Hi guys it's Olivia here from Olivia's Catastrophe and today I'm making a video
on the book tropes I feel mixed about. So
I don't know whether I love them or if I
dislike them. And I'm gonna be mentioning
some books that I think did them well and
some books that I think did them not so
well. As well as that I do have a video
up about the book tropes I love so I'll
leave a link to that up there and down
below, if you'd like to check that out
before you get to this one or afterwards.
So let's get right down to the book
tropes I feel most mixed about. The first
book trope I'm gonna mention is the
enemies two lovers romance. So, I
love it because you get to see people
who dislike each other for a variety of
reasons. Sometimes it has to do with
social class, sometimes it has to do with
personal trauma etc etc. Or just
preconceived notions of them. And I
really do enjoy seeing people work
through those problems. However, the
enemies to lovers trope can also be
quite troublesome because a lot of the
time before they become lovers a lot of
bullying is involved. And sometimes that
bullying can be quite abusive. And that's
when I cannot support them becoming
lovers in the end. Because it's not like
it's unforgivable, because obviously you
can't forgive people. But is it
forgivable to extent where you're going
to love them. When you deserve their love? Don't you deserve someone better? So I
really don't know how to feel about this
trope. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I
don't. I think a book that did that very
well was The V Girl by Mya Robarts. In
this one enemies to lovers romance
happens because of social stigma and
social situations being so very
different from each other. And it's a bit
hard to grasp that not everybody who is
in that social situation, or in that job
are that way. And they kind of have to
work through that.
However, books that I think did it not so
well: Leah on the Offbeat because I think Leah
was really mean to the person that she
ends up with. And was quite bullying them
in some ways. And that just wasn't the
grounds for a good relationship for me. I
didn't think that was healthy. So there's
ones I think did well and didn't do it
well. Secondly, love triangles.
I feel so mixed about them. Sometimes
they're done really well and sometimes
they're done really badly. An example of
where it's done well, I hate to say this
because it's also not done well. But
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Twilight
because of
the fact that the setup for the love
triangle is completely believable. She
goes for a breakup. She moves on with her
life and she starts falling for someone
else. But then the person that she broke
up with comes back and it's surfacing
these feelings. And she doesn't know what
to do. That is such a believable setup
for a love triangle. However, there are
some love triangles that do it really
badly and for example that's gonna be
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
because if the love triangle just leads
to cheating I am NOT about it. Cheating
is one of the tropes that I hate and I
believe you can be in a love triangle
and be deciding... kind of like Katniss is...
but not actually pursuing a relationship
with either of them while you try and
figure out your emotions first. I'm all
about that. And I don't think all love
triangles get that fact. So I don't know.
Love triangles... mixed. Then pop culture
references in books. I love pop culture
references to things that I know. Even if
I don't know them I actually appreciate
the fact that we get those pop culture
references because it makes me
interested in them. For example, My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma. I've never
watched a Bollywood movie but I loved
all these references to Bollywood. So
it's not really about whether I've seen
it or not. Well, it's about the sheer
amount of them in a book. I got almost
all of the pop-culture references in
What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera but I thought that
there were too many. And I was just
cluttering the story and being a total
distraction. However, American Fairytale
by Adriana Herrera does it really well
because the characters like, reference
Beyonce a lot. I love Beyonce. They
reference Beyonce a lot but it's kind of
not flooding the story and it's also in
light-hearted situations where it just
is part of like, dialogue. So it makes
sense because people make pop-culture
references in real life. The fourth trope
that I feel mixed about is everybody gotta get coupled up. I love it
but then sometimes it's overdone. So an
example of where I love it: it'll be the
Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. It's
kind of a given that each couple are
going to end up together because of the
fairytales, but I really liked it. I like
seeing them all get coupled up. But then
sometimes I feel like it gets overdone.
Maybe where it's a standalone book and
the two main protagonists get coupled up.
And then somehow they're best friends
also get coupled up and then some of
their friends get coupled up. And it's
like, all this coupling up
because this first couple got
coupled up. And I'm like it doesn't have
to be that way and also where your
single friends? So the final trope that I
feel mixed about is open endings. I am a
girl who loves closed endings. I love to
see like, this is how the people live. These people are dead, these people are
alive, these people are in love, these
people are in love and that's it. I love
my closed endings because I need to know
how things go. I just I need it. But
sometimes open endings are actually the
best thing ever and are actually so good
for the storyline. An open ending that I
just absolutely adored was The Dead
Father's Club by Matt Haig. That is a
Hamlet retelling and I think it ended at
a perfect place and I wouldn't have
wanted it to end anywhere else. But again,
it can be very hard to get those open
endings right because if you leave it too
open your readers will be unsatisfied. Those are book tropes I feel mixed
about. But just let me know in the
comment section down below what is a
book trope that you feel mixed about. And
why do you feel mixed about it? Please
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Goodbye!
