Trope Talk: Books I liked with Tropes I usually hate

Hello fellow bookworms 📚 It’s time for another Top Five Wednesday, which is a weekly meme which was created by Lainey and is now hosted by Sam! This week’s topic is Books you Liked with Tropes you Usually Hate so the idea is that we should “Pick some of your most hated tropes and discuss books (or other media) that actually handled that trope well” which is such a cool topic to talk about!

I have never really talked about the Tropes that I hate or the bookish Pet Peeves I have on here, so I’m very excited to finally touch upon this topic! I choose only 3 instead of 5 tropes, as there are a lot of tropes that I hate but that I find irredeemable and never ever like in books! Then there are the tropes that a lot of people seem to hate (or have grown tired off) like The Chosen one or Special Snowflakes, but I’m more neutral on them and there are a lot tropes I hate much more.

Childhood Friends to Lovers

Why I Usually hate this Trope

• Please don’t hate me but I was never really fond of this trope, even though lately I have found a lot of books that do this very well! I guess I just had some bad experiences in the past that have stuck with me!
• Mostly I hated when it was used as a part of a love triangle, as there is usually the Best Friend, who has been secretly in love with the Main Character ever since they were little, but never actually stands a chance.
• Generally I don’t really like it when a girl and boy have been friends for years but then of course there has to be something romantic between them. It’s sad to see how often there HAS to be a romantic connection between girls and boys, as they never seem to be able to be friends and nothing else.

Good Examples

  

Winter 📚 The PRINCESS AND HER GUARD trope is the best usage of this trope!! Jacin loves no one but his princess and his devotion is so cute, he risked everything to see her again even punishment and possible execution. He tries so hard to pretend that he’s only a friend to Winter and is good at holding back his feelings, but he loves her and as we’ve seen would do anything to keep her safe, because she’s his everything. Furthermore, Jacin helps her through her hallucinations and never calls her any slurs. He is careful not to touch her at other times … but like Winter sure wants him too.

The Brightsiders 📚 Emmy and Alfie totally rocked that Trope! I adored their friendship and loved to see how it turned into love. However, their relationship is far from easy. Emmy has had a rough time and is recovering, but she also begins to care for Alfie differently than she has before. He is her best friend and has always been there for her through it all. He is her sanctuary, but now she feels herself very attracted to him romantically. Alfie himself seems interested and when they both go on a vacation things start to get steamy between them. There are lots of kisses and mutual pinning. Emmy and Alfie love teasing each other and explore their feelings in secrets.

The Problem with Forever 📚 I could not help but love the two of them together! They do have a solid friendship and it was so sweet to see how supportive Rider was of her. It was clear how much he valued her and how he always made sure that she truly wanted to do things unlike her parents, who pushed her to do stuff. It’s very clear from the beginning, that there is romantic love between them as well and the buildup for that was really good. It’s shown that both truly see each other in a different light after those 4 years apart. They are teenagers now, they have grown up and now there is the possibility of seeing each other as a love interest.

Insta Love

Why I hate this Trope

• It’s plain unrealistic, at least in my opinion. I don’t believe in love at first sight and most of the time insta-love has the characters confessing their undying love after just a few hours/days. Of course there is instant chemistry or attraction, but being in love after a few hours? You hardly know the other person.
• That’s another thing: you need to get to know each other before you can even know if this person is the right one for you. Immediately being like “I can’t live without you” is hardly a healthy behavior to show.
• I also cannot believe that these romances would ever survive in real life as they aren’t based on having any similarities or shared experiences.

Good Examples

 

Cress 📚 Cress & Throne’s relationship was so very well done. What I loved is that we clearly see that Cress is instantly crushing on him and dreaming about their future because she has never really developed any romantic relationship and is latching onto the first person that fits her daydreams. Thorne even acknowledges this, but is gentle with her and protecting her against this new world that they both enter. Cress being all dreamy for him just fit in perfectly with her past and how she had been so isolated. Therefore her huge crush made sense AND both do take a journey together, where they get to know each other better and have to work together. Their dynamic continued to amaze me and keep me entertained for the entire book.

Passenger 📚 I was shipping both of them from pretty much the beginning, because Etta and Nicholas have great chemistry. They are a case were an instant attraction & chemistry was there, but not the extreme instant love like we usually see. Instead their relationship was explored slowly and I loved how it was portrayed. Of course there were secrets between them, but they talked to each other. Etta and Nicholas agree to be partners, equals and work so well together. There is lots of consent between them, which I really liked seeing! They are fundamentally different, but that makes their dynamic all the more interesting.

Love Triangle

Why I hate this Trope

• This trope always annoys me and honestly has been done well only the two times I mentioned below. There are Love Triangles that I just feel neutral about, but I still find them so unnecessary.
• I hate Love Triangles because they are only used to build drama for the plot and there are certainly other ways to do so. I often find Love Triangles to be lazy and the fact that they appeared so much and are still used a lot made me so sick of them.
• I also hate how they are all about jealousy and competing among the love interests, this never ends well. Often they also overtake the actual story and nothing angers me more than the Main Character being so indecisive.
• Not to mention that this Trope is often done the exact same way with a ‘brooding bad guy’ and a ‘nice guy, who probably is the best friend’. The problem here is that I almost always hate one love interest, but still have to read about them and their pining for the main character. There is often no dynamic between the three characters, only jealousy.

Good Examples

 

The Infernal Devices 📚 I think we can all mostly agree that Jem/Tess/Will is like the only love triangle that was ever done well. The reason why they work for me as a constellation is because they have a great dynamic and are basically all in love with each other. Will and Jem are best friends, they are parabatai and love each other dearly, which you never have with two love interests. All three of them have respect for each other and work well together, which is also why I liked every one of them. What a Love Triangle should do is make you root for both characters and here that worked! (When usually it doesn’t, as I never like the love interests equally.)

Labyrinth Lost 📚 I just read this last weekend and I was surprised by how well done the love triangle was. What I liked here is that we finally have some variety with the love triangle as it’s between a girl + another girl + another boy! While the book overall could have been stronger when it came to characters, plots and relationships, I still thought the Love Triangle was decent. I liked both love interests and while they definitely fought, we also saw them teasing and having a separate dynamic. Generally, all three characters worked well together.

What Tropes do you hate in books? Have there been good examples of them?