Tropes I Don't Like

Insta-love

I hate this trope - I hate it even more when I see it throughout all sorts of entertainment.

The main reason why I hate this trope is simple: it's unrealistic, people don't just fall in love with each other right when they meet each other.

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The basic concept of insta-love is when two strangers meet and fall in love (though most of you probably knew that already). In entertainment (especially in books) you can find hints that a scene has insta-love in it. For example: a common sentence deals with the "I took a breathe I did not realize I was holding." (this is found in all sorts of scenes). The way I interpret this sentence for the concept of insta-love deals with holding your breathe because you gawk at the stranger, and let out your breathe after. There are other ways to view the sentence, but that is the one I came up with for instance-love.

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I will now talk about one case of insta-love I caught in a book. Even though I could talk about many.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer is the second book in the Lunar Chronicles series. Over all, it is a fantastic read, parts of it were even better than the first book. However, there is insta-love in the story.

Unlike some books where the insta-love is nearly immediate, this incident is a course of one week. It's not as bad as it being immediate - but one of the characters lies and betrays to the other during that week. Yet it's all okay in the end. Granted, there were explanations to the lies and betrayals.

The worst part of this insta-love was at the end of the story when these two characters were talking about something that was a bit too soon, especially sense they only knew each other for about a week. (It was nothing too inappropriate so it was a bit less concerning to an extent)

I did not want to have this contain spoilers for the book. I am considerate of those who do not want to be spoiled, even if people say they don't mind.

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In general, I feel like people can be pulled into a story more without the insta-love. Watching characters and their relationships through out a book(s) shows their relationship (not just romantic, but friendships as well) develop and feels more real to us.
Overall, insta-love has died down in entertainment, but it's still around in certain areas. It won't go away as a concept, but it should not be a desirable way to show the relationship between two (or more) characters.

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Getting a bit off topic here, but I also feel like in genres like dystopian, fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, and so on, do not need so many romantic relationships in almost every recent and/or overhyped release out there. This romance especially bothers me when the characters are teenagers. Which of course is what's mostly out there.
I would love to just see characters have friendships with one another and see them as friends. (Thank you V. E. Schwab for making This Savage Song contain NO romance) Friendship-based stories tend to pull me in quicker and I also see the valuable lessons within those stories.
The romance in other genres does have messages within them, I just seem to need to be hooked in to notice. (It's probably just me not being a fan of romance and not interested in it being in other genres I like).