“I Am The Chosen One But I Hate It”: People In This Online Group Share 30 Of The Most Annoying Book Tropes

Miscommunication leading to conflict.

Especially when the characters point blank refuse to utter another word to each other, even when a simple sentence of explanation could resolve the entire problem.

Forced drama like that makes me hate a book.

I feel like oftentimes characters are able to read just a little too much simply by looking into another's eyes. "She looked into his eyes and saw hope with a tinge of sadness, layered with uncertainty mixed with conviction."

Obviously that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you see my point.

Basically, anything where "No" from a female character means "you haven't earned my trust yet and I act ~uppity~ due to modern feminism; you must prove yourself by protecting me from the danger I walked into due to my childish refusal to listen to men; only then will my inner woman be unlocked". *gag*

I hate hate everything about that trope and it needed to have died in the 80's.

Bonus: she's got an endearing reason to be super insecure, like a small birthmark, or being held prisoner her whole life. Here, "no" means "I can't believe anyone will find me beautiful and it's going to take some persistence to persuade me you do"

F**k everything about these "women don't really mean it when they refuse you" tropes.

"Two people of opposite sex have to solve this problem together. There is no way in hell that they aren't going to fall in love, that would just be weird. What are friends or colleagues?"

I definitely dislike ‘enemies to lovers’ but more so as a librarian myself I cannot stand the ‘mousy, no personality, meek librarian who solves the day’ storyline. Librarians definitely kick butt but we are not all mousy, bland women!

My biggest pet peeve in books is the chosen one trope. It’s okay when you’re a kid but when you’re an adult you just see lazy writing

Another trope I hate is the rough exterior “b****y” woman with a heart of gold who predictably falls for the hero, like we get it fellas, it’s your fantasy to win over women who aren’t interested in you one bit

Lastly the “weird” girl who doesn’t know shes conventionally attractive trope, she doesn’t care about dresses or boys or “girly” things so she never got attention despite being beautiful and approachable for the main character to romance, like please

As a woman who married a widower, I really dislike romances where one of them was married before, and even if he or she thought it was a happy relationship, they have to find out how secretly evil and twisted their first love was before they can fall in love with the new love interest. Like... it's possible to be in love more than once in your life. It doesn't undervalue your present relationship to say your last one was also good. Especially when the person is dead.

Hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, emotionally-disconnected, gruff-rough-and-tough, rumpled-trench-coat-wearing, middle-aged, wife-left-me-because-I'm-a-shitty-husband, blues/jazz-loving, I'll-do-it-my-way, hang-the-consequences, lone-wolf detective that manages to always get-their-man. Yawn.

Making a girl obnoxious and extremely confrontational means they’re strong and independent. This is also done purely because the character is a girl.

There are so many better ways to portray this but some authors get really weird when writing women.

How about the " I'm just an average teenage girl...who has superpowers....three love interests....always getting into trouble and then miraculously saved. Blame everyone for my problems and never take responsibility. And by the final book in my series I will not have learned or grown in any way but I'm still somehow the heroine" trope. I've read too many bad YA lol

As a twin myself, pretty much every twin-related trope you can think of. No, we’re not creepy or psychic, we’re not two halves of the same coin, one of us is not the evil one, and we both don’t want to have s*x with you. Thanks.

Edited: I know I worded it in a purposefully funny way, but all of the “oh so you’re the evil twin then” responses are a little exhausting, friends

It is the « I am the chosen one but I hate it and just want to be normal » trope. It’s super common in books and I feels that it prevent the plot from moving forward and leads to many chapters (sometimes it is the whole book) where the protagonist complains about it every two pages for finally accepting them for the grater good.

When the main character is a Plain Jane and dogging herself out throughout the entire book until the snarky blonde boy says she's beautiful/like a firecracker/not like other girls/Sooooo unique

People getting „sorted“ in a specific group. After the success of HP every fantasy book I read as a teen had some sort of „you are part of this group thing“ going and damn it was annoying. You can‘t all copy the Hogwarts houses. Get some new ideas

The main character carrying a terrible, horrendous, shameful burden that is alluded to constantly. Turns out to be something very common.

Protagonists who refuse to respect their friends' ability to make their own decisions in some misguided attempt to "protect" them.

For some reason I’ve never liked the plot of someone unjustly accused who has to solve the crime & clear their name

I love urban fantasy books, though they often fall into paranormal romance, which I don't care for quite as much. I can always tell when it's going to get romantic and who the protagonist is going to be romantic with because it will always describe the guy's pants.

Beautiful young ingénue (who is incredibly attractive and somehow doesn't realise it) meets older, emotionally damaged man, and fixes him. A la 50 shades of grey.

When a character is a runner, because they want to be free/get away from where they are.

When a character likes maths or science, because it's binary right and wrong.

Just two very tired characterisation tropes.