorrectly, and I know my grammar isn’t the best, but if you have people that are being paid to check these things, shouldn’t they be doing their job? Did anybody read that book “The Nanny”? (They later made a movie based on it.) The book wasn’t my usual cup of tea to begin with, but that book was so bad, that it became a game for me while reading, to go thru with ink and mark the changes. Now I know how my high school English teacher felt.

If a story changes tense I will stop reading. I once read something that everyone was raving about and it had two inter-connected storylines one in the past and one in the present problem was that the bit set in the present was written in third person past tense but the storyline in set in the middle ages was in third person present tense. I read the first 2 chapters and gave up in disgust. The only one worse was a fre Kindle book that changed from past to present tense half-way through the story and randomly moved from first to third person, but I think the problem there was the formatting rather than ineptness.

I tend to read books in a series because I like the opportunity for greater character development than what is available in a stand-alone book, so I try very hard to read them in order. There is one series (15 books and counting) that I haven't been able to find book #2, so I have read the remaining 14, and I figure if I ever do find #2, maybe my brain will ease the timeline in place for me. So, I wouldn't call it an absolute dealbreaker, but I have been known to put several books on hold until I find I'll be able to obtain the rest of their 'companions'. The dealbreaker in series reading for me has been a change in format. I was thoroughly enjoying the anticipated release of book #3 in a romantic comedy series only to find out that the series would continue in "graphic novel" form. I didn't read comic books as a kid; I have no interest in starting now, so I deleted that series from my reading list. I don't read anything that is "pulled from the headlines", "a true-life story" or a "docudrama". I have plenty of real life in my real life; give me paranormal romance, urban fantasy and science fiction and I'm a happy girl.

For me, the dealbreaker is when the blurb describes the hero or heroine as physically flawed yet the cover models are lithe, sexy or muscular. For example, the heroine is overweight yet the cover model is slim, wearing low cut dresses or strategically draped in a sheet, revealing a gorgeous expanse of back or leg. The story will still be good but it annoys me that the publishers feel they must present an unrealistic view of the main characters.

Also, series that drag on forever. Nora Roberts In Death series is up to book 30 something, last count. For me, it is too long and I can never find all the books in order and after a while, even with Roberts storytelling, it becomes tedious.