This rant… I mean… confession, cracked me up. It’s HILARIOUS! Mind you, I AM a sucker for some of these tropes, even though I DO agree with Lauren that in real life? Nope. Most of it wouldn’t happen (and I have to go with the whole “just go with it” philosophy) but I must admit, she makes some very good points. 😉 *snort*
And it’s when she said
“…who doesn’t stalk their ex-love of their life on Facebook?
“Huh, that kid looks an awful lot like me”.
Tee hee!!!!!! True. Oh SO true.
And then… she goes on about her OWN stepbrother. OMG Lauren is the ultimate heroine. Someone put her in a book STAT!!!
Lauren rants *ahem* I mean confesses…
Ok….here goes.
I’m sick of the “misunderstanding” between the H & H ESPECIALLY if it lasts for years. Throw in a baby that the H never tells the H about & you have an unreadable book for me. Unreadable AND implausible because really….who doesn’t stalk their ex-love of their life on Facebook?
“Huh, that kid looks an awful lot like me”.
Next…the manwhore with a heart of gold. I love bad boys just as much as you do but why can’t they be bad AND not f**k everything that moves? I’ve been reading a lot of books lately where the H is a badass (usually mafia… love those mafia guys) & they honestly have too much going on in their mob lives to even think about tapping lots of random a$$.
Which leads me to….the guy trying desperately to get the girl to go out with him or get the girl back BUT in the meantime….he’s gonna f**k around with as many girls as he can….you know, until he gets the love of his life back. Now, anyone that knows me knows that cheating by a main character is a hard limit for me. Hate it. Won’t waste my time reading it.
And then there’s the horribly vicious and oftentimes homicidal ex-GF that will do anything & everything to get the guy back, including but not limited to drugging the guy to get him in bed (pics are usually taken once in bed), faking a pregnancy OR getting pregnant on purpose, stalking the new GF & making her life hell, stalking the guy & making HIS life hell. This is why restraining orders are made!!! Oh, but the guy won’t take out a restraining order because I’m pretty sure all guys are afraid they may have to turn in their man card if they do.
Another problem I have…..the heroine that gets pregnant the first month of dating the hero. This happens way too much….even with birth control. I’m pretty sure BBFs have super sperm, but don’t quote me on that.
I will skip over the billionaire and the virgin storyline because that has already been mentioned. No. Actually I am gonna go there. How many hot, young billionaires are there in the U.S.? I’m gonna go out on a limb & say NOT MANY, if ANY.
Also, raise your hand if you have a hot, young stepbrother. No hands? Didn’t think so. I have a stepbrother. He’s 28. He plays in Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments on the weekends.
What DO I like? I like real heroines. Real heroes. Real life. Real situations. Sure, I’ll take the angst because really, a story would be kinda boring without it. But I hate it when authors throw 11 different angst filled situations at us just to see what sticks.
Give me an Archer’s Voice or a Beautiful Disaster: A Novel or hell, even a Twilight. A simple love story without all the bells & whistles. I just want authors to realize that a good solid story doesn’t NEED all the unnecessary drama. It gets tiring for me to read….I read to escape, not feel like I’ve been ridden hard & put up wet (that’s not a sexual thing….it’s a horse thing).
And off the soapbox I go.
*hugs Lauren* I get it!!!!
Anyone have additional rants? Or perhaps… just want to commiserate?
I think this is why I always go back to Fantasy & PNR… those tropes don’t apply there! And I remember the characters & stories. So visual & cool.
Maybe why I venture so much into Psych-thrillers…?
Bahahahahah!!!
“I’m pretty sure BBFs have super sperm, but don’t quote me on that.”
And this –> “Also, raise your hand if you have a hot, young stepbrother. No hands? Didn’t think so. I have a stepbrother. He’s 28. He plays in Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments on the weekends.”
I needed that. Thanks Lauren.
LOL Lauren. You made me laugh. The stepbrother that plays Yu-gi-oh? Haha. (I’m sure he’s a great guy!) Yes. a lot of what you say is true. I’m really over the billionaire thing. I’m getting a bit sick of presidential candidates too. And royals. I mean, come on. Just how many are there out there????
Yeah, the super sperm thing too. I can’t think how many books I’ve read where the h gets pregnant after ONE NIGHT or even just ONE *ahem* interaction. Yeah, it might happen NOW AND THEN. But the number of books out there with that trope………
Um… Stepbrother thing…
I have 11 half brothers and sisters. Before my parents were married, my brother on my mom’s side and my sister on my dad’s were married. My niece was stillborn, sadly, but she would have been one month older than me. Also, my sister on my mom’s side and my brother on my dad’s side were dating. First Love and all that.
… so… it happens. Though, honestly. I’m so glad it happened and ended before I was aware. That’d just be weird for the one person related to them all.
Seeeeeee? Sometimes it IS plausible… hence the occasional “just go with it” mood. 😉
I was nodding my head, smiling the whole time until the Yu-gi-oh comment, literally laughed out loud! Preach, sista! 😉
But doesn’t both Twilight and BD fall into those categories?
Pregnant after one time? Bad boy who sleeps with anyone even when trying to get with the h?
I’m pretty sure I wrote that before the influx of “Daddy” books. Seriously icky. “Can I touch it Daddy?” “It’s so BIG Daddy!”. Something tells me these “Daddies” can’t live near any schools.
Yeah but bev, he was a VAMPIRE. They can get ANYONE pregnant. That’s not an example. 😉
And NEVER question Travis. He’s the ultimate, original bad boy. He has the right.
Nobody else.
🙂
*giggle*
LOL Lauren!!!!!!!
Maybe that can be a future “add-on” confession!
LOL
I’m getting really tired of the “daddy” storylines. Other than that turns me off it also seems really incestuous or something to me. I don’t mind the older guy and younger woman sometimes but they are wearing this virgin story line to death!
Maryse
They will have to go through you AND me to get to Travis. Nobody touches him!!!!
😉
Yeah!
*stands all tough-girl like*
Bev, I’m totally going to pretend you didn’t just say that!!!!! 😉
Jeesh! First you rip apart Thoughtless and now this???
Hey Guys!! How about we “punish” Bev by finding her and tackle hugging her??? That’ll teach her to dis our book bf’s. *grins deviously*
This post made me laugh out loud several times. Thank you very much.
Has anyone written a post/rant about the implausible sex in some books. I mean I like a good hot romp like the next person but sometimes I’m just like ‘really, nup that’s not happening’. I have to share one I read recently and sorry if this is TMI. But the girl had lost her virginity, boy then goes to war, she gets pregnant from that one time. He comes back and she is 6 months pregnant….they get it on, he sits on her chest/midsection for a BJ and then proceeds to have anal sex for the first time. And wait for it….she loves it. P-lease, as if. I don’t know maybe when I was pregnant I was missing the crazy sex hormones.
There are so many others….like the women that orgasm 10 times in an hour. That’s when I start skipping through. So many authors can do sex scenes so well, where u really do get hot under the collar but others are just comedy gold.
I need Lauren to be my new best friend!! You is funny, girlfriend, and real!!!
Love secret baby trope! Silly i know but still one of my faves.
Have to agree with the misunderstanding that last years. But the trope that gets me is the true love in high school that it overrides everyone they meet for years (usually tied to some kind of misunderstanding that drives them apart) Crazy. I can’t even remember high school. 🙂 And the whole town knows about how these two were meant to be together even though they are both middle-aged now. (my fave author does a lot of this. Think it’s cray but i give her a pass).
Tilly Kaye, I totally agree. I mean, who you are at 16, 17, 18….is a completely different person than who you are in your late 20’s & 30’s. And I’d be turned off by any guy who still acted like he was still in HS. Remember that Friends episode where Monica goes out with the most popular guy from HS….she’s excited because she was fat in HS & never dated. He still lives with his mom “But I can totally stay out as long as I want”., still works at the movie theater “I can get you free posters for your room”. Lol
Something that has recently started to bother me is the constant talking during sex. The dirty talking. It’s kinda creepy. “Tell me what you want….you want my c*ck don’t you….you want to cum all over my big c*ck don’t you baby girl….you want that sweet p*ssy to strangle my big c*ck…tell me baby….tell me….tell me” JUST F**KING TELL HIM SO HE WILL SHUT UP!!!! And that was real dialogue from a book I just read….well, not the all caps part, the quote.
LOL Lauren. Your dirty talking add-on had me laughing so hard!!!!!! 😛
I’m not talking bad….but come on. He slept with everyone. Even in the next room.
And the whole he got the Virgin pregnant the first time goes ALL against the WORLD BUILDING of that book. And made a creepy
creepy baby.
And forget hs true loves….infant true loves??? We call that the pink bow on the kitchen sink.
That one vampire who wanted a baby. ..but wait she can’t cause vampires can’t have babies should have beheaded them all.
Not sure if I should post this or not… one of my least favorite parts of contemporary romance stories… when he says “come now”.. and she does! Like every time. As if!!! LOL.
Bev – what the heck book was that??
Since we’re sharing what tropes we’re “over”, how about which ones still do it for you? For me:
– nerdy girl gets hot dude (still love it)
– quiet, brooding, troubled dude gets the sweet girl
– super slow burn
Not to sound creepy, but I really feel like Lauren is my long, lost book sister. Seriously, I have found myself picking plots apart to the point that I’m sometimes in a perpetual book slump due to issues with all of her aforementioned problems. I can’t take instalove, surprise babies, or over the top plays for affection that feel almost like borderline harassment, etc. I find myself rereading old favorites or sticking to my favorite authors. Give me Penny Reid, Mariana Zapata, Tiffany Snow, Mia Sheridan, or Kristen Ashley any day.
So….seriously…Lauren, can we be friends?
MichelleS… Twilight.
He slept with everyone, even in the next room?? That was Twilight?
MichelleS I am with you. I love those types of books too.
Lauren very funny. My coffee went everywhere when I got to your stepbrother comment.
I guess that is why I love books so much. There is something for everyone.
Michelle, the first part if Bevs comment was re: Travis from Beautiful Disaster
I know what you’re saying Antonella. It just takes you right out of the moment when you have to scratch your head thinking… huh? They did THAT? In a CAR? How did they do that????? My mind goes to… is that physically possible?
And if it’s not mentioned that they shut the door when they went into a room then start getting down and dirty, I always feels like I’m looking over my shoulder. Uh oh. Is someone gonna just walk in on them? Peeps, just shut the door.
And yeah, when they overdo the number of orgasms in a single night, I feel the mental eyeroll coming on. Puh-leese. Let’s get a little bit real.
And I have noticed it’s a common thing in books now for women to be really feelin’ it when they’re pregnant. Um, did I miss the boat on that one? I don’t remember any special extra luvvin feelings when I was pregnant. Is that just another urban myth?
Twilight has the cannibal baby who already has a husband.
BD, which I loved, lol, has the hero sleeping with everyone.
MichelleS, i love the Nerdy girl/bad boy trope.
And the Sloooow burn. I read a blog that did GH recaps, used to love that show, and about one couple she’d comment on their Victorian hand porn, lol. Slow burn with little hand touches and Invasion of space.
My super-favorite trope is the reclusive male (whether it’s because he’s different or scared, or is just so no-nonsense that he can’t “take” people), but lets himself open up to one girl l. I LOVE that.
Or something forbiddeny… of course. 😉
Victorian hand porn bev?? I’m laughing so hard over this discussion.
I love this discussion. Perfect!! It’s rare a book does it for me anymore. They’re all so much the same. The misunderstanding is one of the worst. Overhearing a partial conversation but leaving before you hear the full context. Or the I’m not good enough for you so I’m going to make it look like I’m cheating to make you leave because it’s for your own good. Right now I refuse to read about affairs (Mia Asher) or second chances for personal reasons so that leaves out half of what’s out there it seems. I love a good Rom com. Sometimes though when it gets really popular the author tends to get really over the top. I really enjoy dark with a little forbidden. The older man / younger woman is my current trope. Lauren, you were spot on..
Stephanie – it’s rare that a book “does it for me” too. I start reading a book and find myself saying, “not this again”, and I can predict what’s going to happen and how it all will end. So why bother reading it? It’s not that those old “greats” were stand-outs, it’s just that maybe they were the FIRSTS – you know? Like 50 Shades? You always remember those “first feelings”. I suppose that having over 1100 books on my Kindle means there will be some recurring themes. Heehee. That’s also why certain books hit so hard for me they are total firsts… Wolfsong, Last Hour of Gann, Weaving Man, etc. Just nothing else out there like that.
Okay, I know I should ignore this but I am going to step in here for a second.
We live in a great, big, diverse world with so many different people who all have their own unique way of thinking.
Not because you have never experienced or seen something where you are from does it mean it’s “implausible”.
I have lived in just–JUST–a handful of different countries and I can tell you that the people in each country all think, and act, and speak differently. What might seem implausible and unnatural for me is normal for them.
The more I grow and travel, the more I understand that I am just one small spec in a great, big world. Who am I to say what someone would really do and what they wouldn’t?
If we had read about the gay night club shooting in a book, we would have said it was implausible. “Seriously, you expect us to believe ONE man was able to kill so much people in big, crowded club like that? Pfft. You’re telling me a group of people couldn’t just tackle him? This is implausible. One star!”
Mind you, people WERE finding it hard to believe, so much so that they began to say other men had to be there. That’s just it, if people can’t wrap their own brain around something, they dismiss it.
I am a J’can and I have lived one of the most effed up life for someone who isn’t even thirty yet. I am freaking messed up for LIFE. I FEEL very little. And when I tell people who are like 20-30 years my senior things I have been through, seen and experienced, they often look at me as if they are not sure to believe me. Because all their life, they’ve never seen, heard of, or witnessed anything even close to what I have. Nope. Not in their nice, peaceful country. Not from their sheltered upbringing.
And yes, I know people who have affairs with their hot step siblings. It don’t always turn into a great love story, BUT IT HAPPENS.
Yes, I have a seriously hot COUSIN that I cannot be around to this day because I am insanely attracted to him. MY COUSIN. I met him for the first time when I was about 9, him 13. And I had such a strong reaction to him that I couldn’t even talk. All throughout my teen years, I put in the effort to make sure I always looked nice if we were going to his house or if he was going to be at a family event. I never talked to him save for monosyllabic convos, the crush was too huge. And he always gave me this me this strange look with a half-smirk as if he knew something I didn’t. Yes he was my family and being attracted to him has never once repulsed me, I just knew it was wrong and chose not to act on it.
I am admitting all this here to prove that we are INDIVIDUALS, and we can’t make ourselves the “model” for how other people think or behave. You may not have experienced it to believe a certain plot could be true to life, but maybe the writer has.
I think it’s okay to hate and avoid a trope, but not to say something is implausible because YOU can’t imagine it.
Stepping out now. Pretty sure I just broke a rule.
Hmmmm… true. I can see you side, for sure.
I went with implausible over impossible (since many of the tropes are still possible). Also why I put “implausible” in quotes.
Perhaps implausible was the wrong word-choice, 😉 but with how I understand the term (and used it), I find it fits.
I certainly didn’t expect (or intend) for my title to offend. Kind of a fun, tongue-in-cheek title (and post) by readers.
Ann – I would totally read a book about a9 year old crushing on her 13 year old cousin.., and him smirking like he knows.., so forbinnen! Write that book!!
Since tropes are just overused cliches… I’m also going to throw out the “Kidnapping” cliche. Every dang MC book has girl kidnapped! And KA’s series often have multiple heroines from same town kidnapped! I’m just waiting for the Kidnapping to happen… ugh… want an MC novel with no one kidnapped, please.
I still find it implausible that Bella had a baby since it was supposed to be impossible for that to happen in the Twilight universe.
LOL bev!!! I’m with you. But… magic!!! See? *waggles eyebrows*
I dunno.
# never letting it go
Lauren should write a book ( omitting her stepbrother) . I’d read it!
LOL Hayley!! I think he’d be an awesome side character!!!
My comment is not really about Lauren’s comments although she does make good points. Twilight’s a bit of a stretch though and don’t get me started on 50 Shades :P.
Pregnancy can and does happen on the very first time – a close girlfriend experienced this. Don’t dismiss this too easily – it does happen.
What creeped me out wasn’t that Bella got pregnant, but how fast it went! That was creepy! And the blood drinking! Ick
I know it does happen, Nara. But I think the problem with this (and many other tropes), is that it is overused in romance books (especially HRs). As soon as they have unprotected sex, I feel a mental eyeroll and a looming ‘unexpected’ pregnancy coming on.
Or maybe I just read too many books???? LOL.