[Anonyma'am]

Book blurbs seem to always use the same words and phrases. What are you sick of hearing?

sweeping saga
beautiful but/and defiant or beautiful but/and spirited
poignant
heart-wrenching, often paired with humorous
Every paragraph of the book description ending with ellipses...
Every woman being stunningly beautiful. I've only read *one* book in which the heroine was not stunningly beautiful *AND* it was NOT a comedy. Thank you Brad Melzer.
triumph or triumphant tale

Anyone else?

[Dendra]

It's not a blurb, but I don't like when a sentence begins with "Who tossed her head...." or "Who whipped his head around, wondering if he heard correctly....". It's like the author is starting in the middle of a thought and it bugs me a lot. I've even stopped reading Stephanie Laurens because she is VERY guilty of this.

[Anonyma'am]

"Fiery" heroines/heroes
irreverent

trials and tribulations

[CaptainKidd]

"For fans of ..."

[tullia10]

"For fans of ..."

I second that. It's never, EVER been true for the books I've read.
And worse, sometimes it was just an excuse for a rip-off.

[foxrampant]

It gets my hackles up that these days every new kid on the mystery writing block (no pun intended) is labelled "the new Agatha Christie" or "the Agatha Christie of our time".
Uh-uh. A big ol' bowl of nope.
Leave Dame Agatha out of it - she's in a league of her own, anyway - and let other authors stand on their own merits (or lack thereof).

It holds true for other genres as well. The cheap, lazy and bland publicity formula "[somebody] is the new [big name]" annoys the living daylights out of me.

[Anonyma'am]

"For fans of ..."

I second that. It's never, EVER been true for the books I've read.
And worse, sometimes it was just an excuse for a rip-off.

Yup.

Similarly, "Book is A meets B". Or maybe "If A and B had a child it would be Book". I understand they want to give us something hopefully familiar with which to compare the book, but it rarely does me any good and it's become rather a worn out hook.

[Anonyma'am]

It gets my hackles up that these days every new kid on the mystery writing block (no pun intended) is labelled "the new Agatha Christie" or "the Agatha Christie of our time".
Uh-uh. A big ol' bowl of nope.
Leave Dame Agatha out of it - she's in a league of her own, anyway - and let other authors stand on their own merits (or lack thereof).

It holds true for other genres as well. The cheap, lazy and bland publicity formula "[somebody] is the new [big name]" annoys the living daylights out of me.

Big ole thumbs up from me.

At least if a blurb says something like, "For fans of Famous Author" or "fans of Famous Author may enjoy this" it's a little less hyperbolic.

I ignore blurbs by authors because they usually get paid or it's a I'll-blurb-you-if-you-blurb-me deal. That's why one rarely sees blurbs by Dean Koontz: I hear he refuses to blurb anything he personally has not read and liked and will not take money for it.

Seems like every other fantasy writer has at some time or other been likened to Tolkien
I used to pick up the books and think ‘jeez not another one’
I feel sorry the author as something like that would just make me cringe.

[Anonyma'am]

Another one I've been encountering a lot lately: Laugh-out-loud

Maybe, maybe not. Just tired of hearing it.

[Anonyma'am]

Encountered at least 20 times this week, seriously:

"stumbled upon" a dead person. Very popular term with cozy mysteries and such.

Never "encountered", "found", "discovered", "happened upon", "horrified to find", whatever.

Lazy and unimaginative.

[shadow4play]

"For fans of ..."

Oh dude, you hit the nail on the head with that one. I absolutely hate to read that. They should just write "If you're a fan of... then you're not going to want to read this rip-off piece of doo doo."

Dark
Gritty
Edgy

[Anonyma'am]

unputdownable

So overused.

Another one for Bohica60: "legs akimbo"
That's one mighty flexible human there. ROFLMAO!