Top Ten Topics That Will Make Me Not Pick Up a Book

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s topic is REWIND, so I picked a topic from 2013 that I liked the sound of: Top Ten Words/Topics That Will Make You Not Pick Up a Book.

I’d like to say right now that all of these ideas have a giant PROBABLY next to them. While I don’t love these tropes/concepts/ideas, if a book sounds interesting enough (or comes highly recommended) I will get over my dislike and read it.

Also, I’m not insulting any specific book or author, and I don’t have a problem with you if you like these trends. This is my personal taste in books.

1. Time Travel — I don’t know what it is about the idea of a time travel book that turns me off so much. I love Doctor Who. But the idea of reading a book surrounding time travel just doesn’t work for me.

2. Framed for a Murder She Didn’t Commit — Nope. Nope. Nope. I hate this trope no matter the form. I have literally stopped watching TV shows when they add this as a subplot. Why? It is STRESSFUL and I can’t handle it.

3. Dystopian — I used to love dystopians, right around the time that everyone loved them. I think I’ve read too many of them now, and I just don’t feel compelled to read them. The set-up doesn’t feel original or creative anymore.

4. Twin Anything — This one is personal. I’m a twin, and it’s a really big part of my life, something I don’t really know how to put into words. I hate reading stories that involve twins, especially if they fall apart or die or anything like that. I don’t want those ideas in my mind.

5. …or did she? — Any description that ends with “or did he/she” will probably keep me from reading the book. I am not a fan of unreliable narrators or stories that intentionally try to trick me, and this phrase is usually a giveaway for a story that I won’t like.

6. Amnesia — Another form of an unreliable narrator that doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t like the constant state of uncertainty that amnesia stories have, and they usually involve other things I don’t like (see #2 and #5).

7. Guy from Dreams Shows Up In Reality — This one bugs me because it usually leads into one of my least favorite scenes ever: character sees undeniable magic, spends the next twelve chapters trying to deny it. I feel like this kind of story would rely really heavily on denial, when as a reader, I’m just like, “You’re in a fantasy novel, magic is real, get over it.”

8. Blurring the lines between reality and magic — Have you noticed that I don’t like stories where I don’t know what’s going on? Yeah…I guess I’m a control freak or something. I really hate books where you can’t tell if it’s magic or mental illness or something else going on. I like magic. I want it to be magic. Don’t give me magic and then have it not be magic. Also, I would like to be able to follow the plot, not spend all my time trying to tell what is happening and what is a hallucination.

9. Steampunk — Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE steampunk. I love the costumes and the artwork. I went to Comic Con dressed as a steampunk fairy. However, the things I love about steampunk can’t really be transformed into a story, and the few steampunk-style stories have dramatically missed the mark.

10. Anything with high school cliques — This one just feels unrealistic for me. I go to a high school that has nearly 3,000 students. There are too many people for their to be a Queen Bee or one Popular Guy, or even for their to be a ruling clique. When a major part of the story relies on mean girls or “the hottest guy in school,” I roll my eyes and move on.

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What do you think? Do you love/hate any of these topics? What topics can YOU not stand?