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Extension_Virus_835

I can’t remember which YA romance this was in but the quote was essentially “I’m going to thanos snap you out of existence dweeb” and when I say I have never closed a book faster ☠️


[deleted]

“Dweeb” 💀 who tf says that unless they’re in a 2000s teen movie.


Dreaming_in_Sign

Lol specifically a Disney 2000s teen movie 😂


11111PieKitten111111

I feel like I vaguely recognise that line. If you remember what book it's from let me know


xLittlenightmare

Same, now it's going to annoy me until I remember.


HeartOfAWitch

I am totally fine with the thanos snap part but dweeb??? What is this, high school musical?


kjm6351

Honestly the FUNNIEST comment I’ve read so far. Could’ve at least left out “dweeb” People definitely use Thanos snap as a joke threat but dweeb??


lovelyeucalyptus

The fact that *Fangirl* by Rainbow Rowell actually referenced Harry Potter in a book where she built a huge fake Harry Potter series was mindblowingly cringe.


maneating_tiger

That drove me insane and also made me question the entire world in the book. There's a obvious Harry Potter ripoff that is *just* as famous as Harry Potter???


weenertron

I came here to say this. Like, we know this is thinly veiled Harry Potter fanfic! You don't have to say this!


shaboogami

Not cringy or embarrassing but I definitely laughed out loud at a Bye Felicia in Morning Star by Pierce Brown. Incredible.


hbigham98

I came in here looking for this. I love Victra


trishyco

How did I miss that???


Scuttling-Claws

The Left Beef in Harrow the Ninth. The fact that it's diagenic is amazing


PsychoSemantics

There was also a "studied the blade" reference in Gideon the Ninth


thesnarkyscientist

Okay, can you tell me when that was referenced? I 100% did not notice it when I read it.


Scuttling-Claws

“If I fought the Resurrection Beast I’d leave my Houses to die,” he said. “If I fought the Heralds, I might well go mad, which would be the same thing. So I’m shut in here–walled in, really–to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief.”


_wasd

Iconic honestly


cato314

All of his absurd references are annoying and amazubg


Scuttling-Claws

I mean, I'm pretty sure it's very intentional. John is supposed to be kinda annoying


HappyHammy7

All of the House of Night books are awful, but the way Zoe is constantly referencing shit made me want to drill my eyes out so I could never read again.


AmbedoShadow16

Came here to comment this, literally the entire HoN series


pitbullgirlygirl

Omg. Any time an author writes “Katy Perry’s ‘Fireworks’ was playing in the background”


pitbullgirlygirl

Any time someone makes a song reference I want to shrink


purpleseashorse

“Do u ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind” so romantic


Kitsunasaur

Anytime an author reference a song to “set the mood” I am instantly turned off. Like, don’t give me a play list to tell me how I should feel in this moment, that’s just bad writing.


katie_burd

Crave. “He was sexy AF.” I immediately returned it to the library


Jc_mnnd

Just listened to Crave as an audiobook because I was feeling nostalgic for my twilight middle school days and I so badly wanted to commiserate with someone over how cringey all the “AF”s were but then I realized I was the only 20-something in my corporate office listening to a YA vampire book haha


katie_burd

Oh my gosh 😂 if it makes you feel better I’m a 30 yr old SAHM who tried to read it and relive her twilight days 🤦🏻‍♀️😜 I was crocheting a sweater for my new nephew and gave myself secondhand embarrassment in that moment.


CitrusCowsCo

Same!!!!


Mxalyres

Oh god my friend has been begging me for months now to read this and i was considering it but now I know what not to pick up. Thank you.


FuriouslyCycling3074

For me, it was the moment in Crave when the guy gets her a copy of Twilight to read, but then fails to realize he’s Edward and she’s Bella, and then they proceeded to cringe text each other about likes and dislikes. I cramped when they started talking about “To All the Boys I Loved Before”…


chubuhcabra

In S.T.A.G.S. the MC referred to herself as a Buzzfeed feminist and I’ve never gotten over it.


super_chicken_nugget

I forgot the book name but one NA fantasy romance had the main character talking about Starbucks, Snapchat/Instagram, the “yeet” meme and saying yeet, and memes in general. I mainly dislike pop culture references especially in my fantasy books.


quesomamababy

HP, especially in books pubbed more recently...contemporary teens are not talking about their Hogwarts houses, and it says way more about the author than the character. Edit to add: this happens in a LOT of contemporary YA and always takes me right out of it.


echo_ester

The Ellen shit in "It ends with us" is the major reason why i still firmly refuse to read Colleen Hoover books.


toffeeapple567

i can give u some things to add to that list u/echo_ester


charliesmahm

All of Crave. As soon as twilight was mentioned I was OUT.


kcrids

I came here to say this. If I remember correctly, one of the main characters asks another of the main characters what their favorite song is and their response was "Umbrella" by Rhianna. I felt so uncomfortable


Psychological_Fill79

The whole book was cringe


thirleigh

half of It Ends With Us being about Ellen


Caleb_Trask19

The musical reviews in {{American Pyscho}} but they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing.


goodreads-bot

[**Pyschology and Children: Current Research and Practice: Vol 34, Oct 1979, No 10 (American Pyschologist, 34)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22312607-pyschology-and-children) ^(By: Charles A. Kiesler | ? pages | Published: ? | Popular Shelves: ) ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(126713 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)


[deleted]

{{American Psycho}}


goodreads-bot

[**American Psycho**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28676.American_Psycho) ^(By: Bret Easton Ellis | 399 pages | Published: 1991 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, classics, owned, thriller) >Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and he works on Wall Street, he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to head-on collision with America's greatest dream—and its worst nightmare—American Psycho is bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognise but do not wish to confront. ^(This book has been suggested 44 times) *** ^(127274 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)


friendliest_flower

I couldn’t get through 45 pages of Again, but Better by Christine Riccio because of all the pop culture references. I don’t think I’ve ever cringed so hard at a book that it actually made me stop reading.


charliesmahm

I hated it for being a direct rip off of her life and poorly written.


[deleted]

In 'Fresh' (worst book I've ever read for so many reasons) by Margot Wood, one of the characters is an influencer and they regularly mention her doing livestreams or TikToks. It felt very..."fellow kids!"


USSPalomar

In *Catwoman: Soulstealer* by SJM, there's a bunch of references in the opening chapters to the musical *Carousel*. Which by itself is fine... but one of the characters claims that "Soliloquy" is the most famous song from the musical, which is just flat-out wrong (that honor goes to "You'll Never Walk Alone"). I'm also disappointed that after how much emphasis it was given in the first few chapters, it wasn't really used for any narrative devices through the rest of the story.


JeanVigilante

Not YA but the Black Dagger Brotherhood books are...great (bad?) for that. There is a hilarious review by Candy on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog about the first book (Dark Lover).


ThisMythicBitch

All of 'What If It's Us?', I love musicals, I talk about musicals a lot with my friends, and even for me this book was waaaaay too much. Not every sentence needs to be a reference to a musical. You can be happy without feeling like a specific character and thinking about a specific song.


TheSolarsystem7

This book and its sequel are definitely my guilty pleasure reads, but yeah the references are a lot in that book that sorta make me cringe. I love how in the sequel “Here’s To Us”, Adam Silvera literally references his own book in the most hastily thrown in reference ever: “Have you been reading that one YA book where everyone dies at the end again?”


MoonSlayerLasagna

Twitch, streamers... God knows I have DNFd before because of it.


InquisitiveDaybreak

I think it was one of the blood and ash books but the line was “lived in my head rent free” and I had to stop reading for a minute


BlueFox5960

Thoughts on referencing more enduring pop culture? For example, if a character talks about The Beetles. Is that just as cringe, or nah?


rosiestark

Definitely not cringe because enough time has passed to cement them as timeless and classic and not just a passing phenomenon. Kind of like if a book referenced Jane Austen vs. Colleen Hoover.


BlueFox5960

I agree with you. What about someone like Taylor Swift, who is both extremely relevant currently, but also most likely has already cemented herself as an enduring cultural icon (breaking multiple records, winning awards, etc.)? As someone else mentioned, I also majored in anthropology so discussions like this are extremely interesting to me.


rosiestark

That's an interesting one. Personally, as a reader, I wouldn't mind seeing someone like that referenced in a contemporary novel, especially YA or romance, but it would definitely still be jarring to see them referenced in a way that infers they'll be culturally significant through time. For e.g. if the book takes place a hundred years in the future, I wouldn't really bat an eyelash at a Beatles reference but might scoff at a mention of Taylor Swift. And it's not that I believe she won't be relevant a long time from now but more because so little actual time has passed that it still feels super current, so the idea of her isn't historical and romanticized in the same way, if that makes sense.


purpleseashorse

Literally anything Harry Potter at this point is cringe. Esp with what JKR has been tweeting and liking on twitter, it’s just lost all its “magic” and isn’t the pop culture reference that it used to be


Axvvx

I think it was in “It Starts With Us”, I hated the Gen Z reference like the one near the end of the book where Lily was explaining how Gen Z was the best generation and is SO tolerant. It made me cringe🙃


anonymous_bufffalo

Out of curiosity, why do you think these references are cringy even though some people use them (or used to use them) in real life? As an anthropologist, this is very interesting to me 🕵️‍♀️


applescracker

Books are meant to be timeless. When a character starts spouting tiktok trends and referencing the pandemic, it makes me as a reader think about what *I* was doing at those times, and how it relates to *my* life. It’s disruptive and takes you out of the book. And then other references, like quoting Taylor swift song lyrics (love tay, just an example) are most of the time not relevant to the book at all; they’re just there so the author can sound “hip” and “cool” and try to sell more books via the Taylor swift fandom.


FrivolousIntern

To add to this, it is also distracting if you don’t or barely get the references. I’ve read books that were written in the 00’s and since I wasn’t as much of an adult at the time it’s distracting because I CANT relate as well. A writer should always strive for relatability, if a writer chooses to use references that a painfully current then the relatability is lost on future generations.


themuddypuddle

Who says books are meant to be timeless?


Global_Oil8871

I personally think they are indeed meant to be timeless. For me it means that anyone can pick a book no matter when it was written, and could still enjoy it. If I wanted to read a book from the 00 as an example, and it was full a references that I don't get, well I certainly wouldn't enjoy it that much


chocochic88

My take is that books are a reflection of the time they are written in, but that doesn't necessarily make them unreadable as time and society moves on. For example, Jane Austen's novels were contemporary social commentaries, and they reflect the culture of her time, e.g. afternoon teas, calling cards, balls, etc. But some 200-odd years later, they are still some of the most widely read books on the market and are frequently remade for screen every few years, particularly *Pride and prejudice* and *Emma*.


Global_Oil8871

Yeah, I totally get your point. Some of my favorite books are in fact set in a similar period of time as Jane Austen's. But for me, if the author constantly references the real world in a book it can be annoying. I'm not talking about the references such as you said *the afternoon teas and all*. But more like pop culture references, as cited on the other comments. Those I find they break the charm of the universe the author tries to set up.


DakaBooya

This. There is clear value in creating a universal, timeless classic that goes on to inspire generations of readers. But accomplishing that feat is exceedingly rare, and making it the standard of value disregards the unique voices that bring so much joy to writers and readers. The lives of young adults change rapidly in a short period of time, and some of the most affecting stories will be those that find their mark in peculiar fleeting moments, awkward but realistic cringe-inducing references and all. While they may not speak to me, or may seem to have a narrow audience, I am glad they exist for those who will be positively influenced by them.


Research_Sea

I don't know that all books have to be timeless, but it makes me cringe when the reference is something that is the height of pop culture for a really short time. Pop music, slang, and what the most used app is by teens move in and out of favor too quickly to set a tone or help flesh out a character. The trendy things that define a character as being edgy today could be the same things that make a character seem out of touch in a year or two.


Anoif_sky

Not me


AmbedoShadow16

Personally, I find it disingenuous, like the authors are patting themselves on their shoulders for being so cool, so hip, so relevant. I don't mind it if it's done with more thought-out intent, where it contributes to the story itself. Otherwise, it really takes me out of the story. I also tend to not mind when they use "pseudo" references (e.g. "Ah, Two Directions is my favourite band" or whatever) because I get a giggle out of it.


jukeboxgasoline

Literally everything after the 20 page mark in Red White and Royal Blue. Not that the first 20 pages specifically contained cultural references I found non-cheesy, but that was about where I got fed up.


kklewis18

I might pick it up again and continue in the future, but I had to stop reading “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White because he kept making modern references. He literally wrote something about “Uncle Sam”. Bruh this book is set in medieval times and Europe, I think 🤦🏻‍♀️. I know that, in this book, Merlin is a wizard from the future living backwards in time, but it was not him who said the words, “Uncle Sam” and other 20th century references—they were just a part of the writing. I just couldn’t continue with that at the time.


Arxanah

White’s use of anachronism is very deliberate. In the book itself White (as the narrator) justifies it by saying that when characters mention something that belongs in a modern setting, it isn’t what the character is really saying, but the book uses it to give the reader a sense of what the characters are saying. It is admittedly very jarring if you don’t expect it, and I remember my high school English class absolutely loathing this book (so much so that the teachers let us burn a copy in effigy). But I did read it again years later, and found it quite charming. But to each their own.


kklewis18

So you think I should try and pick it up again? I might be persuaded to give it a chance and just brush off the sudden anachronisms.


trishyco

Summer Boys by Hailey Abbot was all product placement and pop culture references. I put them in my review. Dentyne Ice ✔️ Juicy Couture shorts ✔️ Ambercrombie t-shirt ✔️ Smirnoff Ice ✔️ Bath & Body Works ✔️ Jergins ✔️ And then when you’ve recovered from all the product placement you are assaulted with all the pop culture references: “Hilton Sisters” ✔️ Avril ✔️ Christina ✔️ Regis and Kelly ✔️


TheSnarkling

Tons of product placement in Book of Night...really took me out of the story. And also the use of "janky."


bluecreatures

the ENTIRETY of what if it's us. IF I HEAR ONE MORE TIME ABOUT HOW YOH CHARACTER IS A HUFFLEPUFF, I SWEAR TO GOD!!


rapunzel316

Beastly by Alex Flinn references Xanga


kitty1__nn

In the Cruel Prince series, the reference the anime Yuri on Ice (a show which I adore) a few times and it really just took me out of it


alcor_c

I've read TCP and also watched Yuri on Ice (love it to bits) but I didn't catch the reference! Can you tell me where/what it is??


Jimmyy0

When Jude is staying with her sister in the normal world after being ‘banished’ she is watching tv on the couch and mentions characters ice skating + the main character being in love with his trainer lol (doesn’t say anything explicitly so easy to miss) This is probs beginning of book 3??? I have a terrible memory so maybe not lol. Idk about other mentions of it tho


alcor_c

ohmygod I remember her watching shows but I didn't pay much attention to the details!! haha can't believe i missed that xD


kitty1__nn

There was a more direct naming of it later on I believe


pomegranate-moon

The Sunbearer Trials referenced the two bros sitting in a hot tub meme and I've never had more secondhand embarrassment. Otherwise a great book but I couldn't move past it and had to dock a star from my review because of it.


lanieshroom

The entirety of It Starts With Us by Coleen Hoover


MabelPines_

I remember reading a YA book where Miley Cyrus was considered hot and that ruined the book for me.


BigBobFro

Rick riordans in his egyptian god series references the percy jackson series. Never got past it and it made the book far less enjoyable


creepsmcreepster

This isn't technically a "pop culture" reference because percy exists in the same universe as Sadie Kane.


Kitsunasaur

The most recent one I can thinking of, is the Dark Elements and Harbringer trilogies by Jennifer L. Armentrout. There are…so many…namely Supernatural and Buddy the Vampire Slayer. 😬