Wallbangers

I'm a pretty forgiving sort of a reader. As a writer, I know mistakes happen - typos get past even after three or even four people have read the ms, and the occasional bigger mistake creeps in. So I don't give up on a book if, for example, the heroine takes off her sweater and then five pages later, takes off her sweater again. That's not a biggie for me - it doesn't affect the story so I'll let it go.

But right now, I'm reading a book which has made two very big mistakes. One, I told myself to get past - it could've just been a really unfortunate typo. But the second is making it difficult for me to keep giving this book a chance. Here's a synopsis: There's a disaster and the hero and heroine are left without anything. So the hero goes out and hires a hotel room & buys them new clothes. At first, I thought, where did he get the money? Then I figured that since he fell asleep in his clothes, his wallet was in his pocket. No problem. Except a few pages later, the two of them make a big deal about how they don't have any money or credit cards etc because everything was lost in the disaster!!

I actually put down the book at that point and considered never picking it up again. The only reason I'm going to do so is because there's a minor character who I'm quite fond of and would like to know the fate of. I think the reason this mistake affected me so much is because it pulled me completely out of the flow of the story and had me thinking consciously about what was going on. And once that happened, it became very difficult for me to lose myself in the book again. My brain keeps trying to pick it apart.

Would that mistake have put you off? What would?