Discussion What's something that makes you drop a novel instantly?

What's something that makes you drop a novel instantly? For me, any type of r*pe or sexual assault. Everyone has opinion, and while some people don't care too much about those two, it makes me very uncomfortable when a story as those elements and it doesn't treat it as something bad. It's especially worse when it's in a romance or BL novel where they romantize it, but I hate it in all genres when it happens and people don't think it's a big issue. Makes me feel all icky.

 

nad writing, if I dont feel that the author doesn't care about either the plot or characters, I pretty much instantly drop it. Oh, also if they clearly have no writing skills.

 

Hmm, if the ML acts really gross or arrogant or something that I hate
Oh, and if it's a sad KN novel then I drop it if FL doesn't win and has to stay with ML

 

Blatant rascism, factory-like enemy and plots, mary-sue protagonist and bullshit cultivation

 

MC who's a wimp and slow manipulative drama.

 

Repetition plot make story predictable and boring

 

controlling and/or yandere love interests. love stories where the ML constantly outshines the MC. sexual assault that gets romanticized and portrayed as love(???). revenge stories that end with the MC simply forgiving & forgetting.

 

Fatphobia, blatant misogyny, and incest

 

Weak mc, arrogant second protagonist, the romance is so fast, too much time on sub-cp.

 

Mary or Gary Stue
Brain dead characters
Plot holes size of black holes

 

Other than not being JP o KR...

1. If a miserable useless arc takes a ton of chapters with an unsatisfying conclusion.
2.

Spoiler

i can tolerate rape parts but if the MC is doing that. If the MC is the one getting cucked for the Nth time then nah goodbye

.
3. If the story isnt really moving on. Like, its stuck on the premise of a school arc or just pure nsfw. Like wtf dude, move on with the school arc and have the MC move in the real world. In case of the NSFW, i can tolerate if its just something like Inside the Cave of Obscenity but if its adventure, fantasy, isekai and at the very end of the day is just MC fucking.

 

In the world of Western fantasy, halfway through the plot, a distant ancient eastern nation appears.
you know what's going to happen next.
or the power of water vapor can not push the machine.

 

There are plenty of things that can make me drop a story, but it is rarely "instantly".
For example even if a story includes rape or sexual assault it can sometimes take time for the story to really show if it treats it seriously or downplays it.
And even if I do drop the story the moment it appears, then that usually means that there has been red flags before that and it simply was the last straw.

That being said one thing that can make me drop a story right away is if a character becomes able to time travel to change the past in the middle of the story, especially if it is something that can be done at will.
I dislike time travel in fiction in general but can be willing to overlook it if it happens just at the very start of the story to get it started, but once it becomes something repeatable I tend to lose all interest.

 

1. Stupid/inane main characters. I get enough of those in real life
2. Amateurish writing. Call me back when you've written another draft or ten.
3. Mpreg/Omegaverse in a mammalian species. If you want to make your character a reptile or a fish, go ahead, but respect the biology.

Rape/sexual assault is something I'll put up with under three circumstances.

1. Does the action fit the context of the setting and the characters? I've seen the legal definition for rape change four times in my own lifetime, so I know it's not always defined the same way in every place and time.
2. Is it just a fantasy confined to someone's head that they're not going to act upon in real life?
3. Most importantly, does the victim get justice at some point in the future?

 

Honestly, stuff in English like using 'comprise' to mean 'compose', 'weary' to mean 'wary', or 'I, your father, is' instead of 'I, your father, am'. It might sound a bit extreme, but there's no shortage of novels, and only very limited free time. The other thing is pandering to nationalism with profound misunderstandings about the national character of nations foreign to the author, or just general falsehoods.

I'm absolutely fine with rape, as well as with murder, so long as I don't think the author has any crazy views about it. Like if the genre is smut, or grimdark fantasy, they can throw in all the rape they want (and even fetishize it in the case of the former), but the moment I read some modern day Chinese drama and rape is trivialized, it makes me very uncomfortable.

 

Things that make me drop a novel?

Stupid Nationalism. Stupid Racism. Stupid Violence. Lack of romance between characters that have clearly been written as romantic interests. Undisguised plagiarism.

 

Forced Nationalism, Rap*st Protagonist, Stupid Harem that appeared out of nowhere, Hypocrite Protagonist, Forced Love (Usually thanks to Rescue Romance)

 

Poor writing…and arrogant characters…

 

When a translator takes too many liberties, adds things that weren't there in the source, or outright censors the original text. I have a habit of checking MTL at the same time as I read a proper translation, and all too often I catch translators heavily editing the original text because it's "inappropriate" or they don't like it.

 

I don't mind dark themes or dark things happening, but I HATE when the author pretends it isn't as dark as it is (or indeed, tries to romanticise it). Like, I'll read an incestuous romance, or an age gap, or whatever else, but only if the characters acknowledge how fucked up it is, and it's treated at least somewhat realistically. If I'm reading about a teacher and student, that teacher better get fired from his job when it's found out. They better face social judgment and the relationship had better suffer under that weight . If a rape happens there had better be consequences, and you know- trauma that is sustained for more than two fucking chapters.

Of course, in webnovels I rarely ever get that, so I end up usually dropping the ones with dark themes pretty early on because web romance authors just do not want to handle them properly.