To explain a little about what this post will be about, I’m taking the intro I did for the last one: In every romance book you read there are tropes or archetypes. You can also see them in shows, movies, plays, etc. Romantic tropes are everywhere, and they are fabulous. I adore them. I adore some of them and I always tend to find my favorite ones in romance books so I can enjoy them more. I decided to do a sort of Trope Tuesday piece where I will be talking about many tropes and recommend you all some of my favorites that fit.
What is a trope? Urban Dictionary explains it best I think: “Despite the erroneous definitions already published here, trope on the interwebs really refers to an often overused plot device. It can also be described as another variation on the same theme. TV shows, movies, comics, games, anime’, & books are full of tropes & many rabid fan-sites now name & track said tropes with a self-explanatory title for each one.” We can name a few: accidental pregnancy, best friends to lovers, sibling’s best friend, marriage of convenience, and so many more for sure. Your favorite couples? They probably got a trope too! It’s always so nice to realize or find out your favorite romance trope and keep searching for books with the same theme.
One of my first loves is sports. If you ask my friends or my family, you’ll know that I’m a big sports fan. Sometimes I even show a little of my excitement on Twitter but I don’t talk enough about it. I love love sports and championships and athletes who give it all for the sport and win it and lose it sometimes. It’s such an amazing thing to see and I have big respect for every single athlete out there. So of course one of my first loves in the romance community was sports romance books. But I had my disappointments with it and I now tread carefully around this trope.
Why? Well, romance books have a lot of sports related romances between their front and back covers. But most of them tend to be very… white. And if you have ever seen a sport event or game or anything, you know this is far from reality. All-white teams? That’s not reality and I hate to see that this mindset is still out there whenever I check a new book out. When I get a complete sports romance Goodreads list with the majority of the books being about people of color, we will talk.
But aside from that, what I enjoy most about them is the world they are in. It’s always nice to see inside the closed doors and the things you don’t see in games, for example. I loved when Pitch, the TV show, came out because we saw inside the doors of baseball and how everything came together: the free agency, the players, the hardship that takes to play a game, etc. Hated to see it get cancelled because that was a show I was rooting for SO HARD. I hope one day maybe if the stars aligned we get it picked up *whispers* please Netflix.
Now it’s time to recommend some fabulous books because everyone needs some happiness and joy in their life right now. (I do to be honest).