Discussion What are things you read that make you instantly drop a novel?

Suppose you are going into a new novel without having read or heard anything about it. Is there something that is a red flag of sorts that makes you put it down immediately?

For example, recently I went to try reading Versatile Mage, but I dropped it in the first chapter. This was because I could tell immediately that this was a novel in which characters treat the main character with scorn for seemingly no reason. This is generally an indicator for me that this will be a novel where there is face slapping galore, arrogant young masters run amok, and characters are either villains or the main character's friends with no in-between. I think these elements are fine in moderation but I don't think they should be consistently driving your plot and defining your characters. It just seems lazy and gets old pretty quickly.

 

Kinda agree, and similar reason with you

 

For romance novels, cheating and misunderstanding are red flag for me.

 

For me, it's the fallen-from-grace protagonist who is derided by everyone. It's basically a foreshadowing of the MC's counterattack after chancing upon some divine item, and him face-slapping his way through dumb characters and repetitions to the very pinnacle of dragging out a story.

 

Yeah I agree, the plot is too forced that makes it annoying.

MC that's a pushover at the wrong time and fight back at the wrong time, arrogant enough to underestimate his enemies, make a decision that obviously would make him regret later on, there's a lot but that's the main one.

 

hmm...there are works in which the actions take place too quickly, in this case it becomes boring; too many dialogues; if there's no intrigue; typical mc without any character development
there lot's of reasons but these are the main

 

Unreasonable misunderstandings or fights and way too OP protagonists.
No character development.
White lotus.
Xenophobia.
Too possessive.
Harem.
Novels where everyone falls for MC even though its 1V1.
Novels where everyone falls for MC because of his appearance (especially after rebirth or transmigration)
MC's who act/are weak
Dog Blood Drama

 

Everyone wants to sleep with the MC. Seriously, just pair off among yourselves!

 

The same goes for me, these are exactly what I hate the most in romance novels. I especially hate Lord of End of World, a BL that is basically the compilation of those things mentioned above.

For action/cultivation novel, I dislike fast paced stories and ridiculously lucky MCs that accidentally discover treasure every 5 steps they take or unknowingly have someone protect them in the dark for no reason at all.

 

I finish every single novel I start. If it is a over 500 chapters novel, I of course don’t feel compelled to read to the end. But as a matter of personal policy, when I decide I’m going to read a novel, I try to read the whole thing. But in a slow-motion.

 

Whiny self-pitying MCs. When a novel starts out with a elaborate over the top bullying and/or betrayal scene, particularly one that has nothing to do with the actual plot, it immediately makes me drop the novel. Like those kicked out of the hero party openings, followed by leaving for a place the hero party will never appear in. When I see a beginning like that I just know that no matter how OP the MC gets, or how many beautiful women throw themselves at him, he'll stay a self-pitying wuss convinced he's the unluckiest person alive and no girl will ever like him.

This type of MC has been irritating me more the more of them I see, which is why I read very few Japanese WN now even though I used to love them.

 

The male lead says the word "Interesting" after meeting the female lead. I am so sick and tired of that kind of thing.

 

Ahh the classic OVERBEARING line HAHAHHAHA ↑↑↑

You all mentioned lots of red flags already.
Although I have the same policy as @Isaac20 before... But stumbling into reading unwanted stuff really irks me. So...yeah policy change.
I'll add my low tolerance for GROOMING. Although age gap is okay. Also MCs with Victim complex who pit cannonfodders for no rhyme or reason.

 

Kinda tired reading 100+ chapters of family drama ,while, the main plot from the synopsis didn't even started
(╯°□°）╯︵ /(.□. \)
I am like: "Where is the plot...? I got interested because of the synopsis!!! But still nothing..?--!!"

However, in the times where I am deeply interested with the story because of the synopsis, I will just skip some chapters.

 

For me, it's probably "Protagonist-Centered Morality".

For example, it's terrible if Character X did something to MC in a past life but it's perfectly okay for MC to do it when they get sent back (and sometimes to completely unrelated people). Or the MC is a raging jerk to everyone even unprompted and they're presented as completely justified even if they have no reason to be such a jerk to unrelated people.

There's also the "Humanity Sucks/Is the Real Monsters" cliche.

Like, it's not nearly as cool and edgy as most authors using it think it is. "People can suck" yeah we know, what do we do with that message? What do we extrapolate from your story? It's arguably THE most milquetoast themes I've ever seen in literature and there are very few authors I've known that have actually done it well or executed them in an interesting fashion.

 

There are two main things that make me drop a book. The most common one is that I just lose interest in it. Usually this is either the book just isn't that good and I've worn through whatever positive aspects it has, or the book itself still has good qualities, but there are enough negatives for me to give it a pause. But I don't think either of these are really what this thread is looking for.

The other reason is more likely though: it happens when I'm convinced that the book is going to be painful to read! This usually happens even before I read the book: the main thing I'm worried about in Romance novels is that the male love interest will be terrible enough to drag down the story and the description tends to reveal this. Aside from this it's pretty rare for me to drop a book early on unless I find out that it's not the kind of book I'm looking for (in which case it's not really the fault of the book).

One exception to this was when I read "To Be a Power in the Shadows". I thought that it was a book that relied on misunderstandings to create a comedy of manners, but what I found was that the early chapters were unfunny, overly self-serving, and had a protagonist who was a turnoff. Instadropped to save me some misery.

I always label this kind of story as being overly self-serving. Anything that happens to benefit the protagonist is good, and anything that hinders the protagonist is bad. What happens is that a lot of the story warps itself to constantly give things to the protagonist and everything ends up feeling undeserved.

Oh, I like this one! In theory, it's possible to write a good book that does this, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen it pulled off convincingly. Usually these books try to portray themselves as either having some sort of amazing insight on the human condition or that they're the only purveyors of the truth. It sort of feels gross to read this kind of story.

 

I read this one novel, the mc came from a technologically advance race of humans where he landed in a pretty medieval world with swords and magics at its center, mc is truly powerful and has nano technology in his body like a weaker version of a terminator afterall he is still a human being, problem is I hate the mc cause at the beginning he knows that his resources are scarce, his laser gun ammunitions are limited, then in one circumstances the fl's female knight almost got hit by a arrow from a goblin.....he use the laser gun to intercept the arrow....btw the mc learned magic and can create a wind bullet, it's as fast as a bullet, so why the fuck did he waste the laser gun ammo for an arrow and why he didn't even think about it, and for some reason the novel focuses on fcking dishes, I'm thoroughly disappointed after that and dropped the novel.

 

I don't really hate ntr in a novel afterall, as long as there's a proper ntr tag in it or there's a foreshadow of it in the early chapters, what I hate is that there will be an ntr without any warning.....I read this one novel where the mc changes the past for the future humans will be extinct due to demons exterminating all of them, fast forward the mc has 3 childhood friends, 2 of them are twin brother and sisters the male named kyle I forgot the female one. while the other 1 is a female friend that became the mc's wife in the later chapters, before mc and this future wife married each other, kyle, the mc's best friend falls in love with the female lead still it is too late because the female lead loves the mc and the mc loves the female lead, fast forward and the mc conquers and defeated enemies and their land thoroughly becoming busy and desperate because he knows he needs strength to change the future extinction, the female lead doesn't know that the mc came from the future so she doesn't understand his problems and why doesn't the mc share his burdens...fast forward and the mc came to another realm to cure his heart that has a cursed, once the curse breakout he will die and to not cause a panic for his wife and his child the mc hides it and search for a cure in the demon realm, due to him being alone for a kinda long time....his best friend, kyle confess to his wife and steeled his resolve and kiss her while mc's still there looking for the cure.....at a month or week something the mc came back....although kyle and his wife's relationship didn't exceed to having sex... it still thoroughly hurts me knowing that his wife appeared to accept Kyle's kiss, hug and holding hands.....leading me to hate the novel itself, specially knowing that the mc tries hard to cure himself for his wife, daughter and for his people (he's a noble with land afterall), I feel really happy knowing that in the next chapters his wife will die from bandits, having a guilty heart for cheating to mc and having guilty heart loving kyle even though she has a husband....Im not ready for the ntr that's why I really hate that novel

 

Novels with obsessive ML or toxic ML.
Like I even accept it at a certain point, but when ML doesn't respect FL's decisions and tastes, don't give it space, kill people around FL out of jealousy, arrest her or ruin her life and that of other people because of her obsession I quickly move away from the novel.
For me, I just like obsessive MLs like Callisto from The death is the only end for the villainess. He does nothing that I mentioned above, on the contrary he respects the decisions of FL and gives the necessary space for her
I also hate MLs who was a motherfucker with FL and after just speaking sweet words and using her pretty face, he gets to stay with FL in the end
if any novel has some of these things I drop it right away!

ps: sorry my bad english

 

Too much romance/harem if the novel wasn't big on that at the start

Rape whether it be male on female or the reverse