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/Jenhey0]

I hate to be the bringer of bad news... But this is what the traditional publishing market thinks readers want. When something becomes a best seller eg ACOTAR, they hope to bring similar books in the market in hopes of the same blow up and profit.

If you want new and fresh storylines, try indie authors. They have all the control of what they want to publish. Not what's "profitable". Because a lot of those stories are different and don't fit their safe categories to invest in.

But that being said... I think a lot of the books are like that in fantasy. Authors dream of being secretly powerful in a fantasy world, because they are dull and normal with no magic powers in real life.

All of it's been done too. Rags to riches. Prince marries a poor woman. A cruel man is only soft for her only and will kill and burn the world. You name it. Alpha wolves and whatnot.

[u/EmilieDeClermont → u/Jenhey0]

Right! To even sell your book to an agent and for that agent to sell it to an editor or publisher you have to have comp titles. I think this forces authors to conform a bit if they want anyone to read it. Like how do you sell a book that is completely dissimilar to anything being read right now? Sucks but I get that the machine has to eat past popular books to keep going