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Writer's pictureAshley Mongrain

The NOPE Book Tag


There's something so cathartic about talking about things you don't like in books. I find it easier to write a review about a book I didn't like rather than a book I did like. Needless to say, a tag like this is right up my alley.

I found this tag on DreamlandBookBlog, but it was created by

the farah project., so all credit goes to her. There are quite a few questions in this tag, and hopefully, you can either relate to me or maybe this might give you a reason to put a book down.


Without further ado, onto the questions!


 

NOPE ENDING


Here are two books that made me want to throw my laptop out the window.


First, we have The Sanatorium, which decided that it would be a good idea to throw a twist in the epilogue which wasn't very appreciated especially given the fact that this is a standalone. Next, we have Horrid, whose ending left me dumbfounding because of the direction it went in. I did end up overall enjoying the books though so at least it didn't ruin my experience completely.



NOPE PROTAGONIST


I would say that I have a proclivity for disliking most main characters. It's an issue, I know, but it's just how it turns out. Two characters stand out from the rest though because they had my blood boiling. Those two are Diana from the All Souls trilogy and Evie from The Diviners.


Both of them were insufferable in their own ways. Diana was a pretentious know it all (even though she really couldn't grasp the situation she was in). Evie on the other hand was a manipulative, self-centered child. Diana was probably a bit more tolerable seeing as I finished the series, but Evie is the reason I am refusing to read the rest The Diviners because I honestly can't stand to read any more of her.


NOPE SERIES


There are a lot of series that I read the first book and decided to go, okay yeah no that's not happening. I read the first book in the Red Queen series and kept rolling my eyes at the decisions Mare would make which pretty much killed any motivation to read the rest of the series. I do think it is being adapted though so maybe I will give that a shot instead.


NOPE PAIRING


We are going to keep the bus running from a nope protagonist and go with Diana and Matthew. Their relationship was just not it, and there were so many things wrong with it. Their relationship went from strangers to lovers way too quickly to be comfortable, and both parties were extremely possessive of each other.



NOPE PLOT TWIST


I had to rack my brain to remember the plot twists in the books I've read. To make things a bit easier for me, I am going to go with something I hate when it comes to paranormal horror novels. That is what I like to call the 'Scooby-Doo'. When it is time to reveal the big bad, you take the mask off only to reveal that it was a human being all along.


When I pick up a paranormal horror book, I want the big bad to actually be something paranormal, not a person making it seem like there is one.



NOPE DECISION


One of the reasons I dislike most main characters as I said above is because they all tend to make really impulsive and reckless decisions. So, needless to say, I have a lot of options for this question. However, I am going to go with two books that I actually really enjoyed, but the decisions made by the main characters were...not the greatest.


Rin from The Poppy War and Zhu from She Who Became the Sun made decisions that made me want to slap them. Now, I get why the authors decided to go in that direction as both books discuss what one will do for power. It was still hard to read about it though.



NOPE GENRE


I would probably say contemporary. I am sure there are some out there that I would really like but, for the most part, I find the genre to be really boring. I simply just don't care about reading about normal people's lives (hence why I like fantasy).



NOPE BOOK FORMAT


Excessive point-of-views to the point where character development pretty much goes down the drain and it is really hard to follow along with who you are following at a given time. I'm talking about something like The Jasmine Throne. The book suffered because it would add in single chapters from the perspective of a random characters that added nothing to the narrative.


That's not to say that a format like this couldn't work as I thought that Stronghold, which had a wide range of perspectives, was done extremely well. It all comes down to whether or not the number of povs was necessary for the plot.



NOPE TROPE


I have actually made an entire post talking about tropes that I love or hate (you can check it out here). To pick just one though, I am going to go with insta-love. This trope only works in very specific scenarios for me, but otherwise, it is an easy way to ruin a book for me. All I ask is to see relationships develop, not for them to go from strangers to lovers in a strangely short amount of time.



NOPE RECOMMENDATION


I am going to cheat a bit as I did start reading the book, but I am going to go with The Cruel Prince. I put this down extremely quickly as I realized very early on that I was not going to enjoy this. It wasn't because Cardan was cruel, as the title suggests, but actually because of Jude. Her character just rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't like the direction her development was going in.



NOPE CLICHE/PET PEEVE


This could maybe also be considered a trope, but I am going to go with 'I am just seeing things.' It bothers me so much when something is very visibly off, but the main character brushes it off as it being a coincidence or them seeing things. My sympathy for whatever happens to the character, later on, ends up rather low as a result.


NOPE LOVE INTEREST


Let's talk about Reyes from First Grave on the Right. All you need to know is that our main protagonist Charley gets all hot and bothered over this guy who more or less sexually assaulted her when they first met...Hard nope from me, hard nope.



NOPE BOOK


Books are all about personal taste, so I rarely say that a book is 'bad' per se, just not for me. And that is also the case here because I know that I am in the minority of not liking Me Before You. The way the romance was set up just rubbed me the wrong way.



NOPE VILLAIN


This one is tricky for me because I usually think that the villains are better written than the heroes. To keep things vague as to not spoil anything, I am going to go with a broad answer of any person in a position of power in a mystery thriller book who ends up being the killer.


Strong unbalanced power dynamics and injustice in books really gets my blood boiling, so when a killer in a book ends up being a preacher or the town sherif I hate it.



NOPE DEATH


I love this series, but you still tore my heart out and stomped on it for good measure. I won't say any more than that because spoilers.


NOPE AUTHOR


Pretty much any problematic author. Most recently, I decided not to pick up the rest of the Illuminae Files series after reading the first book as issues surrounding the author have been popping up.


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