Love Triangles in YA Novels/Rant Post

I need to rant about something that I have noticed in quite a few YA novels that I have been reading, and this is the love triangle.

I personally don’t care for the love triangle as it is rarely done in a way that I find enjoyable. However, most YA books have some form of a love triangle, and the way it is usually done gets on my nerves.

Usually, it is Girl A falls in love with Boy A, then Boy A falls out of the picture for like two seconds, and Girl A falls in love with Boy B. Then Boy A returns, and Girl A must make a choice between her old lover or her new lover. This is when I start to get upset. In real life, it would probably take Girl A longer to get over her “love” for Boy A, and so Boy B would probably not slide in as easily. But even if he does! The book never gives Girl A the chance to make a real choice. One of three things happens. In a fantasy novel, one of the boys turns out to be evil. In a dystopian/science fiction novel, one of the boys will die. In a realistic novel, one of the boys turns out to be a douche and either cheat on the girl or something along those lines. Either way, the girl never actually makes a real decision. One of the boys simply falls or takes himself out of the picture, allowing the girl to go happily into the sunset with whoever is left. This would not happen in real life! Boys don’t just disappear, and I would like for a girl to actually have to make a decision for once.

Also, there is another scenario. Sometimes, Girl A is even with Boy A and Boy B at the same time. For example, Boy A is the old-fashioned, sweet, and non-sexy lover while Boy B is dangerous and sexy. Then Girl A has to make a choice between safety and adventure. I hate these even more because people tend to simply accept them. Imagine if it was a girl. One girl is old-fashioned, plain and not extremely “sexy”, and not adventurous. The other girl is sexy, new, and adventurous. Suddenly the guy leaves his old girlfriend for this new girl that showed up and stole him away. This would be viewed as a bad storyline, and people would get mad and dislike the author for breaking the girl’s heart just because she wasn’t “sexy” enough. However, this always happens to boys in YA books, but no one bats an eye.

I wish that there was a love triangle story where if the girl was cheating on her boyfriend with the new guy, she would face shaming by her friends and some form of actual consequence for it. If she was in the first version of the scenario, I wish that she would have had to make an actual decision quickly about which guy she wanted. Even if she has to break someone’s heart, it should be a cleaner break than dragging the “unwanted” guy along for another book or so. Instead of giving her an easy way out by making a guy evil, or making him die, I wish that authors would keep both guys on and force her to own up to her actions.

I could go on and on about love triangles that I dislike in stories, but I will end it here before the post gets too long. Talk to me in the comments about your least favorite book love triangle!

I also want to see a new YA novel with a love triangle between a guy and two girls, to see the difference of the tropes used there. If anyone has recommendations, please tell me!