Everyone has their dating deal breakers. It's a way to filter through the masses of potential partners, especially in the age of online dating and social media. Even a picture can cause us to turn away, like the presence of a cigarette or a bathroom selfie or a man bun. Whether you're just swiping through Tinder or testing the waters on casual dates, you know what you're going to stay away from.

The same can be said for books.
For anyone who frequents the nearest Barnes & Noble, you know what it's like to stand in front of the new releases and know that you're not walking out of there without one or two or ten of these beautiful hardcovers. You judge the covers. Read the description. You look for authors you recognize and read the blurbs for the ones you don't.
But how do you choose?
Well, like dating, we know what we're interested in what it comes to reading, and we also know what we're not interested in. Sure, the plot may sound unique and the characters appear to be promising, but the first few pages may be able to tell you if this one is worth taking home.

Here are some of my book deal breakers for YA:

The Mean Girl

I think it's been well established that high school is comprised of much more than just your typical hierarchy Regina George formula. At one point, this was a really intriguing trend in YA, like when Lauren Oliver released her debut Before I Fall. However, after countless similar novels put out the same story arcs with the same cast of characters (The Queen Mean Girl, The Remorseful Mean Girl, The Sidekick Mean Girl, The Queen's Jerk King, The Closet Jerk/Nice Guy Boyfriend, The Redemption Boy, and The Nice Girl), I no longer want to read about main characters who rampage through the story with cruelty serving as a mask for their deep insecurities. Yes, the deconstruction of the mean girl was fascinating the first couple of times, but it has been very overdone. There are plenty of other aspects of the teen years that have yet to be fully explored, and this exhausted trope has become redundant and predictable.


The Manic Pixie Dream

In both fantasy and contemporary YA, there have been many charismatic love interests strolling in with their perfect hair and quirky smile to turn the protagonist's world upside down. Think Ramona Flowers or Summer Finn. This character's job is to bring a light into the story and to show the MC how lacking his or her life was before they showed up. MPD's are often a reflection of what we dream of when it comes to a perfect love life, and they are not typically an accurate representation of a real person.
I'm sure we all have our own version of the manic pixie dream in our minds. I would love to find my own Augustus Waters to take me to Amsterdam and speak sweetly of his love for me, but my problem with this type of character is that it sets up a plot that moves forward under the implication that the main character's life wasn't good enough without the MPD. Not only is it an unrealistic romance, but it also takes away from the important message of loving yourself and understanding that your worth does not increase once this person has swept you off your feet. I want to read about two characters who are gritty and dimensional and complicated, because that is what's real. Manic pixie dreams just don't give me anything to believe in.



The Obnoxious Narrator

Writers know that voice is one of the most important factors when it comes to grabbing the reader's attention. You're supposed to be able to get a pretty good feel of the main character within the first few chapters by the way they bring you into the story. Obviously, when writing characters who are in their teens, authors have to work with the tendencies of the age group in order to create someone who is believable and relatable. If you were anything like me when you were a teenager, you were sarcastic as hell with a heaping side of angst.
Sarcasm is a language within itself, and I've seen it done to perfection (Cassie Sullivan from Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave trilogy is the queen), but sometimes it feels like the author uses an overabundance of sarcasm to make up for the lack of voice given to their characters. It can be a great piece of their personality, but I need more than that to get on board with a narrator constantly going off track to make snarky remarks. It gets to a point where I'm annoyed, distracted, and uninterested in anything other than getting this over with. Show me their heart, their pain, and tell me who they really are beyond the overused sarcasm.  If I come across a character who can't do that, it's unlikely I'll make it past the first chapter.