Top 10 Bookish Pet Peeves

Everyone has pet peeves. Every reader has bookish pet peeves. Here are my top 10.

Stickers on books

For some reason, every single book shop seems to think “Hey, let’s put this extremely sticky sticker on this lovely cover! What? Of course it’ll come of easily!” *avoids eye contact with all readers* Now, even though there ARE some cases where the sticker comes of fine, there are those few tragic moments where they split, and leave a messy circle of paper and sticky residue that you’ll never get rid of. Oh, and another thing – when you’re in the shop and think a book looks interesting, go to pick it up and read the title….NOPE. There’s conveniently a sticker over half the title.

People on Covers

If there’s one thing that is guaranteed to put me off buying a book, it’s if there’s a cheesy cover with a person on the front. More often than not, these covers (to me) look cheesy, and the person on the cover won’t look like the character they’re supposed to be. Also they somehow all end up looking like a romance novel thanks to awkward positioning.

Cover Changes

The dreaded cover change. There are so many series I own that don’t have matching covers, because a new edition was released and the old versions were not being sold any more. UGH.  All I wanted was for all the books that are based on the same story, to match. Is that so hard?

Middle Paged Chapters

In most books, the start of a new chapter starts on a new page. However, there are some books that don’t do this, and all the way through the chapters will start in the middle of a page. It’s not a huge bookish peeve of mine, but it does bother me somewhat. I just think it looks untidy, and I never feel like I’m starting another chapter, instead just carrying on.

Mistakes

So here I am, happily enjoying my book and then – what’s this? A mistake. Whether it’s a spelling mistake or a grammatical one, once spotted my eyes just can’t seem to get past it. I try to read on but nope…somehow my eyes just flit back to the mistake, and I wonder just HOW it was published without somebody noticing first.

Too Much Blurb

As a person who likes to go into a book not knowing much, nothing is more annoying that reading a blurb/synopsis that tells you pretty much the entire story. It’s unnecessary, and only causes disappointment when you do read the book and find out not much else happens besides what you already knew. Keep it short and simple, and it’s sure to be a winner.

Movie Covers

Again, like the cover change…the dreaded movie covers. What happened to the aesthetically pleasing covers that every reader has come to recognize? Changed – in the hope that more people will read the book because they recognize the film. This pet peeve just combines the cover change and people on the cover peeves into one to create this monster of a pet peeve. I have yet to meet one reader that prefers a movie cover over the original design.

Borrowing and Damaging

I very rarely let people borrow my books for this exact reason. My books are my pride and joy, so when someone asks to borrow one, my heart sinks a little. There is nothing worse than letting someone borrow a book, and it being returned in a worse condition. Whether it’s been dog eared, the spine’s been cracked, a drink’s been spilled on it….ANY damage is just unbelievable. How can you borrow somebody else’s book and think it’ll be ok to return it damaged? Come on. Even if you borrow it to somebody you knew won’t damage it intentionally…accidents happen, right? As soon as one of my books are not in my possession any more, I just long for its return.

Love Triangles

The time of love triangles have been and gone authors. Please let them go. They have been seen too often and now just make me cringe. Also they cause arguments between the fans. Not good. Again, I’ll be enjoying the story and watching this cute relationship happen and then suddenly some other person enters and oh my god would you look at that they love them too whatever will happen now? *rolls eyes*

Too many characters at once

It’s a bit irritating when you’re trying to start a new book but the author just throws a whole load of characters at you, all with names and descriptions, and you read on frantically trying to remember who’s who. You can’t decide who’s supposed to be important and figure out the relationships between them all…it all gets a bit tiring before you even properly begin the story.

SO THERE WE ARE! Those are my top 10 bookish pet peeves!

Let me know if you agree with any of them, or comment any other bookish pet peeves you have!