YA Tropes I'm Sick Of

Greetings bookworms!

Today I will be venting a little about some YA book tropes that I'm getting annoyed with. I've become increasingly frustrated or bored with these and I would like to just put my opinions out there.

General disclaimer: this isn't meant to offend anyone and I'm not criticizing you for liking these tropes. This is all, of course, my own personal opinions and preferences. I also do like books with some of these tropes and there are exceptions, however, these are tropes I would like to see changed or discarded with future YA books.

Now on with the YA tropes I'm sick of:

1) "Bad boy" love interests

Now let me explain. I am a HUGE sucker for bad boys and I think there's nothing wrong with having them in stories. However, I absolutely loathe the bad boys who are constantly moody and generally a jerk. The moodiness especially drives me crazy because I'm a moody personal in general, so I can't deal reading about the narrator being in love with someone who's emotions constantly change. It drives me up a wall! Maybe my definition of a bad boy is different than most people's, but I think you can have a tougher and more mysterious character that isn't a total jerk.

I've mentioned this in my previous blog post about my unpopular opinions, but I will say it again. I love the Jaces, Dimitris, Dracos, and etc of the literary world. However, when these characters are used time and time again with the same personality, it gets old. At least have some variety with these bad boys or something that makes them unique because I'm so over this trope.

2) Vampire/Mortal love story

Don't get me wrong, I love Twilight. Vampire Academy was okay. There are some books with vampires in them.

But I am getting very sick of the whole vampire falling in love with human cliche. It's annoying. I wouldn't mind reading more vampire stories, but could there at least be more variety? I feel like I'm just rereading Twilight, only with different character names.

I really don't have that much to say on this otherwise.

3) Dystopian settings

I was really into the Hunger Games, Divergent, and the Legend series. I did feel the dystopian phase, but I'm kind of over it.

Instead of reading about the future, I would prefer more historical fiction books that could still carry the same themes as dystopian books or even fantasy with the same world building effect.

I know I'm repeating myself, but I just feel like there's not a lot of variety with the dystopian books at this point and they all vaguely resemble each other. It's time to switch it up.

4) "Diversity"

Before you all get really mad at me, let me expand.

There is nothing that annoys me more than when a character is placed in a story literally just to add diversity and make it PC. They serve absolutely no purpose to the scheme of the story. They usually aren't included in it for that long or get killed off eventually. It's just so that the author can say, "See, I put in representation." Usually, this character will do nothing but occasionally remind the reader that they are diverse.

Or my personal favorite is when they put all the diversity into one character, making it very unrealistic and usually that character serves no true purpose.

Example:

Susy and her friends ran for their lives down the street, hoping to lose the gunned men that were intently after them. Every two seconds, she looked back only to see that they were still behind her.

As she turned the corner, she noticed two moms, one Indian and the other a white woman bound to a wheel chair, walking with their Chinese son who was blind.

Aw, that's nice, she thought, before remembering that she was running for her life and quickly forgot about the family she just saw.

The End.

In my opinion, that's just cramming every type of diversity one can hit while not actually using the characters in the story.

I don't see how that's accurate to everyone. Instead, writers should be creating real people who are more than just a skin color or disability. That may be a part of them, but that's certainly not all they are.

5) Unlikable Protagonists

I have realized that in a lot of the series that I like, I end up loving a lot of the supporting and even minor characters more than some of the main characters. Sometimes, that happens because you relate to a certain character more, however, lately it seems to be because insufferable main characters.

Now by an unlikable protagonist, I mean a protagonist that generally is irritating. They lash out or are rude to the people around them, they always do the thing that everyone is telling them not to do and don't care about the consequences, and they're generally just not very likable. I don't always have to relate to or even agree with a character to like them.

Tris Prior from the Divergent series is considered to be an unlikable character. I don't personally dislike her, but I see how people do and at times I have found her annoying in the books. However, there are main characters that I have absolutely loathed and it completely ruined the story for me.

6) Prologues

Generally they're unnecessary or just flat out annoying. It's usually a dream or some kind of vision that isn't really important to the story or you simply forget about it. It serves no true purpose other than to true to lure the reader into the story.

The only prologues I enjoy are the ones in the Pretty Little Liars books because they often set the theme for the story and provide with a memory or flashback that's important.

7) Random Royalty

How many books can there possibly be about some prince or princess who was sent away for safety and have no idea that they're actually royalty? Then suddenly they're living in a grand castle with people flocking and fawning all over them because of their status.

I never liked this trope to begin with, but it has just gotten really old. Can the character have some other secret identity? Like maybe a princess finds out her real family is actually super broke or criminals? Please, just something new.

8) Unrealistic parents

There are basically two types of parents/guardians in YA books: absent/cruel ones or totally chill ones. I don't think I've ever really read a YA book with realistic parents or a realistic parent figure.

In half the books I read, the parents don't seem to care about whatever their kids are doing. They can easily stay out for days without them asking a single question. Or, there's the other extreme where the parents won't let the kids leave the house, however, the character usually is able to climb out a window or something and escape anyways.

I understand if a parent is created to prove a point or for a certain conflict, but at least make them realistic or have a motive. If a parent is careless, talk about why they're so detached from their kid.

I think it's important though to include some type of parental figure who isn't awful or oblivious in the protagonist's because they are important. Not everyone has both parents or even one, but there are other people that kind of fill that spot in their lives or someone they look up to. Not all adults are horrible, some really do care about teens.

I could probably list several more, but they're more circumstantial rather than general.

But those are the YA cliches that I'm sick of reading. Hopefully, I'm not alone on some of these. Really this all boils down to a lack of originality or realism in books. I understand not all books are made to be realistic, but there should be some sort of real aspects to them. Overall, if a book uses one of these tropes, but pulls it off well, I'm not going to complain. I would just like to see some more unique stories coming out in YA.

That's it for this post. Thanks for listening. Please check out my other posts while you're here. And stay reading!