Girl sees guy for the first time. They say hi.
They look at each other for a really long time.
They fall deeply in love.
Uhh... No! I don't think so!
Insta-Love is a term often used in the young adult reading and blogging world to describe a book (usually romance) which has two characters who fall in love with each other in a very short amount of time.
Portraying love in young adult literature in this way can be both incorrect and misleading, though many times teens will drink it up. For those people who don't read a lot of young adult fiction they might not notice how unrealistic the story is being.
Insta-love is often seen in paranormal and forbidden love stories, many of them being in some way or another a re-telling of Romeo and Juliet. As described in the photo to the right, Shakespeare's love story lasted three days, and in the story it took Romeo and Juliet only one night of meeting at a dance for them to decide to marry. Though Romeo and Juliet is a very popular and classic book, many people think that Insta-love is a proper aspect of Young Adult stories written today. Some reasons people might like insta-love stories are that they are often shorter stories or they are part of a series to develop the love story a little more than was written in the first book. Young Adult romance is a very commonly written and read genre, and people might be looking for any variation of it. The may also not realize how instantaneous the love may seem. In general some people some people just like the idea of the possibility of love at first sight, which may draw them to these types of books.
Most avid readers will avoid reading insta-love because they are thought of as books without good development, good reasons behind all of what is being written and contains a lack of book planning. Many other don't like insta-love because it is very unrealistic and could show poor or misjudged ideas.
Though insta-love is generally opposed by readers, it is still a very commonly written and read sub-genre of romance books. What do you think? Do you read and enjoy insta-love books? Are you opposed to them? Comment below and share your thoughts.
Great post! It's pretty rare to find a case of insta-love doesn't bug me but it does happen, it just depends on the situation. I'm not sure why we have to keep reading about it, but I don't think it's going away any time soon!
ReplyDeleteHmmm I guess I really don't care about insta-love. We bash YA fiction for this at times but it's the basis for nearly every fairy tale ever written. I guess it doesn't bother me because I know that it is fiction. I do see the comcern that of teen readers thinking its the norm, because it can create unrealistic expectations.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as i saw this discussion in my email i had to read it. The biggest turn off in a book is insta-love for me. I can NOT digest this love at first sight crap because i don't believe in it. Yes, you can get infatuated by a person from the first look, but head over heels in love? ugh ugh ugh. I just hope that now that readers have been voicing their opinions on insta-love authors will take a break from it and write more realistic love stories!
ReplyDeletegreat discussion!!
- juhina
I'm so glad I'm not the only one on the planet who think Romeo and Juliet isn't the most romantic story every. They knew each other for THREE days and then committed suicide because they just "couldn't go on". Blerg.
ReplyDeleteInsta-love is actually the reason I kind of steer away from paranormal usually. It seems to happen a lot in that genre and though it doesn't make me super ranty or anything, I just find it hard to believe so the whole story is just that much less credible.
Great post, Erika :D