10 Things I Hate About...

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Contemporary YA fiction, namely romance.

1) Two dimensional characters. OH my. An insecure girl who has hidden strength. A bad boy who is secretly a softie.


2) Countless pages of "He looked straight at me and I blushed crimson, ducking my head and letting my hair fall between us" and then the last twenty pages of the book containing the rise, climax, and fall.

3) Love triangles. These should be outlawed. Nevermind the fact that they're really fun to write...

4) Heroines. My gosh. People complain that chivalry is dead. Um, that would be because guys are never given the chance to offer chivalry anymore. Girls have to be the "strong, empowered" ones. Sorry, but I don't find a guy who needs to be rescued by a girl entertaining to read about.

5) Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Fallen Angels, Wizards, Warlocks, Witches, Shapes-shifters, and the like. Is it weird that I just really want to read about a human being?

6) Betrayal. Okay, so...I think writers should be able to find another way to put a twist in the book than making one of the characters betray the other. Or rather, the character thinks the other one betrayed them, which is usually the case. Come on now...

7) Substance abuse. Almost every teen book has this. Now I understand that it's common, but seriously? Not every single book has to have it.

8) Insecure girl characters. Okay, so I know this contradicts with #4...but it seems like it's always one extreme or the other, never a good balance. Either the girl is downtrodden with self hate and pity, or she's like this in-your-face I'm gonna save the day type.

9) Single parents. The last...3456754 YA books I read...the main character only had one parent...why?

10) Current media references. Dear authors, in two years, all these references will make your books way outdated. Plus, I don't really want to read about the Biebs.

So, there is my list. And for the record, I'm not calling out any particular authors- just the entire genre in general. I respect everyone's individual work...I mean, I wouldn't want to write a book, work my butt off on it, and get hate for it. So I avoid doing that. Unless the book is super horrible. Like this one I just read...

Also! Twilight hate will not be tolerated. Even though they hold many of the annoying cliches earlier mentioned, I love those books. And I teared up when I saw a promo for the movie today. And I'm counting down the days. And I kind of loathe the movies because I feel like they exploited the books, but that's beside the point.

I'm going to go read some more YA fiction now...(ha, kidding, I'm going to sleep. Plus, I'm #15 in line for the book I want to read at the library, so...)