Insta-love?

I thought it would be interesting to start discussing tropes found in YA books on the blog. Some people love them and some people hate them. I want to know why and I want to tell you how I feel. Today, I thought we'd do insta-love because I know that gets a lot of people fired up. It gets me fired up, honestly.

So, if you're unfamiliar with insta-love, it is essentially instant love. Love at first sight. Whatever you want to call. Person meets person and falls in love, no buts about it. It's pretty unbelievable and I'm not totally convinced things like this actually happen in real life. In fact, I'm not convinced at all. I don't think it happens in real life because I don't think it's possible to actually love someone instantly. Be attracted to them? Of course, but not love.

This happens in several upon several YA books. To name a few:
-The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
-City Of Bones by Cassandra Clare
-Lets Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
-When We Collided by Emery Lord
-Carol by Patricia Highsmith
-Looking For Alaska by John Green
-Almost any book by Nicholas Sparks

Those are only a few that I could think of off the top of my head but I think they're all really good example and I'm sure most of you have read or heard of at least one of them. There is a lot of them if you look hard enough. I'm sure if I had a good look at my bookshelf I'd be able to name quite a few. It's crazy how often it happens and it gets me thinking, why? Is it because these authors are just hopeless romantics at heart? Or, are they too lazy to actually write their characters properly falling in love? The last one is aimed at myself, whoops. I mean, it's probably the author tapping into what they think their readers want. I don't mind it and I'm sure there's people out there who live for insta-love.

I'm very on the fence about insta-love. I loved it in The Sun Is Also A Star because it was so sweet, I hated it in Looking For Alaska because I almost thought it was creepy. Which is weird because they were very similar. Which I think comes down to the differences between Miles and Daniel. Miles tended to sexualise Alaska quite a lot and that's where it my mind it was creepy because he hardly knew her. Whereas Daniel hadn't sexualised Natasha quite as much, it still happened but Daniel was still very fixated on talking to Tash and learning about Tash and it was all just very sweet. Which has all to do with the authors. John Green is quite blunt in his books whereas when Nicola Yoon writes I think she has a tendency to romanticise things. So, for me it comes down to the author and how well they've managed it. I think it can be done well and it can be done not so well. Just like anything.


But, I'd like to hear what you think of insta-love. Love it? Hate it? What's a book you've read with insta-love recently? Did it bother you? Tell me everything.