Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Book Turn-Offs

Top Ten things I encounter while I am reading and it totally turns me off. Top Ten Tuesday is  hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

1. Animal Cruelty - not only do I stop reading, but the book goes into the trash or is deleted.
2. Cruelty to children/child abuse - if it's suddenly added in, chances are it's a plot contrivance to pull at your heart strings for some reason and totally unnecessary to the plot. I'd rather not read it.
3. Super gory descriptions - Some things are better left to the imagination and are more effective that way.
4. Deus ex Machina - When an author solves a plot point by saying or having something miraculous occur, it's a real turn off. 
5. A controlling love interest - Like in Shades of Gray, it just doesn't seem fun or healthy to me.
6. Too many changes of Point of View - especially if it's all within the same chapter. It just gets too confusing.
7. Pages of description that don't further the plot or the action.- I ran into that in a classic when I was trying to read Roughing It by Mark Twain when I was younger.
8. Politics - Suddenly there are tons of politics and perhaps on top of that the book is getting preachy about what sort of politics the author or main character or both subscribe to, it's too much.
9. Too preachy in a religious sort of way - Suddenly, their god is the is the only god and their way is the only right way, but in more words.
10. Book in a series that doesn't wrap up the plot to that particular plot, but marks it as to be continued in the next book. - Series books are fine. I read series. But, the book should wrap up the plot and give you some idea as to what to expect. When they leave the plot unresolved, it's a huge turn off. If they're going to do that with every book, it's just not really an enjoyable prospect. Yes, I want to know what happened, but it's not necessarily worth the frustration.

So, what makes you stop reading a book?

Top Ten Tuesday - Best Sequels

Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and the Bookish. This week the topic is Top Ten Best Sequels. I'm going a little old school on this one for most of the list because most of the books I've read recently either have been stand alone, or book 2 hasn't come out yet. So, really in no particular order, here they are: 

• Newford Series by Charles de Lint - Memory and Dream
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams - So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
• Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz - Forever Odd
• Last Herald Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey - Magic's Promise
• The Sword Dancer Saga by Jennifer Roberson - Sword-Singer
• The Belgariad by David Eddings - Queen of Sorcery
• Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries series - Curse of the Pharoahs
• Southern Sisters' mysteries by Anne George - Murder on a Bad Hair Day
• Cherry Tucker mysteries by Larissa Reinhart - Still Life in Brunswick Stew
• Liz Talbot mysteries by Susan M. Boyer - Lowcountry Bombshell

What are your favorite sequels?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Would Like to See Made into a Movie or Television Series

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week the topic is Top Ten Books I would like to see made into a movie or television show (if this was a perfect world and they didn't butcher the books we love).

In no particular order:

• Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall - would make a good dramatic film.
• The Cobweb Bride by Vera Nazarian - either a miniseries or movie encompassing more than one part of the trilogy. Only part one is out now and it's quite a cliff hanger. 
• The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau - a movie like The Hunger Games.
• 14 by PeterClines - would make a good campy horror film.
• Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz - would make either a good movie or a good mini series where each segment was about a different one of the 5 "special days" in Jimmy Tock's life.
• Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore - movie with humor and drama. Just what did Christ do in those years he wandered?
• Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - movie with lots of  humor and drama. Death is dead; long live death. "She is strong like bear."
• Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody books - any of them would make a great movie with humor, mystery and adventure.
• Southern Sisters Mystery Books by Anne George - any of them would make a humorous mystery movie. 
• Mary Kay Andrew's books would be fun to watch as well. Lots of fun southern humor.

Alternatives I almost added were Carpathian by David Golemon as an action/adventure movie and Illusions: the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

Which books are you interested in seeing made into movies or tv shows?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Memorable Secondary Characters

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Top Ten memorable secondary characters. These are in no particular order.

1. Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes books.

2. Hagrid from the Harry Potter series.

3. Piglet from the Winnie the Pooh books.
 "Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

4.From the Princess Bride," My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

5. Tomas in the Testing by Joelle Charbonneau. You just can't tell what he is up to. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?

 6. Mrs. Korjev in Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. Mrs. Korjev is Russian and takes care of Sophie along with Mrs. Ling. Mrs. Korjev says things like, "She is strong like bear." And she refers to hamsters as "small bears."

7. Lazarus Long in Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. He appeared as a lead character in other novels, but in this one he plays a secondary role. He steals the spaceship that's capable of time travel and goes back in time to rescue his mother.

8. Herr Silverman from Forgive me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick. Herr Silverman talks him out of suicide. He brings Leonard back to his house with him and talks to him and shares experiences with him in an effort to help him to deal with what's going on with him until he can get professional help.

9. Former Florida Governor, Clinton Tyree aka Skink prefers to be called Captain. He first appeared in Carl Hiaasen's novel Double Whammy. He has a somewhat shocking appearance: 6'6" tall, long silver hair and a beard to match, missing one eye - which he has replaced with an eye from a taxidermied owl, a beautiful smile. And then there are the clothes which vary some according to situation, after all, you don't need to wear your neon vest when you aren't picking up road kill. Captain cooks the roadkill for dinner. He's passionate about the environment and well read. He's really an unusual secondary character.

10. Officer Ricky Haines from Linwood Barclay's A Tap on the Window. He's creepy. "He seems nice enough until he does something like feel you up." He sort of plays good cop to his partner's angry bad cop. But the thing is, in reality he is not a nice guy. To find out just how bad, you'll have to read the book. Any more here would be spoilers.

Who is your favorite secondary character?

Top 10 Things That Make My Life Easier as a Book Blogger

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

1. Goodreads has been a true blessing: a place to read about books, review books, read other people's reviews, enter contests, make contact with authors, and keep track of what you've read and want to read...

2. The number one place I get my books to review.

3. My blogging platform



4. Grammarly Lite is "a spellchecker, dictionary and thesaurus designed for the web." I like it because not only does it catch most of my misspelled words it also catches it if I use a synonym. And it will catch it if I use bad grammar and offer solutions, although frankly there are times when it's been wrong and there wasn't a comma needed. It's a free download.

5. Amazon.com is great for obtaining books as well as reading and posting reviews.

6. My Kindle is the main way I read the books that I review. I love regular books too; it's just that my ARCs are usually e books. I love that I can carry more than one with me at a time in a small package.

7. Other bloggers and reviewers: I enjoy reading what others have to say about books and book related topics. It's nice to make connections too.

8.Similar to 7, blogging Memes: Sharing these with other bloggers is fun and can be informative.

9. The public library is a great resource for books, e books, and magazines (think reviews of upcoming titles).

10. My calendar is very important. For the time being I am using a spiral bound with a month overview followed by a week at a time. I don't have to worry about losing the data if the computer crashes.

So, what's your top tip for blogging or about books?

Top Ten Tuesday - My Top Ten Books Set in an Urban Fantasy Setting

Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and the Bookish.

1. Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint - Really I love all the books he writes that are set  in his city of  Newford.  I could populate this whole list with them and be done, but I won't.

2. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs - Again this is a series where I have loved all of the books I have read so far. Mercy Thompson rocks as a coyote shapeshifting mechanic.

3.Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy - This is another series. It's referred to as the Walker Papers. Celtic mythology and Native American mythology and culture mixed in an urban setting.

4. Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - What if people just started dropping dead around you and it seemed like you had been recruited for the job of Death?

5. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman - What if it turned out your father was a god , but you didn't find out until after he died. And you didn't know that you had a mischievous brother either.

6. Above the Lower Sky by Tom Deitz - It takes place in the future, but mostly in the city and mixes folklore and fantasy. Orca shapeshifters?

7. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Angels, demons and a misplaced antichrist in a modern urban setting.

8. Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost - "Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, aiming for the father who ruined her mother," from Goodreads. Dark fantasy in an urban setting.

9. Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison - Number one in the Hollows series is set in an alternate Cincinnati, OH. Rachel Morgan is a white witch and bounty hunter in a city of humans, elves, fairies, vampires, and more.

10. Frost Moon (Skindancer #1) by Anthony Francis - A dark fantasy set in an alternate Atlanta, GA with magical tattoos, vampires, werewolves, and other shapeshifters.

Do you have a favorite setting?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish Could Have Had Sequels

Top 10 Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This week the topic is: 

 Top Ten Books I Wish Had Sequels - well not quite 10
(They were complete stories, but I could have read more about the characters or set in that world.)

It's really been difficult for me to come up with more than a couple. A lot of times in the past I've read series books. The stand-alone books that I read, mostly, really stood alone.

1. The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher - It had a lot of interesting characters any of which could make a good subject for a novel. Another reviewer pointed out that because of the number of interesting characters, it would also be ideal for a short story format.

2. Heart of Danger: A Tale of Adventure on Land and Sea with Tod Moran, Third Mate of the Tramp Steamer Araby by Howard Pease - Published in 1946, I read it in 1976 at a young impressionable age. It is a YA book. "Tod Moran and Rudy Behrens, a talented young violinist-composer, undertake a perilous journey through occupied France during World War II. They meet and work with the French Underground." I enjoyed the adventures of the characters so much that I always wished there had been more adventures for them together.

3. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - Richard Mayhew falls through the cracks into London Below and encounters adventure and danger trying to get back to London Above. There was definitely room for an encore here.

4. The Princess Bride by William Goldman - Just what did happily ever after entail for Buttercup, Westley, Inigo, and Fezzick? Of course a sequel  probably could never approach the greatness of the original.

5. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - I would love to see what happens as Sophie grows up.

Which books have you read that you wished had a sequel?

Top Ten Tuesday

Top ten Tuesday is hosted by The broke and the bookish.

top ten words/topics that make me not pick up a book

1. Any book that suggests there might be animal cruelty in it. 
2. Any book with unnecessary cruelty to people of any age. Sometimes an author will just throw cruelty in there to get a knee jerk reaction, to jump start your emotional response to the action. To me, that's like saying your writing isn't strong enough to do that alone, so you felt you needed that extra boost. And if your writing isn't strong enough to do that alone, maybe it's not worth reading.
3. Preachy books. Frankly, most of the time, even when I read nonfiction, I am reading for entertainment. I prefer not to be preached at while I read. Save it for Sunday please.
4. Zombies. They seem to be the thing in pockets of literature, but I just can't seem to get into them. Plus, I have to admit, I am a little creeped out by them. 
5. Romances about new mothers. I am way past that stage in life and no longer find reading about it any fun. Especially if they include the words "Baby Daddy" in the title.
6. 50 shades of gray and sequels and copycats. I just can't get into that.
7. Sports books. Not a sports fan, though I can understand other people being drawn to it.
8. Miracle. I will admit that miracles happen, but especially in fiction books, I feel like miracles are just too easy an answer.
9. How-to books. Most of the time I am just not interested in how-to books until I need one to do something.
10. Animal stories. Generally speaking something problematic always happens to the animal and I don't like reading about that. I just don't enjoy animal stories. 

It was harder to come up with Ten things than I thought it would be. It would have been way easier to write a list of things I am willing to read. What kinds of things don't you like to read?