Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week the theme is top ten things that will make me instantly NOT want to read a book. This is a hard list to come up with, as I don’t like sweeping generalizations. So there may be an exception or two, but in general, these are the things I usually avoid when picking out a book!
- Zombies. I hate zombies, and they give me nightmares, which is why I avoid The Walking Dead and almost all books that are primarily about the undead who walk around in the night.
- Womanizing, misogynistic men – If the primary character in a novel is a complete douchebag, especially in a romance, I will avoid it. If the male character glorifies women as objects and this is written by the author as romantic, I will not be a happy reader.
- Christian fiction – nothing is wrong with this genre, it’s just not for me.
- Apocalyptic contagious viruses – I love dystopian novels, but write a book about a flesh-eating virus that kills 99% of the population, and I will run far, far away.
- I find out the author is problematic – if an author says or does something that is sexist, racist, etc. I am not very inclined to pick up one of their books again.
- Same goes for the content – If a book is glaringly problematic in its treatment of PoC, people with disabilities, religious minorities, etc., I will avoid it, unless I am reading it for critical analysis purposes.
- Princess stories – I have never been into the pink, pretty princess books. Throw a huge, beautiful dress and crown on the cover, and I might never pick it up.
- Sappy animal stories – I love my pets dearly, but I’m not very interested in reading books about how much other people love their pets (or how much their pets love them). Therefore, I have never read Marley and Me, The Art of Racing in the Rain, or A Dog’s Purpose.
- Master/slave, or Nazi/prisoner “Romance” – I HATE this. See #6.
- Crafting books – I struggled coming up with #10, but there are a ton of non-fiction topics I don’t like, and crafting is pretty much at the top of the list!
4thhouseontheleft 
Well thought-out list! I completely agree with you about misogynistic characters, problematic authors and problematic content. And it only gets worse when the authors step in to defend it, automatically off my TRB list.
My TTT for this week.
Thanks for stopping by!
zombies are top of my list too
I have never, ever liked zombies.
Great list. I think number 1, 2, 5 and 9 would be on my list too.
#9 seems to be making a resurgence these days, which is incredibly annoying and frustrating.
Great list! Zombies are so low on my list of likes that I never even thought about them. I had royalty on my list, too.
I have a few exceptions for the royalty category (I read Of Fire and Stars this year), but not many.
I agree with almost every item on this list. haha. Zombies. Dystopian. Dogs’s life. Princesses unless they are biographies which is something I’ve never read anyway so there must be a reason for that. Damsel in distress situations. Yup, we avoid many of the same books 🙂
My list here: https://runwright.net/2017/04/25/books-to-avoid/
Don’t get me wrong, I love dystopians! Just not if it involves contagious disease. I can’t stand damsel in distress books.
Love the list. It’s crazy to me how reading everyone’s lists has opened my eyes to how picky I really am when it comes to choosing my books. I am seeing genre’s I didn’t even know existed, and topics I’ve never come across. Time to broaden my horizons!