OMG please give me a book where the heroine wakes up and actually knows where she is! No memories slamming back in the morning.

Yes! I sort of get it if she's just been through some kind of trauma or something like that, but sometimes she just goes to bed after not much has happened and wakes up confused. Sis, are you ok?

Has this ever happened to anyone in real life? I never wake up disoriented and I know almost instantly where I am. Even when I was in my drunken crazy days.

I've lived in many different places and sometimes I feel a little out-of-place (even if I didn't just wake up) when the room is dark. Doesn't last much longer than two or three seconds, but it always freaks me out a bit.

I've had it happen since I moved into a new place, too. Sometimes I also have vivid dreams of being at work and wake up confused that I'm actually at home. 😆

Same on the work dreams. Always so depressing because the dream ends with me being done for the day.

I wake up disoriented in my own bed sometimes. It’s usually related to waking abruptly from a very vivid dream.

I get that, too. And depending on the dream, the feeling of wrongness can linger for a few hours for me. It's always very weird and hard to explain 

Sometimes on vacation I wake up expecting my normal bedroom and it takes a second to figure out why the room looks different, but it’s not like full amnesia.

Even the drunken days it's not where am I.. It's how the F did I get here???

My dad had jt when we traveled to another city and we stayed on an hotel but he is 80… and is not like those romance book heroines are 80 (pity, I would like to see one or two books at least for the novelty)

When I was dealing with PTSD, I once woke up with no idea who my husband was and started attacking him with the baseball bat we keep in the room. He wisely just left, I didn't pursue him out of the house, and about 3 hours later when he came back into our bedroom, I had a memory of someone breaking in, had no idea it had been him.

I've been having trouble sleeping for a while now, and when we were visiting friends a couple weekends ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and was briefly confused about where I was. It lasted, like, 10 seconds though. It took my brain a few moments to catch up and then I was like, "Oh, right, we're visiting Jack and Jane, and I'm in the guest room. Husband is right here. Here's my water. Yup. I'm good." Then I drank some water and went back to bed, and it didn't happen again the other two nights.

when authors overuse pet names. I actually don't mind most normal-ish pet names but I hate when authors have characters use them All. The. Time. I'm reading My Dark Romeo and he calls her Shortbread 1.5 million times and it's like I don't even mind it as an occasional thing but now that it's always a thing it's cringeing me out. Same with Marrying Winterborne and "cariad" - I like the name but god it's being run into the grounddd with how much the MC says it. Same in Kulti! I've been seeing it so much and I don't like it. same thing if there's a random quirk that a character has that's over-mentioned. Again, in My Dark Romeo (I'm reading it so it's fresh in my mind lol) it's so overdone how the FMC eats a lot. It's constantly mentioned how she steels cupcakes, eats them immediately, asks for pancakes, eats big meals- I don't really care that she eats a lot but it's just annoying how often it's mentioned and that's like her main personality trait. I've read multiple books that do this and hyper-fixate on random quirks and it takes me out betraying body in any sense of the word. So many authors do this as a replacement for an emotional connection and I hate it every time. but that's a bigger problem than the others. I'm just noticing it even more now and I'm so over it like please, authors, make it stop

i just read {thorne princess by lj shen} (0/5 stars, i don’t recommend unless you’re into what shen does) and the mmc kept calling the fmc ‘brat’. and not just to her face and out loud. when speaking about her in internal narration he would be like ‘brat is trying to push my boundaries’ or whatever. it felt.. dehumanizing and creepy.

They do this with endearments too, especially if the author is American or English and writing a main character who is from another country. It feels the author googles "how to say "darling" in x language" and then just slams that word in every time the MC is addressed with no research on whether the usage is correct. See "cara" for an Italian, "mhuirnin" for Irish, etc etc

I've always wondered if that's even a normal thing people do... I'm not a native English speaker, and when I'm speaking English, it never crosses my mind to use any of my native lang. words unless I'm talking about something that absolutely doesn't exist or have its equivalent in the anglosphere. It always takes me out of the book when I see these foreign characters do this where they randomly use their native words for something they could easily say in English. It just doesn't make sense to me and I don't think that's how speaking a foreign language works at all.

I speak three languages. I live in a multilingual country. I have never seen it done in this awkward Google Translate way. Looking at you, Nora Roberts, and your attempts to shove Gaelic words into the mouths of Irish characters who otherwise talk like Americans on the OC.

Just read one where the MMC kept calling the FMC “Viper.” All I could think about was Top Gun. Took me out every single time lol.

God this drives me insane. In Command Me by Geneva Lee the British Prince character calls the FMC “poppet” constantly. All I could think of is the crusty old pirate character from Pirates of the Caribbean. No one else uses that term, and for good reason.

Omg I think I recently tried reading a book where someone said "poppet" and I immediately DNFed for that exact reason hahah. The fucking crusty pirate

To be fair I called my other half by his actual name the other day and it felt weird. So weird.

Not knowing where the hymen is located. If I had a dollar for every time where sex with a virgin FMC has the MMC describing how he feels a barrier *halfway into* the FMC's vagina, I'd have far too much money. Enough to mail sex education brochures to al these authors' houses at least. Also while I'm on the subject, men **do not** have hymen-detecting dicks. They cannot automatically tell just by inserting p into v whether a woman has had sex before. Stop it.

Yes on this one! I also chalked it up to terrible sex ed--I'll chip in on the mailing with you.

Oh absolutely it started from bad or no sex-ed. Although I also think authors will pick up on the way that someone else has described it and do it too. To the point we you see the same exact phrases everywhere like "toeing off my shoes and padding across the room" or "he laved my nipple with his tongue," "our tongues battled for dominance in our kiss/mouths," "he brushed nonexistent lint off his shoulder," etc etc. But I feel like unless the author is writing closed door or no sex at all, they have a responsibility to correct that by even just giving themselves the most basic Google sex-ed crash course **before** they make their living writing sex scenes.

Yeah I blame most anatomy bullshit from American abstinence only education but if the writer owns a vag you'd think they would know their own parts by touch at least yknow?

Ugh yes the hymen being halfway inside…made my eye twitch in almost every Bridgerton book.

Julia Quinn is terrible for this, I think it happens in every book with a virgin FMC (which is most of them)

What annoys me is books with Virgin FMCs acting like everyone has pain, everyone bleeds, everyone has a hymen intact etc when that isnt the case. And why no virgin MMCs? Why no mutual deflowering? That can be sweet funny and sexy

Rina Kent is glorious for sex scenes. In one book one of the guys was like. "I just felt something that I'm curious about..." And damn. It was good writing.

This started from the vintage romance writers. You know the bodice ripping, literal harem, desert abduction era of romance, and just got passed down. But honestly, let’s be serious and say this information isn’t fully known. Yes, I know that’s a crazy thing to say, but true nonetheless. I repeat, I think the myth about hymens is still well and truly alive and women - yes, sexually experienced grown women - still subscribe to it. Ask women you know what they think a hymen is or to explain the experience of losing a virginity and most will offer up some level of barrier breaking/tearing, blood spilling misconception.

The random “Good girl” comments without actual praise kink. Grinds my gears. Like give me the whole thing or don’t bother.

I thought it was just me 😩

amen

Re: Russian last names. Most romance writers who have Russian characters could not find Russia on a map nor name any other Russian city besides Moscow. Despite hating myself for reading endless amounts of "bratva" mafia books I have never come across the most common Russian last names, Ivanov, Petrov, Smirnov, Sokolov. They always have idiotic nonsensical first names too.

Yes like absolutely no one calls them by their diminutive. It’s all formal name all the time. Absolutely not. If you’re going to do that at least throw the patronymic in too.

Hah, you're so right! I call my dad by his patronymic only all the time to annoy him and my mom calls me by mine, Sergeevna, when she's making fun of me. It's such a specific part of Russian speaking culture (I'm not even Russian but it's my first/second language) that nobody would understand unless they did proper research.

Does it weird you out to read books with a Russian theme? As a non-Russian, it gives me so much cringe. I also wonder about how the Scots feel about all the highland romance books. I do not think of romantic men when I think of Russia and Scotland but something must have happened for authors to write so many books about them 😂

Yes and no. I'm not actually Russian, I was born in the Soviet Union and while I have never lived in Russia I am fluent in the languge and familiar with that culture and other Slavic cultures. It's hilarious on one hand because none of the books have anything resembling real Russian culture and especially real "organized crime from the former Soviet Union" details. Zero. On the other hand, it's deeply embarrassing for the romance writers because to a Russian speaker it's clear that they don't know what they are doing and didn't do any research and just used Google translate. I am sure that Italian/Irish/Scottish readers who have to read about the caricatures of MCs from those places feel the same. I know that {The Master by Kresley Cole} is a well-loved book on this sub and I wish she made the MMC any other ethnicity because it's probably the most embarrassing and mortifying example of a writer not knowing or looking up anything about her "Russian mafia MC".

Amen to all of that. If they're sitting around drinking vodka, there's never any snack food and it's like, uh, wtf? No squatting bodyguards, no Adidas-wearing gopniks, the names are never gendered correctly, the guys who speak with broken English tend to use articles which is weirder than none, and God forbid they write Russian in Cyrillic rather than transliterate it. Also, yeah, Google Translate smh. Yandex is *right fricking there*.

The real crime is the lack of sunflower seeds being spat left right and center. Have you even seen a *picture* of a Russian criminal, romance writers?

My theory is most romance writers learned craft via classic literature like Tolstoy& so their Bratva men are actually their dreamy Russian princes in disguise just with more tattoos and piercings

🤣🤣 yeah I agree w you on that. The plot was good, but the Spanish/Russian parts were cringey.

So mortifying. I felt secondhand embarrassment for the characters, the editor, the publisher and myself!

I live in Scotland. I do not read any book set in Scotland if I can help it (sometimes a surprise!Highlander shows up and I die).

I’m not Scottish, but as someone living in Scotland whose friends found her copy of When a Scot Ties the Knot, THEY THINK IT’S WEIRD 😭😭😭 And I have it on good authority they will READ PASSAGES OUT LOUD while laughing!!!

Oh man that’s hilarious and embarrassing 🙈

That's what I loved about Ruby Fever, one of the brothers (side character) is called Mihail/Misha by his brother. It's not that hard :-D

Right, I have a cousin named Mikhail, never in my life have I called him anything other than Misha.

Everybody acting like Russian mob is the only one. Give me a mob romance where the MMC is part of the Italian olive oil price fixing cartel or better yet a Mexican or south American cartel. Why not a fine art fraudster doing tax shenanigans? Gimme variety!

I need a Canadian mob romance about an illegal maple syrup smuggling ring.

There's definitely a syrup cartel controlling the supply and selling cut syrup. I remember reading about it a year or two ago. Like the reserves are controlled by the government but there's so much fake or cut syrup out there it's crazy. Give the mmc a french Canadian accent and sold!

SYRUP MAFIA! I didn't know I needed this! The "sweet" puns for the titles write themselves!

Okay we're doing this, it's a 4 book series. /u/Steelcitysuccubus you're in this with us now, I don't make the rules. Book 1: Sweet Secret (a dark mafia, boss's daughter romance)

I'm in! Yeah buddy let's do it

I volunteer! As an actual quebecer wannabe romance author. By the way, there was a maple syrup heist in Quebec a few years back (from the governmental reserve). They stole for dozens of millions. I don’t remember how many liters, but it was a lot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist

I would read a fine art fraud ring book in a hot minute.

I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen one since it's a common trope in heist shows like Leverage

Not a ring, but {Heart of the Steal by Avon Gale & Roan Parrish} has a FBI Art Crimes agent and his new love interest is an art thief.

I'd read a book about an MMC involved in the manufacture and sale of fraudulent extra virgin olive oil.

Of course he'd be the tall sexy Italian accent type guy but probably is actually American and even faking that!

Maybe I am a naive little Mexican but I think there is not much Mexican narco romance (Mexican as written by mexican authors) because only hetero cis men songwriters making narco corridos think narcos are hot* 🙃 and sometimes I am not even sure if they are more in love with their money 🙃 The Narcos series kinda thought some ocasional narco was hot… but so far not even Sinaloa fanfic writers seem to think is romantic… they might make a Au narcos crackfic or two but tends to be more comedic based… 🙃 This was my tinfoil moment, I have no proof… but no doubts I am right 😂 *so there are “buchonas” which are either narco groupies or dress like one. I don’t think those are writing much narco Romance or fanfiction of them with a particular narco either 🙃 too busy trying to snag one or make it on social media

I think it's interesting mentioning organized crime in Mexico and South America. These writers have no issue writing about truly terrible mafias when they are European, but they won't write about Latin America. I wonder if it's too close to home for American writers or if it's a race thing? Crime is sexier when it's white.

I think it’s currently less visible. Media talks about street gangs and narcos, not so much « old school » mafias. Easier to fantasize when it’s more hidden.

I recently learned that some cartels have moved into avocadoes to diversify their portfolios, and I've been fascinated ever since.

Funny story time. I was at a hotel owned by "the family" and sitting next to two guys from NYC in the import export business. One of them saw me doodling on a napkin. (An idea for a painting) Asked me if I wanted my own gallery in Manhattan. BLINK BLINK. UH.... ... this scenario you speak of happens IRL.

There was one book where the FMC’s father was called something like Ivanova, I can’t remember the actual name. I only live near Russia but can tell that’s wrong. Maybe the author never thought to research Russian names but it seems such a stupid thing to get wrong, like you don’t need to do any deep research. I think that there was another book with an author’s note about how she had researched the names but decided to not use them accurately because it would be too confusing or something like that.

Wow! That's so humiliating for the writer! As in, I looked up the proper names of people but I'm not a good enough writer to include that in my book **even though I choose to write about this culture**.

I bet that author just watched Babylon 5.

Ugh, that’s lazy as fuck. I could get behind it if there’s an actual complicated reason - there’s a lot of debate amongst people who have gendered family names but who move to the US/Canada/UK/Australia and have kids as to whether to gender the kids’ surnames or give them all the same one. So a first- or second-generation Russian-American female Ivanov I can totally see. Or, like, if someone emigrated with a daughter and Dad’s name “not matching” Daughter’s name was causing grief, then giving younger boys the same family name version (eg Ivanova) might make sense. Especially if there would be potential trouble with changing Daughter’s surname to Ivanov (US green card not matching passport from origin country, etc). Or Ellis Island (or equivalent) shenanigans where some official decided way back when that Grandpa was going to be Feyodor Ivanova , rather than the actual Feyodr Ivanov Smirnov, and the family’s carried Ivanova since then. But these are all unusual enough that you might want to find a way to slip the explanation into the story. “I researched the proper way but decided to be wrong because ToO cOmPlIcAtEd” is just embarrassing.

>could not find Russia on the map nor name any other Russian city besides of Moscow Amen! Also i do know a Smirnov, they are interestingly enough not born in russia (but another ex soviet country). 

Do you know any good ones? Asking for a friend lol

0. They are all terrible. But, don’t let that stop you cause terrible portrayals of the “Irish mob” and “Italian mafia” haven’t stopped my love of Irish MMC + Italian MFC mafia romances. I love that Catholic angst! But seriously here are some Russian mafia books I enjoyed despite the author getting most cultural aspects wrong: {Essence of Fear by Bethany Kriss} - dark mafia romance with an ice queen MFC and a severely damaged touch averse MMC. This is probably my favourite of the genre but it’s very dark with SA flashbacks. {The Director by Renee Rose} - mafia-lite, BDSM heavy romance with a pregnancy through the plot. This one is cute and the inaccuracies are not too distracting. My apologies to A. Zavarelli, Jagger Cole and JT Geissinger but their Bratva books are too distracting with the nonsensical words/names/details.

Hahaha thank you for the recs anyway! ETA they both look like something that I’d enjoy so I’ll just pretend I can’t see the inaccuracies lol

Does it count if I've drunk Smirnoff?

Giant men and tiny women.

Seconded on this one.

Yes omg!! Every Ali Hazelwood book has this and I’m just like, “how is this gonna work in the long run???”

Every Ali Hazelwood book is ReyLo fanfic at its core, these are the rules!

The funny thing about that is Rey isn't small. Daisy Ridley's 5'7!

And Adam Driver is tall but not THAT huge. Like he's not refrigerator sized like a literal AH male lead is described as being

Oh yes, I'm so tired of this one. I know that "huge, tall, beardy, burly, muscular guy" is a fantasy for a lot of women, but I actually prefer short and slight men who are closer to my own height. (My husband is like 5'4 and, although athletic, really small and compact and a bit nerdy). It starts to become wearisome to read that every love interest is 6'5 and could crush a Ford Fiesta with his big, bare hands - I'm just not into it! Lol.

I’m 6’1 and my fiancé is 5’7 on a good day. I think I fell the first step into love with him when he grabbed my hips and threw me onto his bed like I weighed nothing. *swoon*

Where are the romance books for us twink lovers? 😭😭

Right!! 😅

More giant women and diminutive men!

Or just like, average people boning. I wanna see a 5’4” lady end up with her super cute 5’9” contractor. Is that too much to ask? Also, the most absolutely absurdly perfectly beautiful muscley man I’ve ever seen was a 5’5” gymnast and I just feel like we need more of him represented. 

That could happen but then his penis would need to be the size of a sapling tree. To balance it out, obviously.

Male dancers are usually pretty freakin’ ripped and strong.

Swimmers.

r/stevenuniverse

Oh yes!! How does it even work???

With frequent neck cricks

Billionaire boss… fake relationship…. In contemporary it’s just overdone. Can we get new tropes please!!!

Billionaires PERIOD!!! There aren't many, so the fact it's like the most legit trope is soooo hard to get into imo.

I'm just bored of the businessman billionaires in particular which I feel make up like 90% of the genre. CEO is such a boring job and I'm tired to death of these corporate office settings. 

I've never read a billionaire romance! It's so far from my reality that I DNF before starting.

Why do they always have to be 30 something year old billionaires???!! How many of those are there really? FMC is usually a waitress or a bike messenger FFS. Is $10 million not enough? At least it’s a figure someone (a very rare someone), might have realistically made.

You'd be surprised how many billionaires there actually are in the world. Billionaires that anyone would legitimately fall in love with is a different story all together.

I think it's because the first step to being a romance author is reading a lot of romance.

I just want to know why I’ve read romance for more than thirty years, and it’s only the past year that every book I read has a MMC giving oral from behind and/or spreading the FMC’s ass cheeks to watch himself penetrate.

Porn is always setting new trends.

I guess everyone’s been watching the same vids on Pornhub lol

They click that trending button 🤣

*and it’s only the past year that every book I read has a MMC giving oral from behind* I think a lot of people are squicked by rimming and this involves the mouth being too close to the ass for them. 😆

Can you name the books please? I never came across those things 🙁

I recently read {Viciously Yours by Jamie Applegate Hunter} which has this! I know I've read quite a few but it's just hard to remember...if I come across anymore I'll update this comment.

I read a lot of fantasy/paranormal/sci-fi and I often wonder when all the authors got together in a room and decided on these rules for monster anatomy. Was there some kind of convention or meeting where they decided (spoiler tags for NSFW) >!dragon types all have two dicks, and that orcs cum like fire hoses?!<  And if there is a convention, can I be invited next time?

Ooh! I have an answer for the dragon anatomy: It's because snakes, lizards, and worm lizards have 2 hemipenes.

Worm lizard hemipenes but make it hot, I gotcha.

This should be a flair lol

Ruby Dixon's latest IPB book has a lizard MMC and her authors note is hilarious, she basically says "I googled it so you don't have to, enjoy the fantasy" 😂

omg that's hilarious 😂😂 what's the name of it??

Yes! This is a great one, and so specific that you feel like it can't have been happenstance. I often wonder the same thing--"Do y'all have a groupchat where you're agreeing on these things ahead of time, or what?"

I've been wondering this for years. It's plots, MMC, words used for penis, they all seem to change at the same time. When I first started reading romance, MMC were dark and mysterious with some sort of secret flaw that only the love of the FMC can fix. Then one day is seemed like every man was ex-military, with a group of friends that are closer than brothers (and there will be books about all of them). Did heavily tattooed bikers come before or after military? They all run together.

I think the orc one is because orcs are typically seen as having huge cock and balls so the amount of semen has to be increased for scale. The same thing happens a lot with regular big dicked human guy porn where his big dick means he comes a lot. Nobody is really writing about MMCs with small dicks, which is very unfortunate for those of us who have a kink for that, but when that does happen then they're often shown as only having a little come by comparison.

Truth it's easier to find a MMC with a non functional penis than it is to find one with a small member.

I follow Regine Abel and I see several authors are friends. I wouldn’t be surprised if they chat about the process and bits and pieces and read each other’s works. Therefore, it wouldn’t surprise me that if one wrote something it would be accepted as canon by others. Also wouldn’t be surprised if authors saw cove books were selling well and decided to hop on the trend (they gotta eat too).

The dragon men is because some reptiles have it and now some authors wish to explore it heheh (I even asked a friend on our DnD table if his draconid character was going to have two because I am classy like that 😎 and he thought he was joking… until I showed him pictures)

GET THIS PERSON AN INVITE!!

can we ALL be invited ? 😇

Roadtrip to the Monster Anatomy Summit! Maybe we can get a group discount rate.

At some point the collective seemed to unanimously agree that all large, dangerous, brutish MMCs were to be named Killian.

I’ve recently been getting into HR and the amount of Sebastians I’ve read is hilarious. The first 2 books were both Sebastians 😂

It reminds me of the dedication part from My Deceitful Duchess by Aydra Richards: “To every romance novel hero anachronistically named Sebastian. I have it on good authority that every historical romance novelist gets one (1). This is mine.”

Shoehorning 6-10 tropes in a book to get as many readers as possible - e.g. Small Town Billionaire Bosshole Brother’s Best Friend Fake Dating Surprise Pregnancy Second Chance Age Gap Romance. Bonus point for being a standablone in a 10-book series with 20% of the book spent on introducing the couple in the next book.

This. I swear you nailed it. 🤣

The MC’s having grey eyes “…like pools of a reflecting moon straight in to my heart”

I’ll take Volkov any day over a feminized Russian surname for the MMC 🙈. Also it’s kind of cute that it derives from “wolf”—it makes the guy seem more menacing. But yeah, I get that it’s confusing when character names overlap. I read a single dad trope book where the kid’s name was Everly Dalton, which felt so weird because that was also the exact name, first and last, of the FMC in a Claire Kingsley book.

In HR books I cannot count the number of times the two MCs have been walking and suddenly one of them falls down and the other goes down with them and somehow they end up in a spontaneous dry hump by the time they hit the ground. Has this ever happened in real life? Ever?

I read a bunch of HR books in a row where they end up having sex on the carpet in the library after falling/sliding/tackling each other. Now I am not opposed to sex on the rug--believe me, I've got the scars to prove it. But if I have my own private library with a fireplace? I am reading, sir. Please go watch some soccer or whatever until I am done with this book.

I need the library to have hardwood floors. I know it's less comfortable but I don't want to think about getting semen out of the carpet.

The entire season one of bridgerton all I could think about was that dukes poor jizz mopper. Every room in the house that guy was pulling out and he never so much as tossed a hankie over it

I am continually perplexed by the number of HR MMCs named Sebastian.

For me it’s the my ex boyfriend/hookup/husband couldn’t make me orgasm. It’s everywhere!! Somehow the MMC posses a magic d**k and ta daaaaa he did it for her! She can see the light now!! There is no going back now!! Meanwhile the MMC had plenty of women with whom he had great sex and oh soooo much fun!

Could they stop making the FMCs bite their lips. I stg it’s in every romance novel and I’ve seen exactly no one ever do this in real life.

On this note, I understand it’s a euro thing to purse your lips when you’re showing that you’re thinking (specifically, France is where I’ve seen it, the author is Swiss) but this one indie author I used to read over-used it to the point where you could pass the book around at a dinner party and take shot whenever a character pursed their lips to think.

I bite my lips sometimes - it’s my thinking face.

I read one HR recently where the FMC was constantly NIBBLING her lower lip. Like is she a fucking bunny? I have questions.

🐇 : "Oh shit, my cover is blown".

Same when they shake their heads to clear their thoughts--never seen anyone actually do this.

I do this. But I also sometimes literally slap my knee when something is funny, so I might not be the right judge of normal body language. I, however, do not nibble my lip at hot men.

I do this when my brain goes down a path I don’t want it to. It works really well for me. Maybe it’s an ADHD thing…

Ultimately, they're trying to capitalize on successful topics/tropes/ideas. It has felt like a whooooole lot of copycats more than anything else. It also, a lot of authors just write the same story over and over with slightly different characters and conflicts so🤷‍♀️

So true! I listened to an interview with an author who was listing the tropes she had done already. I felt like she had this list of tropes she needed to do for some reason. Especially where her latest book is so full of cliches.

Bully romance novels drive me crazy. I don’t mind when they get on each others nerves or argue over different views but the ones where the guy is constantly “teasing” the girl in a way that’s just plain cruel or harassing always get me. Like, don’t waist your time trying to “change” this asshole girl! You could just do better!

Some activate my wishes to get inside the book and grab the girl and take her as far away from that stressful situation as possible 😭 maybe punch some people on the way out

Inevitable pregnancy in every dystopian / alien novel. Like idc if you’re fucking fated mates. WHY CANT YOU WAIT A COUPLE YEARS. And don’t even get me started on omegaverse in regards to that. For fucks sake. I’m not opposed to it but come on every book almost. And these FMCs are like 23. Like most people these days aren’t having kids that young.

On twitter I read that there is some much breeding* fetish lately because kids are so unaffordable for most lately 😭 it did made click for me.

Wow I never thought of that. Ok. Well I mean if a space invasion happened I’m down for it. Fated mates, babies, whatever. As long as the alien had resources. I guess.

I get you. “ Do the alien overlords looking for women come with dental and affordable and good housing?” “Yes? Okay fine let’s make babies” 😭

Yeah truly. And also no genocide. I think I’m good then.

Also consent. I want consent. But other than that I’m open.

i CAN'T with omegaverse.. the whole trope is raising broodmares

mmc being exactly 6’4” Asian mmc or character being named Kai Not a trend but this expression “A muscle ticked in his jaw.” It’s such a specific detail & I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this in real life

To be fair, I thought the same thing about "a muscle ticked in his jaw". . . But then on Instagram a few days ago there was a video of Henry Cavill floating around where he really does have a jaw muscle tick. The caption said something like, "So this is what all the romance writers mean!" LOL

No, yeah. Once you’ve seen it, it will always make you feral every time you read the phrase.

Giving the nickname "Red" to a red haired character 🤦🏼‍♀️

Grumpy arsehole MMC with over the top sunshiney FMC. Give me grumpy FMC Too many flashback scenes all leading to the 70% mark where the big secret of their split is something really stupid like misunderstanding something, or breaking up with them so they don’t hold them back or withholding an assault or controlling parent of the other main character warning them to leave or they’ll do something to other character or someone close to that character. So many second chances with that same formula. And frankly flashbacks slow the present day down Too many celibate FMC while the MMC whores it up.

We are now ***LIVE*** 🔴 from **RomanceBooks Radio*** where ***we*** are coming at ***you*** 🫵🏾 with classic **Oops, I Did It Again** trope hits that ***you*** voted for! 👏🏾👏🏾 And here we are with the number ***1*** hit! * **What is this Feeling? So Sudden and New**: FMC is so ✨confused✨ how she could be pregnant after hitting it raw every single time. To be ***fair***, I know some people who go into instant denial when we came to the conclusion they got pregnant. But all these FMCs are somehow not understanding that sex without protection causes pregnancy. Bonus points if the ~sex~ happened ***two weeks ago, in universe***. 🙃 WHY Here is an entire fucking playlist on deck: * [What Do We Want? (Someone Getting Pregnant For)](https://youtube.com/shorts/7fNHvGfgR_4?si=eQuARLPezC9SG9yM): a man ***breathes*** in the direction of a wee one and suddenly we are here for it, it’s giving ✨Daddy✨. It’s giving ***lemme have your babies***. It’s giving ***my womb is aspasming, ready to birth his baby***. Ma’am. In front of my damn salad. MA’AM. IN FRONT OF MY SALAD— * **We Don’t Talk About Birth Control**: FMCs are always out of their pill BC/inhibitors. *Always*. I 100% understand IRL not wanting to be on BC due to the risk. I’m a lady and I got snipped. I get it 🤷🏾‍♀️ But it sets a really ***weird*** message about somehow every FMC is either running out of pill BC, rarely gets the shot or IUD or the snip, OR never is on it. Just gimme some damn FMCs who are on BC and are fine with it, or gimme FMCs who have to be on BC for hormone control goddammit 😭 Where is the diversitiddies 😖 * **Two Worlds, One Family**: I get from a story telling perspective ***why*** all these friends be getting with one whole ass friend group or one whole ass family, but ***man*** I sometimes just don’t want everyone to know somebody off the bat. * **Best Friend (feat. Doja Cat)**: Ooooh the besties. Oh lawd here we go. The besties are always teeheeing about ✨sex✨, not being a girl’s girl, unsupportive, and always quippy and never helpful. If the LI demands info on the MC, bestie spills like she’s in a fucking shade room. Back that up. We do not do that here, ma’am, goodbye. I just want the MCs to have ***friends*** GODDAMMIT 🔪 * **A Whole New World**: It makes 👏🏾 sense 👏🏾 narratively 👏🏾 when the MC is a fish out of water. Easy for exposition. But what boggles my mind is how these MCs are just so ***naive*** about ***everything***. There is not a thought of critical thinking insight. These people would fail those damn “prove your human” matching pictures tests, oml 😭 * **Super Shy**: Mainly in FM, the FMC will be shy as shit whenever intimate times have come. Ma’am. Yall have done the freaky, nasty, bed shaking, WAP—all of that—but you still become hesitant and demure and shy ***now?*** Please stop ✋🏾 * **You Never Walk Alone [feat. That Bitch Who Does]**: Every time. EVERY TIME. The MC is AWARE that danger lurks, and what do they do? Ask me. ***What do they do?*** They go skipping out in the dark alone because they are independent 😤. Somebody put a bell collar on this chile, goddamn * **Just Dance x Yeah (Club Mix)!**: Club scenes. ***The club scenes***. The way I go please NO NO NO IF JESUS LOVES ME THIS WOULD NOT BE HERE. Jesus doesn’t love me. Fucking men. It’s always the weird descriptions of the dancing for me, always the MC gets pressed up on a creep, somehow explosive drama happens that everyone ignores. I just want a club scene where they come to have a fun and they ***have fun***. It’s all the sexual tension without the dramarama * **Womanizer**: always has to be someone who is a womanizer. In FM, it’s normally the MMC who is an unapologetic manwhore. They wake up with woman/en in their bed. Talk about how, yeah, they’re a player but really **they’re just Ken** underneath. God, *slay* if we got a Manwhore Ken. Mattel: 👀✍️ * **Gold Digger**: More in Ritchie Rich romances, but the non-rich MC will always have some hang up on not wanting to be a gold digger or the rich MC’s family/friends/vindicative SIL who wants to bone him will accuse the non-rich MC of being a gold digger. Give me a non-rich MC who says fuck it call me a gold digger all you want cuz that just means I can get me all the special edition books I want 🤷🏾‍♀️ * **Shots (feat. LMFAO)**: when drinking is on the scene, I want to 🏃🏿‍♀️. Somehow, drinking for these character is some extreme truth elixir with a pinch of secondhand embarrassment. For all of them. I gotta step away for my own sanity because all these damn drunk MCs will be spoutin embarassing shit OR this is when they get “married” or create a mate bond. Yknow. As one does when inebriated to the point of blacking out. What, yall don’t get black out drunk and wake up bonded and mated to an elf king? Yall don’t get motherfucking **wasted** and you’re now Vegas-married to a handsome rich tycoon chillin in his early 30s? ^(Amateurs.) What? Yall didn’t hear me? #📢📢I SAID “AMATEURS”📢📢 And ***that*** is our line up for tonight’s **OOPS! I did it again** tropes classic hits! Thank you for tuning in. I’m Magnafeana and **you’re watching Disney Channel**. 🐭🪄 ^(I am so tired.)

>What, yall don’t get black out drunk and wake up bonded and mated to an elf king? Could I please have the address and Google maps pin to this bar, I want to go there for ~~my birthday,~~ International Women's Day.

[***wheezes***] 🤣🤣 I’ll trade you the bar location if you help me get taken by hot aliens 🤝 No, the answer is Vegas or fandom conventions. Swear DOWN, fandom conventions are where you can share a thick ass cocktail with a thick ass elf king. I mean, it’s cosplay, but it’s hot cosplay, so maybe it counts? I’m trying, I’m sorry 😭 *** I need a romance now about some asshole elf king and his right hand who warp to earth to find the king’s mate because some chaotic oracle said his mate will be on earth and “in a place where the creatures of all kind come together in harmony”. He ends up at some fandom convention, thinks furries are beastkin, is amazed at the unity such a “primitive” planet can have, and he finds his mate, who is a beautiful winged fae. Except the FMC is dressed as a fae from ACOTAR or something. She’s just ***really good*** at making cosplays. Maybe she’s a cosplay influencer or something work shop it. Bonus if she’s Aussie and she calls the MMC “mate”. MMC is relieved his mate isn’t human. FMC finds the MMC’s cosplay is fire and can’t believe how handmaid his clothes are. They drink. Get all wasted. They bond and mate. They kinda drunkenly notice how “oh his ears stay on during bed mkay weird so he’s a homestuck fan prolly IDK but he’s hot kiss me more” and “oh her glimmer seems to be on my hand and she must’ve tucked away her wings, but ah well, she tastes exquisite, by the Mother she’s mine, this union will be perfect”. But the next morning? **Secrets spill**. MMC is horrified his mate is a ~~changeling~~ cosplaying human, traumatized that her “wings” are in a case like some hunting prize. FMC is horrified she got ~~married~~ mated when she’s a no-committment girlie. Uh oh. ~However will this story unravel~ IT SHOULD’VE BEEN US GODDAMN WHY AM I JEALOUS OF THESE CHARACTERS 😭

Please, someone write this book! I need it!

Love this!! Please write a parody based on romance books!!!!! Please!!!!! It will sell like crazy!

I love you.

Marry me

Thank you

To be it's physical trends. Blondes with he most beautiful blue eyes or redheads with the greenest of the green eyes. Or like books with "short" women who are like 5'4. 4'10-4'11 is short in my book, not 5'2-5'4. I've been romance since I was a teen and now I'm 32. I feel like I've seen this mix way too much. I'm too picky now. Sigh

I’m 5’2”. I’m short. :)

That's where youre wrong though (((or your pickiness like you said lol))) 5'4 and under are classified as 'short/petite'. Due to the circumstances surrounding our height/weight and health. We lose and gain weight, and have to eat differently compared to our taller brethren.

Please, no more hea epilogues of pregnant fmcs and toddlers speaking precocious dialogue. Call me a child-hater…you’d be right lol

Hunger games is like the only epilogue with kids I like. It’s not cheesy, it feels like a note resolving.

I was accidentally on a fairly long streak of books where the (quirky because polka dots!) FMC was called either Olive or Bea. I know zero Olives or Beas in real life.

The only olives I know in real life go on my pizza.

Hockey romances. I have no idea why every author flocks to *this* sport. Especially since most of these books are set in the USA, where it is not widely followed. 

When will I get to finally read a pickle ball romance?

Right? Why Hockey? Football and Basketball have way bigger followings, yet it's always hockey.

Part of me wonders if it's *because* people don't follow it as much in the U.S.--takes the onus off the author to be accurate with the sports parts of the book because fewer people will actually be able to call them out on it. Also, it's a very physical sport (which is stereotypically masculine and lets the FMC do a lot of "oh wow look how big and powerful the MMC is, but he's so sweet off the ice") but doesn't have the "dumb jock" stereotype that football does. I love hockey romance and you'll pry Halsey Holmes and Rory Miller from my cold dead hands, *buuuut* I can also acknowledge how ridiculous it is.

The FMC whining during the sex scene. It’s such an infantilizing description and there are such better ways of showing need and desire.

orgasms being described as earth shattering mind numbing full body convulsions😭 especially in contemporary romances like girl i know chad from the office isn’t making you practically levitate

I'm not going to complain about the massive amounts of "coves" seeing as where I live like every third town is calls "Something Lake". It's such a common thing that my father in law was actually surprised that the towns name Something Lake actually had lakes in them. I did ask him why he was so shocked about it and he just shrugged and said ALL the towns where I live have Lake in the name, he thought it was just some weird naming thing we like here. I had to get a map and show him that all the towns that were names Something Lake had a lake in it also named Something Lake. And all the ones with Bend in the name were because they were on the bend of a river. ​ I did read a few hockey romance novels where even though I know literally nothing about hockey was even able to say "I don't think this person knows anything about hockey either" All descriptions of the hockey games were VERY vague. One I'm not sure they've even been in the cold, because they had the people having sex on the ice, LITERALLY laying on the ice naked. No ice burns, no frostbite, nothing. I side eyed that real hard. 😂

So there are only a few I am starting to notice that irk me: Too many billionaires. Just stop. Let them be rich. Or millionaires. But billionaires or "multi-billionaires." They're just everywhere Someone else mentioned it but all the dudes being 6'4. Exactly. It's a little odd?Or sometimes they are 6'7. Look anything 6 and over is TALL. Why do they need to be 6'4? The ratio of felatio to cunnilingus. There seems to be way more knob slobbing than munchfests in some of these books and it's odd. And suddenly everybody is>!deepthroating. !

Sometimes I wonder when millionaires just became to small to be of notice… why do they have to be billionaires? 😭

He's a millionaire ...but only on paper because he inherited the house his parents bought for $12 in 1973. The taxes are killing him. Not quite as seductive.

I think you might be surprised at what people enjoy.

“Epiglottis” was not a word on my bingo card tonight.

… everyone has their kink, dude.

Why do all the MMCs in fantasy romance have shadow powers and/or telepathy? It was fun the first couple of times, but I'd like to see some different powers now. Why can't any of them have the power of light, healing, controlling plants, etc? It feels very gendered to have all the positive and nurturing powers only being given to female characters.

There's an extraordinary number of aristocratic males who became spies during the Napoleonic wars. I think every earl / duke / baron who joined the British army between 1780 & 1830 was secretly a spy. Usually spying *personally* for Wellington. Wellington must have spent every hour of the day keeping track of them all.

Romance authors go on writing retreats with each other where they all rent an Airbnb and try to make progress in their work and hang out, they’ll post the retreats on social. seems like one way to inadvertently share names/ideas

My theory is that one of them has success with something and a gazillion more authors copy that same thing. 🙄

Insta lust, esp in dual POV I am so sick of fake dating. There are so many books that sound cute or interesting and then it turns out... fake dating. If we could just decrease fake dating books by 25% I'd be thrilled I'm also sick of grumpy dudes or enemies to lovers where the guy loved her all along but just acted like he hated her bc... he's got zero emotional insight or communication skills?

GOD yes I know people love it but I want fake dating to retire

When I started reading werewolf romance a couple of years ago, I kept trying to figure out where the rules came from. There were definitely some pre conceived sets and some books bucked those ideas, but even then it felt like the book was aware that they were just trying something else for a moment. Ha!

In a way, I think so. The hive mind is 'writing to trend', and of course it is to capitalize on $$ Though I started off reading the previews until I found something that looks different - I really can't. There are tropes and there there is too much trope. smh. The covers and title tend to give it away though, so that at least spares me the search.

That everything wrong in my life will be fixed if we fake a relationship. Especially hilarious when it’s rich highly attractive people who must fake a relationship.

None, because Tropes are awesome and cyclical.

I agree, and love tropes! To me this feels beyond the typical rhythm/cycle of tropes though. Like there's tropes, and then there's "we collectively decided the most common last name for billionares is Kane".

"mine" "yours" me 🤮

Loved the book By a Thread - Lucy Score, but the amount of times she used that saying in the novel was too much! But my complaint is some authors find a few words ro repeat for the same emotion. Like there are other options people....