Top Ten Tuesday: Not So Petty Reasons I’ve DNF’d a Book or Reduced its Rating

Deciding to DNF [did not finish] a book or to give it a lesser rating is often provoked by pet peeves–some within a specific genre, some in general.

The Biggies

• Mangling of titles & forms of address in a book about such people (calling someone Lord John who isn’t the son of a Duke or a Marquess or calling the wife of Sir Timothy Someone “Lady Viola”–she would be “Lady Someone”)
• Historical errors (like a salon clouded with hairspray in the WWII era–neither hairspray nor aerosol cans were invented yet!) [I wouldn’t dnf for one this small, but any additional I’d downgrade the rating. Fact-checking needs to make a comeback]
• People having thoughts way out of synch with their times or too prescient of future events
• ICK…unless I’m reading a book on someone today called a s_x worker and the book centers on that individual’s work–tone it down. Everyone enjoys doing the act–but lots of folks don’t enjoy reading about doing the act. Here’s why:
  • It’s gross
  • It sounds ridiculous
  • It’s gross
• Harming children or animals

The Little Things

• Miraculously finding someone in the midst of a revolution or similar
• “Oh come on!” coincidences
• Making everyone in the USA not in Seattle, LA, NY, Boston or maybe DC talk like they’re from the Deep South–y’all etc. It’s a big country. We talk funny in different ways. Ditto only having smart, successful people in these areas. Virtue signally about how these are the ONLY places a civilized being could live in the USA.
• [Not knowing before hand that the book has] woman hiding in plain sight as a man. Yes, there “are” historical occurrences, and I can think of ONE believable such book, but think about it:
  • How did this person pee, hide mensuration, bathe in a river/lake (seems always to happen in these books)
  • How did the person keep a low enough voice?
• Stupid character names like “Spit” or “Froggie” or something unless the book is set in Appalachia or the British aristocracy
• Mothers-in-law and old women as the butt of every joke
• Librarians always having a bun and glasses and tacky out-of-style clothing
• Christians or Christianity being portrayed only as bad–bad people come in every group. EVERY group.
• Books equating a certain election with the downfall of the humanity. We lived. Move on. Don’t let it happen again.
• ICK scenes–other things:
  • Only in novel with a romance between two men did anyone ever stop to use a condom
  • Women who have unprotected s_  x never get pregnant and never get up to pee after s – x
  • No one ever needs lube [ICK!! but….]
  • No one ever washes before acts that really should involve a little freshening up unless it’s in the street and they are paying someone

Stuff I’ve Noticed That Doesn’t Affect My Rating or Reading

• Even books set today, right now, this minute, people in books ALWAYS have a landline (you can’t get one where I live except with cable)
• No one ever has to stop and find $ or move $ from savings to checking  or max out a credit card for an airline ticket that costs more than they earn in the next few months.
  • They always live somewhere with cabs to get them to the airport
  • They never have to go home and get their passport
  • They are never on stand-by
  • Airport security is never a big deal, if it is even mentioned
• Women wear dresses a lot
• Men are forever “tenderly tucking a lock of hair” behind a woman’s ear.
• Really random law books in attorney offices in tv shows or films. Seriously random. And, lawyers have done research online for DECADES now.
• Old ladies still being called “Mildred” or “Gertie” or “Ethel” instead of the names of the late 1920s to early 1940s. Old ladies being dressed like old ladies in a bygone era. Go to a nursing home–funeral home rain bonnets went out a long time ago. So did hard-soled oxfords. Good grief!

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