For me, shitty style / lazy writing make me put a book down immediately. I was raised on the worship of style you find in writers like Flaubert or Nabokov (who also happened to have deplorable political views) and I can’t shake it.

Others commented here recently that making every female character in a story into a sex object is a bad thing.

What are some reasons you’ll put a book down after you’ve spent at least a little time giving it a try?

  • poppy_apocalypse [he/him, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Starting with backstory. "Joe Doritos parents worked in the mines, his grandfather was a fisherman and his grandmother washed clothes. Before them, his relatives were farmers..."

    • anaesidemus [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      you'd love the Sagas lol, every character starts with a detailed description of ancestry and reason for nickname.