There are tropes in literature that every reader loves…and hates.
“Tropes” are the very common and recurring themes in literature that help us, as a species that loves categorization and patterns, keep stories straight in our heads. Tropes let us know, essentially, what happens in the course of the story, and define several rules for the book from the outset. There are “locked room” mysteries, for example, in which a detective character must solve a seemingly impossible crime, or a “trouble with robots” trope in science fiction, where the line between human and machine inevitably becomes blurred, or the “unlikely hero/heroine” trope, where the least likely character somehow manages to rise to the occasion and save the day.
In many ways, tropes are like foods in a grocery store. We are familiar, to some extent, with most of them, and we know the ones that we love, ones that we hate, and ones that we really intend to try one of these days. Largely, it’s all a matter of personal taste, and there is no shame in loving–or hating–a particular trope.
For example, I cannot handle love triangles.
….you know those stories where the heroine (and it’s usually a heroine) must choose between two potential love interests? Yeah. Those.
As an objective reader, I can wholly appreciate the value of love triangles…it gives the heroine (let’s just stick with the idea of a heroine here) a chance to choose her own future, with each of her potential heroes symbolizing the potential paths for her to choose. It also adds bucket-loads of drama to a plot, because of all the uncertainty, hope, and despair implicit in every scene.
My problem with love triangles? In probably 97% of cases, I choose the wrong person.
It all started when I was in sixth grade, with a historical adventure novel that isn’t in the NOBLE system, so it shall remain anonymous, in which a young heroine who had travelled out to Colorado territory was being courted by two gentlemen: one a young journalist whom she met on the train at the outset of her journey, and the other, a cattle rancher who was tied to the land and devoted to the promise of the American West. I was in love with the journalist. Absolutely head-over-heels dippy over him. And in the end…the heroine chose to stay in with the cattle rancher.
And I didn’t speak to anyone for three days.
And ever since then, I invariably fall in love with the unsuccessful suitor. That’s why I was inconsolable at the end of Tale of Two Cities (which made for an extremely awkward high school English class); it’s why I could never enjoy Wuthering Heights as much as I should; for crying out loud, even if one of them turns out to be a villain, I’m still the weirdo sitting there with a little pennant, rooting for him have a happy ending!
Again, this is in no way a judgement on love triangles, or those who love them. I wish I could. However, there are a few books with love triangles that I could enjoy, and I figured, as a show of good faith, that I’d point them out to you. Hopefully those readers who revel in the drama of love triangles will find some new stories to savor, and those who, like me, tend to shy away from them, will find the incentive to give one a try.
A Rogue By Any Other Name: Sarah MacLean is one of my favorite romance authors of all time, so when the opening book of her Rule of Scoundrels book featured a fairly prominent love triangle, I forced myself to hold on tight and brave it out. Her heroine, Penelope, has been convinced by years of unsuccessful courtships and a broken engagement that true love is not for her, especially after her father places an enormous dowry on her head in order to attract suitors. But when the Marquis of Bourne, Penelope’s first love who was forced to flee society a decade earlier, suddenly returns, demanding Penelope’s hand, she finds that true love may be far more complicated than she ever imagined. This is one of those books where the two heroes of the story represent perfectly the two paths open to the heroine, and MacLean makes Penelope’s choice emotional without beings devastating. Best of all, she always provides all of her characters with agency and humanity, and in this case gives Penelope’s unsuccessful suitor the chance to be a hero in his own right.
Anna and the French Kiss: This book turns the love triangle trope on its ear a bit, by making the heroine one of two women in the hero’s life–but doing it in a way that doesn’t compromise the heroine’s individuality or either woman’s potential for happiness. Anna first meets Etienne St. Clair when her father unexpectedly ships her off to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school. Though Anna knows, deep down, that Etienne could be perfect for her, she also knows that he’s taken–and she still hasn’t forgotten the crush she left back home in Atlanta. What I particularly loved about this book was the real and honest friendship that developed between Anna and Etienne. Their genuine concern for each other, regardless of the other people in their lives, made this love triangle work for me, because they always had each other’s best interests at heart, no matter what. It doesn’t hurt that this is a ridiculously romantic and heart-picklingly sweet story, making it impossible not to smile while reading, no matter what.
The Phantom of the Opera: Gaston Leroux’s classic is surely the love triangle to beat all triangles, as the innocent, beautiful, and talented opera singer, Christine, finds herself torn between her recently-returned childhood love, and the mysterious, masked man who hides in the cellars of the Paris Opera House, and teaches her how to sing like an angel. Remember when I said that even when a character turns out to be a villain, I still root for them? Yup, this is that book. But I would argue it’s pretty hard for a reader not to feel for Erik, the man behind the mask, after his long, fascinating and painful history is revealed, or want to follow him, even after the final pages have turned….