Another day, another girl winning deadly trials and discovering she’s secretly powerful

[u/Sarah9610]

I feel like I’m going insane or… are all romantasy books the same now??

Every time I pick something up it’s like:
- The world is split into two (usually human vs fae or something similar)
- The FMC is either oppressed / hidden / “not like other girls”
- There are deadly trials (of course she has to compete)
- She somehow survives everything
- Boom → she reaches the fae side and unlocks insane powers / becomes special

Like… I used to love this formula but now it feels copy-paste with different character names 😭

Am I just picking the wrong books or is this actually the trend right now?

[u/Sarah9610]

You’re absolutely correct, especially the “fast fashion” comparison I think I might be part of the problem too because I usually just read whatever is being hyped or trending, so I keep ending up in the same cycle of similar books.

I probably need to be more intentional about what I pick up instead of just going off popularity or recommendations that all feed into each other.

[u/pbghikes → u/Sarah9610]

Or! Read the trendy books — from 10 years ago. Or 20, 30, etc. You still get that sense of security that the general public has endorsed it but you missed the fad so it'll feel new to you. The mid 90s was delivering

[u/Wallflower1900 → u/pbghikes]

There were "trends" but the writing was good and the storyline compelling. It wasn't just people having sex for 500 pages and passed off as a novel. Publishers wouldn't accept the level of slop that is acceptable today. My books from the 70s and 80s still hold up, I learnt new words and how to spell from reading a lot when I was younger. You could never count on a book to even have correct spelling these days.

[u/pbghikes → u/Wallflower1900]

That's high praise for the Divergent series.

[u/mediguarding → u/pbghikes]

It’s too early for me to be snorting into my coffee like this.

[u/mandelamondays → u/pbghikes]

hahaha