About YA literary tropes: I’m not like other girls

I love YA. I’ve found tons of beautiful and inspiring stories that fit into this category. There’s just something about a young heroine thriving and saving the world (or herself) that’s just, well, awesome.

But, YA is also plagued with certain literary tropes. Themes that you see over and over, and that honestly, kinda ruin my reading experience. Some of them are not that bad, to be honest. But they become really tedious when you find them almost everywhere, and all the time.

*Not every YA book has them, but a lot do. They’re so many though, that faithful YA readers are already complaining about it. And I can totally understand why.*

I will be reviewing some of those tropes, and I wanted to start with the infamous “I’m not like the other girls” one. Because well, I almost hate this one.

Now, what does this phrase mean?

I’ve found that, when the heroine says this, she always proceeds to describe herself as the opposite of a regular girl, which is:

*unpretty/unattractive (according to herself)

*doesn’t like dresses

*doesn’t like make up

*doesn’t know how to flirt

*isn’t precisely girly (whatever that means)

*hasn’t had a boyfriend

*doesn’t have a good fashion sense

*is a little (or very) clumsy

*doesn’t drool over boys, because that’s silly.

*it’s sarcastic

*likes to read, etc.

If you pay attention, there’s a lot of negative stuff there (lots of doesn’t). And I’d love to read about what or who she actually is, though. Not what she isn’t.

And to be honest, I know a lot of girls like that. A lot. In fact, most of us have some (or a lot) of those treats. So nothing in there screams “special” or “different” to me.

And the thing that upsets me the most is, what’s wrong with liking dresses? Or make up?

Damn. What’s wrong with being confident with the way you look? Because you should!

And above all, what’s wrong with thinking that you are pretty?

And why, every girl that is tall, thin, and beautiful has to have a shitty personality? And why believing that you’re unattractive is a good thing? Or a thing that makes you selfless?

Oh, so many questions… sorry about that.

But seriously, mean girls in books like that are usually blonde and pretty. Because blonde and pretty = mean. For some reason.

And I get it, all girls (and boys too), go through this “I don’t know who I am or if I’m good enough” phase. And I get it’s something a lot of young girls can relate to. But I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to romanticize those insecurities.

Why is it so bad to believe that you’re not like the other girls? Because, in a way, it means that you’re alone. That no one can possibly understand you, or what you’re going through. And worse, that the girls that are different from you, are usually the enemy.

This is not true. We are all human. We all have different tastes and dislikes, but that doesn’t make us so abysmally different that we can’t possibly get along. And why in the world, the only person to make our protagonist feel better about herself, is the undeniable, and always present, smoking hot guy?

(Because calling a girl “smoking hot” is incredibly wrong, but a boy on the other hand… but more on that in another article)

Honestly, I want heroines who are confident with the way they look. Heroines who know who they are, and just not who they’re not. Heroines who are a little less vain (because being real honest here, the only guy that wins their heart is casually the handsomest of them all.)Heroines who aren’t so clumsy, that they depend on the guy to save them over and over until the end of the book.

I want female protagonists that are like other girls. Or who are aware that they’re pretty (because again, almost every female protagonist is beautiful, whether she sees it or not.)and own it.

Here are a few good examples:

Harper Price (Rebel Belle): She’s pretty, confident and smart. Oh, and she’s actually really kind too.

Winter (Winter -The lunar chronicles #4): She’s not pretty, she’s the fairest of them all. (see what I did there?) and she’s also very nice and very brave.

Karou (Daughter of smoke and bone): She has to uncover a series of weird events that could possibly destroy the world. And luckily, she spends little to no time dwelling on whether she thinks she is beautiful or not.

That’s it!

More tropes soon.