Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Oh I'm so glad you asked about this, whether it's tropes I'm not a fan of or things that bother me in books in general I definitely have a long list of bookish pet peeves...
1. Characters who are teachers but still have the time to do all the things a main character with any other job would do-there's no way all of these things can happen to a teacher on a weeknight, stop making them have no sleep!
2. Speaking of things that aren't real-unrealistic sex scenes! I know that we read to escape and I'm all for Hollywood glamour in a sex scene but sometimes it's just too far removed from reality and it will literally make me DNF a book if it's just too unrealistic!
3. Geographical inaccuracies. If a book is based in a real place and has characters travelling from one place to another, please make it happen within a realistic timeline. I can't stand when characters pop to New York and somehow have all the time in the world despite the fact that the flight there is long, it takes a while to get from the airport into the city and then there's no accounting for time differences and jet lag!
4. If we combine the previous 2, we get characters who travel to places and magically start living and working there with no explanation of visas or immigration issues. Again refers back to my previous comment about escapism but I cannot stand when people just decide to move to LA and suddenly they're just employed and buying a house-life doesn't work like that!
5. Bad or inappropriate audiobook narrators...enough said!
6. The 'there's only one bed' trope. Now sometimes this can be a lot of fun like in The Flatshare for example but usually I'm capable of sharing a bed with someone without having to fall into a relationship with them. If it's done right it can be good but on the whole it's not my favourite trope!
7. Books without any characters who aren't straight and white, it's not the world we live in and I want my world reflected in what I read.
8. Fat phobia in books. Even in books with characters who are supposed to be fat and proud or books that claim they are body positive we still have a great deal of fat phobia especially in books involving relationships. Characters having to leave the lights off or hide themselves when they're with a partner for the first time or not having anything to wear so not going out. We have ways around this now and a book that claims to be body positive should not have fat phobia in it.
9. Long chapters. I just can't do long chapters. I hate stopping in the middle of a chapter and authors take note, I am much more likely to read your book in one sitting if the chapters are short enough to make me say those immortal words 'one more chapter' over and over again.
10. Books with the same settings over and over again. There are more places to set a book other than Cornwall or London in the UK and there are more places to set a book other than New York City or Maine in the US!
Please PLEASE let me know that you share some of these or at least have enough bookish pet peeves to fill a list of 10 too!
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