What’s the craziest reason you stopped reading a book?

Three pages in and the female narrator is getting hot and sweaty in a dingy bathroom stall with a random guy while saying she’s never done this kind of thing before. I didn’t believe it. Credibility gone. It was a DNF (did not finish) for me.

Have you ever quit a book for a crazy, or not-so-crazy reason? You’re not alone. I asked a group of readers in a Facebook group why they quit a book mid-read and got over 500 replies! Answers ranged from too many typos to unlikable narrators, bad grammar, and one unforgettable case of “the main character woke up in a cage with a corpse.”

Whether you’re a fellow reader or a writer, their answers are both hilarious and enlightening. Sometimes the best way to become a better writer is to learn why readers walk away. Here are the results from my unofficial survey (edited for brevity):

Credibility ranks high for reasons to DNF a book

• When the author described the protagonist’s travel to the east when in fact (because she used real places) they would have gone west.
• When the author confused stalagmites with stalactites.
• Descriptions of wildlife that are inaccurate/incorrect. Example: carrying a crate with a sleeping wolf. Not tranquilized; sleeping. Nope.
• A popular author’s book took place in an area where I grew up. The author clearly didn’t do her due diligence in researching her choice of setting.
• Stopped one that was supposed to be a medical thriller when the author consistently referred to oxygen as ‘Oh-two.’ At least six or seven times a page. I’m a nurse.
• The author called the muzzle of a gun the ‘nozzle.’
• A flashback scene to a club for middle school girls who got their periods and wore red bows to school. One girl felt bullied and isolated because she didn’t get her period until high school. I’ve taught in both middle school in high school and I cannot imagine anybody thinking that a “we got our period” club would make someone popular, or that such a club would cause that much trauma for the person who didn’t get hers.

I agree that a ‘We Got Our Period’ club in middle school would be a stretch for me! Besides, if I were the slow-developing character, I’d have just worn a red bow anyway. Who’s gonna know?

Profanity was a close second

• Using obscenities as both adjectives and punctuation, beginning with the first page…
• 10 to 12 f-bombs on the first 2 pages.
• Gave up on page 3 when the protagonist’s mother started saying F*** your mother.
• Read a book for a book club that had a couple hundred f-bombs (I marked each one – it was ridiculous). The story line was great and would have had an appeal to many, but the incessant use of F was ridiculous.
• It was as though the author were getting paid to use profanity.

That aversion to profanity is a reason why I challenged myself to limit cursing in my coming novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments. Mostly just to see if I could, and secondly because it didn’t fit the story or the characters. I’m not averse to swearing if it helps establish character, but not in the narrative itself. How about you?

The weird and funny reasons

• Bob’s batteries went dead.
• I couldn’t pronounce any of the character’s names.
• The main character found religion, and for every decision she made after that, she prayed first.
• Oral sex in the seats of a ballet theater within the first few pages. 
• She was a virgin but then had sex with the entire football team and was naked with the coaches. 
• When I have to make a character chart in order to keep up.
• I don’t think the author had any idea of male or female anatomy. The words they used to describe their parts were just weird.
• All the spicy scenes took place on hard surfaces. I stopped after the baking counter in the female protagonist’s bakery.
• I thought [the book] was a mystery, but it was about children who maliciously bite others.
• The main character uses toilet water to rinse her razor because she doesn’t have a sink in her small apartment bathroom setup. Nope, nope, nope!

Repetition killed it again, and again, and again…

• The author used the word eponymous at least 8 or 10 times in the first half dozen pages.
• Within the first 3 chapters, there were 5 paragraphs that began with That being said. Ended up with 9 of those buggers in the book (I didn’t want to finish it but had to know how it ended!)
• The author used the word “whirling” over and over and over again.
• The continuous use of looked up through her eyelashes. Once is enough of any phrase.
• The word murmured 4 times in 3 pages.

Avoiding the overuse of any word is one reason why I use the search function when editing–I can see how often I rely on catch phrases and words. Even common words can be exhausted, such as frowned, smiled or laughed. As a writer, it pays to think of different ways to convey an emotion other than She smiled.

Unlikable audio book narrators also ranked high

• Audiobook reader is a mouth breather and smacks their lips while reading.
• The only British character in the story at times has a posh, upper-class accent, and at other times sounds pure Cockney. Someone should have coached the narrator!
• Audiobook narrator doing an Italian accent sounded like a vampire.
• She was too “breathy” –all you could hear was her intake of breath. 
• All the adult characters sounded 13 years old at best.

Spelling and grammar

• So many grammatical errors and typos in the first chapter I knew it would drive me crazy for the remainder of the book.
• He exhaled the breath he did not know he was holding. No respect for that author.
• Egregious spelling and grammar errors and in dire need of a good editor.
• A main character kept exclaiming Walla! which had me scratching my head until dawned on me she meant voilá.
• It was dark, so she lit the lights and because these lights were lighted it glowed of lighted light — that will never leave my brain because I read it three times, thinking I was losing my mind.
• Every other sentence ended in an exclamation point.”

An author’s secret agenda and more

A common reason for book desertion was an awareness of the author’s agenda in religion or politics.

Other readers were turned off by an author padding the story, as in, “…a detective in Michigan might make repeated road trips from point A to B and start mentioning places along the route that trigger a memory of past events that have nothing to do with the story line.”

Also, no one likes animals being harmed, child abuse, or graphic sexual abuse. Another complaint was when too many characters were introduced too quickly. Other readers simply didn’t want to revisit COVID.

Finally, “This isn’t crazy, but recently I quit reading a book because about the third chapter I could see where the entire book was going to go and I wasn’t that interested… no time for mediocre books.”

No time for what you don’t enjoy

And that’s the point, isn’t it? Readers have a right to put a book down. Every reader has their limit, whether it’s bad grammar, a whiny narrator, or an overabundance of adverbs. Life’s too short and your time is precious.

As writers, we can take these complaints not as criticism, but as insight into what keeps readers turning the page. Every abandoned book is a reminder that attention is earned, not guaranteed, and that’s what makes the craft so challenging, and so worth it.

So tell me, what’s a reason you did not finish a book? Fellow writers (and other readers) want to know!

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Thank you for visiting.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz writes fiction, poetry and essays.
Her second novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, is coming October 27, 2026, from Regal House Publishing: An anxious over-thinker finds love letters and convinces herself she can fix a stranger but absolutely wrecks her own life in the process.
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