I’ll start:
– The main character randomly seeing themselves in a mirror and deciding to describe their entire appearence in detail. Usually includes something about how ugly or bland they think their perfect, model-like face/body is.
– Love triangles. Do I even need to say anything else?
– The borderline abusive, supposedly mysterious but actually just really boring love interest. Bonus points if this one pairs up with the love triangle one.
– When the author has zero knowledge about something (usually computers or other technical stuff) but decides to claim a side character is literally the best person in this field ever and prove it by making them do super average stuff they personally think is impressing because they just have no idea. Like, restarting a computer or guessing someone’s password does not make your character a mastermind hacker. Please just stop.
It seems like no YA characters can tell when they’ve been holding their breath.
Women in fridges (okay this is more for tv shows/movies but i literally cannot not mention it in a list of tropes i hate i am sorry)
instalove
main girl’s best friend is always superficial
orbs to describe eyes
Cute boy has an adorable “crooked smile” – I just imagine
him as having noticeably bad teeth and am confused as to why this is hot.Boy drives fast & reckless and can parallel park, and that
makes him hot in the view of a girl who can also drive.Non-human in a relationship with a human is controlling
and abusive because that’s just their nature and the human understands that, so
it’s okay.Female protagonist is “not like other girls”, because she likes books instead of makeup and the boy likes her because of that
Gratuitous rape to show how “edgy” the villain is.
– Cheating, especially when it’s an older guy with a younger woman and it fixes him or his current relationship.
– Characters spending longer than a chapter deciding to do anything. Bonus points if they don’t end up doing the thing.
– Characters doing a thing Just Because. Because it advances the plot, makes things more interesting, or brings about the ending the author wanted.
– Alpha males. (This is purely a personal preference, and romance novel sales suggest I’m vastly outnumbered, but a girl can hope.)
– Competent female character turns into a simpering, clumsy weakling so the big, strong man can save the day.
– Physical quirks described every time they happen. Raising an eyebrow, tucking hair behind an ear, smirking, fidgeting, wringing hands, etc needn’t be mentioned every single scene the character appears in.
I have more to add!
– Detective novels where the detective is an old, un-attractive ex-cop with a very generic ex-cop-personality, who has sexy young female assisant or client who falls in love with him, for no reason at all. Especially if the book is written by an old, un-attractive guy. Go fulfill your sexual fantasies somewhere else, women don’t just wait around for the nasiest guy to sleep with him just because he’s the hero of your story, lmao.
– Books being written from two or more points of view when one would most definitely have been enough. There’s nothing more boring than having to read through the same scene you just read once again just to learn what another character felt or thought. Especially when they feel or think nothing you couldn’t have guessed anyways. There’s so much better ways to bring this across, it slows the story down so much and serves literally no purpose.
– When books are written from one person’s point of view only, with a non-authorial narrator, but at some point the thoughts/feelings of other characters are randomly described. Like… either use a personal or an authorial narrator, don’t just randomly switch between them (unless it’s done on purpose and actually serves a purpose of course), it’s annoying as hell.
– popular girls as mean girls
– “the lost princess” – just… no more
– no friendship between boys and girls
Booklr! Let’s put together a list of book tropes we really bloody hate and would love to never read again ever.
Published
ImagineCreateDevour 