Let's talk romance today! To be honest, I've not read many books where the main genre is romance but I've read my fair share of romance in YA and NA fantasy and my dragons, I've been mystified and bewildered more than a couple of times by THE MOST unrealistic and annpying happenings in bookish romance.
Some of these happenings have made me laugh, snort, cry and sometimes have been so crazy that I've wanted to bang my head against the wall and scream WHYYYYYYY??!! for the rest of my life.
Today I'm here to list some of those terrible and unrealistic romantic tropes I've had the misfortune of encountering!
1. I'm a 1000 year old immortal with a stone heart who has never had feel⎼ Oooo, there's the special snowflake of a mortal who melts my heart and shows me lurve"
Oh my God, I've seen this one so many times that I'm literally scared of picking up books with immortals in them. They're going to fall in love with humans 95% of the time and do stupid things like endangering their family and getting their friends killed because of that. This trope has been done SO MANY TIMES and honestly I think it's time for it to vanish? Methinks this trope shouldn't have existed in the first place!
I'd rather read about stone-hearted evil beings acting like stone-hearted evil beings and killing people. That sounds so much more fun and believable and did I mention FUN?
2. They make eye contact and BAM! true lurve blossoms...
The infamous insta-love! Surely it's a pet peeve for many!!?? This is THE MOST unrealistic romance trope I've ever seen. HOW DO YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH A PERSON JUST BY LOOKING INTO THEIR SEA GREEN EYES AND KISSABLE LIPS ?? Surely one might be attracted by their looks but you don't fall in love!!?? I've rolled my eyes so much at such instances in books that I'm surprised my eyes didn't get stuck in my head or something.
3. We've never met but we're already in lurve because the stars say so and they're never wrong are they?
The whole 'destiny says so' trope! They're so bad I's rather have insta-love. So cliche and so unrealistic. Also it's such a deus ex machina; a convenient plot device to bring together two factions/ clans / families. I see this a lot in the urban fantasy Vampire-werewolf kind of novels and it just totally ruins the story for me.
4. Oh you have a headache? Let me prescribe lurve...
Love cures all is such an insulting trope methinks!
Person suffering from depression meets 'romantic interest'. Person's depression is washed away by romantic interest's lurveee. Uma takes a pen and stabs thyself in the eye.
CAN THIS TROPE VANISH FROM THE FACE OF EARTH? Like I don't even understand why it exists in the first place?? Love makes us happy but it DOES NOT cure mental illnesses and disabilities. Saying it does is so freaking ignorant and insulting.
5. If you won't listen to me, I'll be aggressive and then you'll find me romantic...
ROMANTICIZING ABUSE IS A FREAKING BIG NOOO!!! It's very common to find books where the hero tries to control every aspect of his love interest's life and his cliched excuse is "Because I care about you and don't want to see you hurt." Well apparently it's okay if he is the one doing the hurting.
Also, physical abuse is NOT the only abuse. In most books there is mental and emotional abuse and most readers don't even realize it. There is also romanticizing stalking and overly jealous love interests which sucks big time!
6. Damsel in Distress needs a Knight in a Shining Armor
Damsels can help themselves you know? I have nothing against anyone taking help but every time a female MC messes thing up in a book, the hero has to swoop in and help her out! Can the females for once be allowed to solve their problems themselves. Even with characteristic 'strong' females in books, the point where they mess up is the point where they decide to temporarily not be strong and rely on their boyfriends to help them out of the sticky situation.
You know what I want in books?
This.
And those were some of the horrible romance tropes I've come across! Do you hate any of the tropes I hate? Are there any other romance tropes you love to hate? Tell to me in the comments below!
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