What are your icks in books?

[Tayjah]

When an author tries to force a smut scene

[lilly]

- dragging it out
- building suspense and then becoming the most boring and grueling thing to read
- any modern book on booktok (unavoidably overhyped, always major disappointment)
- complete disregard for routines + a character's career and livelihood (time becoming irrelavent)
- the way authors + booktok readers try to justify the most horrendous, basic, or vile writing with a horrid little smut scene

[Darniesha]

If the cover has real people.... ick. Poorly placed pet names/terms of endearment ick.

[naz]

Long Chapters & Third act breakups that are a mile away from coming

[*jayla*]

LONG chapters, it makes me wanna dnf the book
big font and font too small
when i order books and they come damaged
when a book is too stiff

[Lakshya]

Pregnancy trope
Books with real people on the
Slow burn
Cringy spice scenes

[Atticus]

Overused trope that is not realistic. Forced romance between male and female characters.

[Lavender]

Over describing everything. ‘The golden blonde hair that was as gold as corn and the sun on the farm in the morning’ is just too much description

[Rue]

* Real people on covers
* Pregnancy
* Large age gap
* Too many pop culture refences
* No diversity in story cast
* Rushed endings
* Endings that feel unfinished
* "I'm never going to fall in love" > same book > "They're the love of my life"

[Vily]

1) alpha male
2) age gap (I mean like the mc is 17 but his/her lover is 25 or more older than him/her)
3) man in the cover
4) r4pe trope

[Oren]

I HATE when characters give others a nick name and constantly repeating it. just read a book where the female kept saying " my man the mighty warrior" i hate it !

[Hazel]

When they say good girl a little toooo much 😂😂🥴 a little is just right 😂

[M *ੈ✩‧₊˚]

Romance in mystery/thriller books 🥴

[Susan]

When the FMC is a virgin, add that this is her entire personality and its double ick.

**ok to add me as a friend

[LocalBookNerd]

when people who have literally nothing in common and no chemistry are put together because "its fate" or smth

[Ammarah]

Non-discreet covers 💔

[Eg]

barcodes on books and switching pov's but you cant tell who is talking

[allison ★]

1. Real people on covers
2. explicit content in YA books
3. ugly book characters

[Erin]

❃A.J❃ wrote: "1) People on covers (especially shirtless men and women in lingerie)
2) Children in Books
3) Bully Romances, Teacher X Student
4) When there is a huge age gap
5) PREGNANCY UGH"

I've seen so many pick pregnancy and I've just got to ask because I really rarely encounter a pregnancy trope in the books I read, but is it baseline pregnancy is just not interesting or is it like, The Katniss Everdeen problem where it came out of nowhere and feels like a bad case of The Gender Roles?

[jayna]

When the dialogue makes me cringe a bit because I can't imagine someone actually saying that. But I can imagine it would be really hard to write that stuff for authors.

[Nicole]

age gap
miscomunication
people on covers
too many povs

[catherine]

1. drug/abuse/addiction
2.ugly covers/real people on covers
3. huge age gaps
4. shifter (man to werewolf etc.)
5. unplanned pregnancy
6. blind dating like what
7. love at first sight
8. some 2nd chance romances

[Dionndra]

Detailed explicit content.

[NuNu]

Stuff like I looked up from my lashes like how do u even do that? Is it humanly possible?

[Laura]

pregnancy and real people on covers!! i also don’t like a character being diagnosed with a terminal illness as a plot twist

[Kendra]

Pregnancy tropes

[Kendra]

Hella huge age gaps like when the dudes say oh I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you and I’m like sir SHE WAS 7 and you were 20 ehmmm like tf POLICE

[Stephanie]

Books that have ENTIRE PAGES HIGHLIGHTED ARGH.

[Chloé]

The Netflix stick on the cover

[skylarꨄ︎]

Kendra wrote: "Hella huge age gaps like when the dudes say oh I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you and I’m like sir SHE WAS 7 and you were 20 ehmmm like tf POLICE"

THIS OMG 😭

[sri]

real ppl on covers
long chapter but only because i hage a short attention span so its more of a me problem
unnecessary smut and just extra lines to show how hot the mc is and how attracted they are to the other...make me feel the attraction rather than telling me they are attracted to each other

[Venus]

1. Real ppl on the covers
2. Pregnancy in anyway whether it’s the story or part of the HEA I get the ick
3. The MMC having negative thoughts abt FMC that are genuinely cruel
4. Any type of CNC or rape that is detailed and done by the love interest.
5. “I deadpanned” it’s ptsd from reading a lot of Ana Huang
6. Insta-love BLECH!
7. Long books that are long for no reason (iron flame, acosf)
8. When they have sex before page 100… wyd
9. When the MC is a virgin and it’s a plot point.. why?
10. Modern terms/places or online slang

[Kiki]

Lack of communication between characters.

You know if you just talk to the man instead of flipping your bananas you'll probably figure stuff out better!

Spelling errors, just stabs me right in my little book hoarding soul

[Alan]

Lust, perversion, and sexual immorality!

[sky ⋆]

Venus wrote: "1. Real ppl on the covers
2. Pregnancy in anyway whether it’s the story or part of the HEA I get the ick
3. The MMC having negative thoughts abt FMC that are genuinely cruel
4. Any type of CNC or r..."

i agree completely these litterally might make me stop reading and when i see real ppl on the covers i will probably choose another book over that one

[Bella]

pregnancy trope omggggggg :<

[Meghan]

Short Covers
Pregnancy trope (*Barfs*)
When the love interest is too clingy
Absolutely NO romance
Second Chance Trope (I have my reasons)
When the women are sexually described (male authors, mainly)
The list goes on.

[Meghan]

Dionndra wrote: "Detailed explicit content."

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS I'm thirteen. I don't need to know where you're putting your thingy and how she likes it. And how she is *uncomfortable noises*

Which is why I mainly read YA and Teen

[raichu]

insufferable main characters

[Ameira]

Descriptions of outfits, they’re usually hideous when I imagine them. It can make a character go from super dreamy to very corny and unkempt for me.

[Ameira]

Also the pet names ‘baby girl’ and ‘honey’

[Rebecca]

Bully romance 🤮

[Sky_reads]

Long chapters and annoying characters

[hazel]

omg i’m fine with some nick names but sometimes they’re SO BAD

[Karsyn]

typos for sure, immediate ick. similarly, if it's an audiobook and the narrator butchers a pronunciation (especially more than once).
Also, other-woman-drama. that is a trope that just irks the hellllll outta me. immediate ick.
Overused words has been an ick lately. ie Mariana Zapata using "poop" 71 times in one book; or Meghan Quinn using "bulge" 43 times in one book. I'm sick of the word by the third time it's been used, so CUT IT after that.
And a big ick, when authors don't do proper research on very google-able things. ie Tessa Bailey and her insane lack of knowledge on hockey and green cards in a hockey-marriage-of-convenience romance. ICK

[Piper]

slow pace
printed stickers
unplanned pregnancy
random sm^t scenes
"quirky" characters
the villian arc stuff "thats when i could feel it in my veins..i had changed. im no longer who i used to be blahhh blaaah blah"
religion based books

[squeakers]

-real people on covers
-love triangles
-too much smut
-long long chapters
-overused tropes
-when hes dark and brooding but alpha male dark and brooding :(

[kaylinn]

-early/unplanned pregnancy
-women who ignore extreme red flags
-The "I'm so tiny and breakable even and I just killed 20 of your guards" like bitch stfu
-when they fuck in every single chapter
-real people on covers and the for sale/recommended by Ashley (or some other book store worker) stickers THAT NVER FUCKING COME OFF
- 3rd person

[Leah]

pregnancy always happening in the epilogue

[Maddy]

Pregnancy or I just get bored once the “chase”/“hunt” is over or the main couple get together