The Anti-Romance List: Tropes I Can't Stand!
Hi bookworms! It’s time for a new rant and I’m here for this BookTok discussion about tropes.
If you’ve scrolled through Amazon’s romance books section lately then you’ve noticed that books aren’t sold on plot anymore, but by tropes. I’m absolutely done with this overused marketing tool.
I can’t keep quiet anymore. Let’s talk about the tropes that infuriate me the most.
Toxic Love trope – Toxic love isn’t unhinged; it’s just an unhealthy relationship.
Cool Girl trope – Pick-mes are the weak damsels and they shouldn’t be in dark worlds.
Purity trope – The virginal girl (falls in line with the damsel).
Denial to Acceptance trope – Giving in too quickly.
Miscommunication trope – He said/she said needs to stop!
Toxic love isn’t unhinged; it’s just an unhealthy relationship.
I am a firm believer that he or she can be unhinged, but their love doesn’t have to be. Toxicity is so potent in popular culture (i.e., movies and books). Don’t get me wrong! The obsession and possession of those demented men draw me in every time. But why do they have to be misogynistic to their girl?
Why do they not understand that making her give them a bj in public as punishment could be humiliating and traumatic? The art of leaning into that toxicity only makes the men look immature and unevolved until she starts rebelling. Then they have no choice but to figure out how to change to keep her.
What if there was toxic love within a healthy relationship? I mean we still get our dark spots like possessiveness as seen in Owen by BJ Alpha. The touch-her-and-die vibes are never gone, especially in The Comfort of Pain by Kitt Lynn. Yes, the characters are all mentally unhinged, just like how we want them. But we’re given a more understandable reason why these people should be together. The world around them is misogynistic and will never be changed. Collectively, the men realize that they can change and be different far before she ever comes into the picture.
Forgives abuse too quickly.
I know that these books are not rooted in reality. Anyone who cuts a man’s hand off when he touches “what’s his” cannot be looked over in real life (yes, I’m looking at you, Haunting Adeline). When that violence is turned onto her then it’s not okay. Why are you kidnapping the object of your desire and running her ragged through a cold forest naked while you and your friends hunt her (soft rant about Dark Dare)?
In comes the entitlement. These men are arrogant enough to believe they own her. She’s compelled to spread her legs because her body is responding to them. No girl, that’s your body going into survival mode. When they feel her pulling away, they decide to be as nice as they can. This UNO reverse is enough to change her perspective. That Stockholm syndrome kicks in and now she’s starry-eyed about these men.
Pick-mes are weak damsels, you can’t tell me different.
We all know who these types of women are in popular culture:
She’s not like the other girls (the men are drooling over how daintily she chews her dry toast in the morning).
She dances like a nerd in her bedroom while looking like a plain Jane with thick-rimmed glasses (yes, this is specifically Taylor Swift).
She’s too naive (no, the rival football player isn’t taunting and flirting with you because he suddenly fell in love with you. You are the object of affection to his hated rival quarterback).
Everyone wants to kidnap her because she’s so special.
Not only is she a bright light of sunshine, but a virgin too. Plundering her delicate daisy makes her stand out far more than the dirty girls out there because she’s never been touched. Inexperienced but immediately knows what she’s doing in the bedroom and always has an O during intercourse.
Miscommunication equals immaturity!
Everyone has a moment in their relationships where they’ve said the wrong thing. People have taken you too seriously. The shunning began. In book world, those miscommunications create a 200 page conflict. Resentment grows into something so ridiculous that readers cannot see a way out of it. Until a sidekick character points out the absurdity of Lucy hating Derek because she saw him hugging a girl in front of the library on campus. When in fact the girl was his best friend, cousin, or sister.
In real life, assuming both parties are mature, they would have a conversation! They would COMMUNICATE their sides and then move on.
Well, as I step down from my soapbox, and close another chapter on tired cliches...
I have to admit something; I was entertained. Overused? Absolutely. Exhausting? Definitely. But did they keep me reading until 2 a.m. anyway? Unfortunately, yes.
We need tropes in romance stories to compartmentalize where they land on our interest meter. Collectively, we can admit that they worked too well, but are now overused. The market is oversaturated and readers are yearning for unique reads to redefine common tropes.
True, predictable tropes rule the bestseller lists but we’re forgetting that reader fatigue is real. In the bookstagram space, I’m seeing a major shift where growing numbers of readers are exhausted by cookie-cutter formulas. They’re ready to praise and hand over their money to the books bold enough to do something different.