Is There Such a Thing As “Good” Tropes? // Let’s Talk Bookish
Hello and happy Friday, reader friends!
On this sunny, freezing Friday, you’ll find me curled up at my desk with a blanket and my vanilla latte from a Barnes and Noble trip earlier this morning (what better way to welcome in the weekend than with a trip to the bookstore?).
As I sat down to do some long overdue blog hopping, I saw a few posts that reminded me that it’s Let’s Talk Bookish Friday – a weekly post theme hosted by Rukky and Dani, one that I love participating in when the mood strikes! This weeks’ topic really intrigued me, and that’s because it’s all about…tropes!
I’m sure that we’ve all encountered a myriad of tropes and cliches in our reading careers, for better or worse. People have different opinions on these topics, and here are mine!
Tropes are tropes because…they work. Most of the time, authors leverage tropes because they’re proven to be a successful form of storytelling, and are a big draw for readers who have favorite themes that they look for in their stories.
However, once a trope or a cliche becomes overdone, many people will turn away from it, either from being burnt out, or simply burnt by a badly-done one. Honestly, when I think of the word “trope”, and even moreso with “cliche”, I feel a negative connotation. I think there’s been a recent surge of people thinking that “tropes” are code for “jumping on a well-worn bandwagon”, which I feel is sometimes true and sometimes false. I think there’s a really interesting discussion to be had about the idea of tropes and certain types of readers, and how us sometimes us reader snobs will either consciously or unconsciously look down at other readers for their taste in trope (I’ll fully admit that I’m guilty of doing this!).
There’s also a tie-in to the whole idea of “guilty pleasure” reads here. A lot of my guilty-pleasure books (the entire idea of “guilty pleasure” is stupid anyways, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll persist) I consider to have “cliches” and common tropes. The biggest example I can think of is NA romance; oftentimes in the form of ‘the popular college guy falls for the shy new girl’. Such a cliche (and an unrealistic expectation, but whatevs) – does that make it bad? If it doesn’t then why do I feel weird telling people that I enjoy those kinds of books sometimes?
Ugh, a whole mess. My brain wasn’t ready for these deep thoughts today, but hey, food for thought.
Clearly tropes aren’t always bad, because so many of us have favorites!
Enemies to lovers. This is probably the most popular trope at the moment, this one is *chefs kiss*. The tension at the beginning, the explosive emotions in the middle and the inevitable love at the end just makes for a premium reading experience.
Morally gray characters. There’s nothing I love more than a character who’s aware that they’re…not good. I’m not the biggest fan of the goodie-two-shoes MC, so when I have a character who isn’t afraid to be a little sketchy, I’m sold.
Childhood friends to lovers. This is actually a new one to me, born out of my love of Have a Little Faith in Me by Sonja Hartl. If the authors able to pull it off well, seeing a pair of close friends realize their deeper love for one another gets me.
Commoner turned royalty. Or any instance of someone with low social and economic status becoming a badass. I love it when characters overcome their circumstances to basically become the most important/powerful bi*ch n the game. Trash for this trope!
Love triangles. Can’t stand em’. If I’m torn between two love interests, then I can’t really connect with either of them, and if I do connect with one, I’ll get mad at the MC for not choosing that one off the bat. It’s a tragic, never-ending circle.
Not like other girls AND/OR the mean girl. I think authors have gotten good at not explicitly having the characters say “I’m not like other girls” but sometimes a book just exudes that energy, ya know? I also can’t stand girl-on-girl hate for the sake of conflict. Let’s uplift female friendships and not have girls hating each other over love interests, please!
Cheating plotlines. Nope, nope, nope! Any hint of a morally gray “cheating” type of situation and I’m out.
Clueless parents. Parents are also one of those hit-or-miss factors of a book for me, but the thing that grinds my gears is when the parents are absolutely clueless to the world around them or cause conflict for no greater reason than to throw a loop into the MC’s plans. Just not my thing.
As I’ve grown as a reader, I definitely have learned what cliches and tropes I do and don’t like, and I’ve learned to take a more critical eye when looking at what makes a good trope. Even if they sometimes make us want to bang our heads against a wall, tropes are what determine our tastes and push us to pick up a new book, so I really can’t hate on em.
What are some of your favorite and least favorite tropes and cliches?
2 Comments
Morgan
I recently started loving the fake dating trope! Enemies to lovers are great too, and I also like friends to lovers.
I totally agree with the ones you dislike, love triangle and the “I’m not like other girls” trope grind my gears. 😅
Bernadette
This whole post is bang on.
One of my least favorite tropes is the “really plain girl gets makeover and gets the guy” because like…..just I have so many issues with this one. XD