I’m pretty sure you guys all know my feelings about love triangles by now, but I’ll reiterate for any newcomers: I hate love triangles with a passion.

They used to be kind of cool and really ratcheted up the drama in the few books they appeared.  The love triangle trope was used, but it was fairly rare.

Enter the Twilight phenomenon.

Bella had to choose between Edward and Jacob and fans went nuts over the fact.  There were and still are ‘Team Edward’ and ‘Team Jacob’ fans and although the series is obviously finished they still go berserk over it.  Which is fine because if people are reading (even Twilight), that’s awesome.  But I’m getting a little off topic here.

The point is that enterprising authors and publishers saw how much a love triangle enhanced interest in the series by fans as well as how it generated buzz amongst the general public, who would then be compelled to read the book as well.  Can you see where I’m going with this?  So because of the ridiculously huge success of one triangle, now almost every single YA book I read with a female main character has two good-looking guys fighting over her.

Cue the eye-rolling.  I really hate how love triangles are forcibly added to the plot to create a dramatic subplot and I really, really hate how they’re so unbelievable 99% of the time.  The latter is often due to poor writing or the author doing a half-hearted love triangle because their editor told them to.  Love triangles can be done well (see: Cleopatra’s Moon), but those are rare and the fact is they’re so overdone.  Can we just let the trope die for a bit?  Or at least use cryogenics to freeze it for a few years, even a decade before reviving it.

So I’m done rambling about my hatred of love triangles, but what do you think?  Do you love or hate love triangles?  What was the worst love triangle you’ve ever read?  The best?  Why do you think so many authors use love triangles?