5 YA Tropes I Never Want To See In a Book Again

This weekend, I read a book with one of my most hated YA tropes ever: instant love. This frustrated me so much, that I felt the need to rant about other YA tropes I hate, and voilà, this blogpost was born! So here's a bit of an angry and ranty blogpost with 5 of my most hated YA tropes. 

Clueless characters
There are few things that frustrate me more than clueless characters. I hate it when there's this book involving a big mystery and there are a lot of signs pointing to what that mystery is, and the MC is unable to piece these signs together. Or even worse, when they can't even pick up on these signs. OPEN YOUR EYES. Seriously, a lot of books could've been 200 pages shorter if the character hadn't been so utterly clueless. Ugh. (I'm looking at you, Chamber of Secrets 😒)

Boy saves girl
You know the books where a girl is stuck somewhere and a guy has to go and save her? Or those books where a girl has a chance to do something very heroic, but the guy thinks she can't handle it so he steals her moment? Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that. My big feminist heart breaks a little every time I read something like that, and a few seconds later my whole big feminist self gets very angry. What is this, the 1800's? No, girls can be strong on their own, and they can save themselves.

Lack of diversity

This 'trope' deserves it's very own blogpost, because I have A LOT to say on this matter and I can't write it all down in just a few lines. But let's just say that I'm tired of only reading about white straight able-bodied characters.

Mean Girls
I am so so done with the whole 'girl goes to a new school and immediately gets bullied by a mean girl clique'-thing. The whole mean girls thing is getting a bit old (not the movie though, I LOVE the movie), and it doesn't promote very healthy relationships. I want to see girls supporting and loving each other. Girls complimenting each other. Girls helping each other out. I want to see ALL the girl friendships. And girl love in general. 

Love Triangles
This last one probably didn't come as a surprise to you, because it's on basically every 'most-hated-trope' list. I used to not mind love triangles, until I started seeing them everywhere. Maybe it's a jealousy thing, because I can't even get one guy to fall in love with me, but I also find them incredibly frustrating. While reading The Selection series I often found myself screaming 'OHMYGOD JUST PICK ONE' in my head. And I also find it pretty unfair to lead someone on like that. 

So, what is a trope you never want to see in a book again?