Top Ten Tuesday--Bookish Pet Peeves

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
I rarely do these because I am horrible at making lists. I either can't think of anything, or I can't narrow it down to just ten. But this week's topic is Top Ten Bookish Pet Peeves, and I just couldn't keep my nose out of this one.


1. Death. Not just general death, but death of a close family member or friend. This is why I don't read Sparks (anymore). I've watched enough people die in real life, and as real as it may be, I don't want to read about it. It's a sickening reminder. I hate it. (There are exceptions, but few. Most of the exceptions are made for paranormal, but the occasional contemporary author does it right. coughHannahMoskowitzcough.)

2. Dog-earred pages. If you want to dog ear your own books, be my guest (but I do think you're disrespecting its poor little pages), but if you ever borrow a book of mine and dog-ear a page, prepare to hear about it. Dog-earred pages in library books piss me off too. That book needs to last a long time, why speed the deterioration process?!

3. Too descriptive when it's completely unnecessary. The Sookie Stackhouse series is a perfect example of this. Great story there, but do I need a page and a half talking about Sookie's shower and grooming process? No. I don't.

4. Love triangles. So. Overdone! Please just, no. And if you're going to do it, don't have it be the protag's best friend's boyfriend, or their boyfriend's best friend. I know betrayal creates conflict, but that kind of betrayal just makes me want to close the book. And if you're going to do that, don't wrap a bow on it at the end. Most of those situations in real life simply do not end with the best friends hugging it out. Sorry.

5. Characters with their author's music taste. I love classic rock. I know some people who love the Beatles. But if I had a nickel for every sixteen year old character who loved the Beatles...oy. Today's music sucks, in general. Yeah, I get that. But the majority of teens actually enjoy it. Somehow.

6. Washed up monsters. Vampires, werewolves, fallen angels, gods and goddesses. Creatures that are monsters or assholes at heart but have a constant inner conflict and want nothing more than to be human again, so they fall for some klutzy little plain Jane.

7. Girls who melt at the sight of their crush. Shallow much? (Maybe I'd melt at the physical sight of Taeyang, but hey, we aren't talking about me.) I know teens are hormonal. I remember. But damn. Look for some substance!

8. Disappointing sequels. Absolutely falling in love with a first book, only to be absolutely letdown by the second, really really sucks.

9. Cliffhangers. Yeah, I get it. You need us hyped up for the next book. But here's the thing. If I loved your first book, I'm going to get the next one. It doesn't matter if you actually gave the book an ending. I will want to know what happens next. It is just me, or does it seem like EVERY new Paranormal YA has a cliffhanger? I'm over it.

10. Reviews that summarize the book. I don't want to step on any toes here, but I can't count how many times I've read reviews, and there was a spoiler in there that the reviewer didn't warn us about. It makes me not want to read reviews. If you're going to have spoilers, a spoiler warning is necessary, in my humble opinion. Summarizing the story almost always spoils something for me.

And because I can't stop there...
11. Authors who treat their readers like bothersome minions. Often on Twitter I see certain authors (won't name drop) answering questions from readers, and their answers are extremely condescending. It makes me want to take all your books I bought and sell them, rather than read them.

12. Small and/or cramped font. I've gotten a few books for review that I couldn't finish, simply because the layout of the pages didn't work for me. Cramped font gives me a headache.

13. (And I'll stop here, I promise) People who rate a YA book one star, based on foul language and/or sex. I'm not saying you have to like it! I'm not saying you have to agree with it! By all means, we're all entitled to our opinions and moral standards. My issue is when someone rates a book one star and says something like "After the second f-bomb in the first chapter, I closed the book." Or "It opened with a makeout scene, I didn't finish it" I could actually expand this and say, people who rate a book based on any single aspect, rather than the book as a whole.

Of course there are some books I absolutely love that I've made exceptions for on most of these things.
What are some of your pet peeves?