BroodyBFF Challenge #2: Discussion on Romance Tropes

Today’s blog post is going to be a discussion. The topic is thanks to the #BroodyBFF's Challenge #2- Favorite Romance Trope!

Some of the big romance tropes (and my notable mentions) are The Best Friend’s Sibling, Falling in Love While in Disguise, Unrequited Love, Forbidden Love, Monogamizing the Playboy, Fake Dating, and the Love Triangle. 

Those are all fine and good, but my personal favorite romance trope:

This trope almost ALWAYS starts off with the angsty rival quips as they compete over who-knows-what. Maybe their two teams disappeared on missions and the two have to temporarily team up to survive. The banter slowly turns to flirting as one realizes they have feelings for the other. But does their enemy like them back? Can they trust each other? Will they go on super-secret dates behind both of their team’s backs? Will one of them betray their teammates to help their significant other? There are various possibilities for this trope and it’s got the taint of dark, steamy, and passionate relationships. I just love it so much! 

My favorite example of this trope is probably done in Legend by Marie Lu. Day is a rebel and June Iparis works for the government and has the task of capturing Day. One of my favorite book relationships of ALL-TIME. The final book in the trilogy (Champion) is one of the only books to ever make me cry (I’m not a crier). It was just *clenches fist* SO. GOOD. I hope @broodingYAhero talks about my trope in Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me!

If you have any book recommendations with my favorite Enemies-to-Lovers trope in it, please drop a line and let me know!

What are your favorite romance tropes??

---

You can check out my fellow #BroodyBFF responses on Twitter! 

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads 

---

The BroodyBFF's street team will run from May to November, so check back here at Love at First Write regularly for new challenges and updates, and follow me and @broodingyahero on Twitter to see the hashtags, visual challenges, and #BroodyChats! 

Review: The Rose Society (The Young Elites #2) by Marie Lu

The Rose Society (The Young Elites #2)

by Marie Lu

Publication Date: October 13^th 2015

Publisher: G.P Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Source: Bought

Find This Book: The Rose Society

Rating: 4/5

So I’ve never official reviewed a book by Marie Lu before, but I absolutely adore her. I purchased Legend, Prodigy, Champion, and The Young Elites all when they came out (I especially loved the legend trilogy because the book’s fonts were printed in color! That’s just so aesthetically pleasing for me).

***Spoilers of Book One***

So the main twist in The Young Elites is that the protagonist, Adelina Amouteru, is actually the villain of the series, not the hero! The world building is just so great in this series, all of the countries, culture, and politics are there in the background for you to soak up and The Rose Society doesn’t fail in my expectations of the sequel!

The Rose Society takes place after Adelina reunites with her sister and gets kicked out of an elite secret group called The Daggers. The love of her life is dead and she decides to take revenge by leaving the country and rounding up her own elite squad to rival The Daggers. Boy does she get the rivalry she craves. Her new groupies, which she dubs ‘The Rose Society’ is made up of Herself, her sister Violetta, Magiano, and Sergio. Sergio is mentioned in book one as the boy who couldn’t control hos storm powers. Well, he’s back and in control now! My favorite member, Magiano has the special ability to imitate other Elite’s abilities which sucks if you’re not around elites to steal powers from, but is totally AWESOME for the inevitable Dagger/Rose showdown.

In the meantime, the Daggers also leave Kenettra and go across the sea to meet with a foreign queen. Turns out malfettos are treated pretty nicely over there and even their queen is an elite. Spoiler stuff happens regarding the beloved Prince Enzo’s death and the brand new queen (Enzo’s sister) leaving us with the foreign queen deciding that now is the perfect time to conquer the country of Kenettra.

The reader is now faced with a power struggle between the current Kenettran queen, the foreign queen supported by the daggers, and Adelina and her Rose Society who also want the crown. This creates the perfect environment for tensions between Adelina and her old friends, as well as more experimentation with Adelina’s powers, dark side, and character development.

Once I actually started this book I found it hard to put down and I’m super intrigued by the concept of the main character being the series’ villain. I’ve never seen that down before. While I’m reading it I’m also low-key thinking about how this might be told differently if told by the traditional hero perspective. My only qualm with this book (that took away one star) is that Adelina’s relationship with Enzo is brought up a lot and while I’ll admit that they had a spark in book one, you know before he DIED, their relationship was never really strong. While I understand that it was over exaggerated in Adelina’s POV I still thought it was too overdone in The Rose Society.