Top Ten Tuesday: My Top Ten Turn Offs

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

Here are the top then things that will make me instantly not want to read a book (in no particular order):

1. A BAD COVER – This includes boring covers, covers that depict half naked men, most with any type of floral arrangement, too-perfect pool or beach scenes, and mythological creatures. Finally, if the cover looks like something pulled out of a 1980’s Summer’s Eve commercial (think woman running through a spring meadow, alighted with the newfound freedom she enjoys since being introduced to this life-changing product), you can rest assured that I will NOT be reading that book!
2. ROMANCE – I’m sorry. I just cant take it. I used to sneak into my aunt’s bedroom to flip through to the steamy parts of her Harlequin romance novels when I was younger but now I’m old and cynical. I know that these stories are all a bunch of unrealistic crap. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a book that is heavy on the romance is miscategorized into one of my preferred genres thereby tricking or trapping me into reading it. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about books where there is some type of love story; many of the books I read have some sort of romantic component. I’m talking about the sickly sweet “I quivered as his strong hand touched the curve of my ample bosom.” b.s.
3. EROTICA – I’m just not interested. It’s not that I’m a prude; far from it. Since getting through as much of Fifty Shades of Gray as I could stomach, I’ve come to the opinion that books such as those are simply marketed and meant to give housewives permission to enjoy porn. Here’s the thing: They don’t need permission. Porn is legal. If porn is what you’re looking for, just get to the real stuff already. Why sit through hours of reading a crappy book?? I mean seriously, (SPOILER AND SEXY TALK ALERT) this is the story: A rather plain girl meets a billionaire who pretty much immediately falls in love with her. Though he’s into the kinky stuff, he holds off because she is a virgin. During their first sexual encounter, she has an orgasm via nipple stimulation alone. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? That was my enough is enough point so I have no idea what happened after that.
4. SERIES – I seem to avoid them for various reasons. The first is that the subsequent books in a series are usually not as good as the first. Also, I’m like Dory the fish when it comes to books. I become to distracted by the new shinier books and I don’t want to read the follow-ups. Then I have guilt and the anxiety of wondering if I’m missing out. It’s all just very stressful…
5. BOOKS WITH A LOT OF TECHNOLOGY – This encompasses things like space travel, robotics, complicated computer jargon, time travel machines, etc. These are just not my thing.
6. BOOKS ABOUT LIFE ON THE HIGH SEAS – I simply do not gravitate toward sea adventure books. I read a lot of historical fiction and there are sometimes longish chapters about traveling from one continent to another by ship. I frequwntly find myself bored reading these even when I’m enjoying the book. I haven’t read Moby Dick and I probably never will.
7. CHICK LIT – AKA women’s fiction, is no longer a favorite of mine. There’s nothing wrong with it. I used to read tons of it. I’ve just moved on. I need something a bit more substantive these days.
8. PARANORMAL – I can enjoy some sci-fi, even some magical realism. Ghosts, however, are a no-go for me.
9. BOOKS THAT MISREPRESENT OR OFFEND – If I see even a couple of posts, tweets, reviews, etc., that a certain book is offensive to any group of marginalized people it alleges to represent, I am not going to read it.
10.  SELF-HELP – While I think these books can be immensely helpful, I’m just over them. Here’s the problem for me: Even though most have some really great ideas, these ideas are not as easily put into practice for a sustained period of time as would be necessary to effect long-term change in our lives. And I don’t have the attention span necessary to get through them. I find it more helpful to Google and consider snippets posted from a variety of sources.  This is generally true for me with regard to books about both emotional and physical health. The exception to this is The Four Agreements by Don Migueal Ruiz. I believe everyone can benefit from reading that book. It’s one of the only books I have read more than once.