This week we’ll be celebrating Valentine’s Day, and what better way to do that than lay the smack-down on some of our least favorite literary romances?

Truth be told, some of them are fine. But others just need to die a tragic, slow, and painful death. Like love triangles.

Loves triangles seem to be, unfortunately, becoming a staple in not only literature, but in TV and films as well. It starts out lovely – we have, for example, our (plain, normal, lacking in self-esteem) heroine and she falls in love with our (flawed, dangerous, gorgeous-yet-totally-into-her) hero. And just when everything seems perfect, the best friend/guy next door/longtime secret crush (circle one) pops up and realizes, “Hey! I’m sort of in love with this girl.”

That was okay the first 1,000 times we’ve read it. But now? We just want love triangles to be a thing of the past.

Here’s the problem with them: one way or another, they’re going to upset you.

On the one hand, you’ve invested all this time in one couple. Then the new guy comes in and you feel betrayed. How could she fall for him after everything she and Bad Boy Hero went through!? She just spent an entire book coming to terms with the fact that she loves him only to be swept off her feet the second another guy shows interest in her!

Or, alternatively, you feel betrayed when the new couple doesn’t get together. You spent an entire book rooting for one pair, then another book rooting for another. You’re torn between the two, but you can’t help but think Guy Next Door just, like, gets her in a way Bad Boy Hero doesn’t.

And when the book or series finally comes to a conclusion, you don’t care about your heroine anymore because she seems flaky and shallow.

And readers take this stuff seriously. They invest in these characters. If the Team Edward and Team Jacob rivalries taught us anything, it was that. And it’s not just Twilight that has incorporated this into the plot. Tiger’s Curse did it (Ren and Kishan). The Hunger Games did it (Gale and Peeta). The Mortal Instruments did it (Simon and Jace).

The back-and-forth, will-they-or-won’t-they story lines are aggravating. You want to like all of the main characters, but you inevitably come out disliking someone. Whether it be Bad Boy Hero for driving the heroine away or Guy Next Door for stepping in between two people who are working on their relationship. Or the heroine for just not being able to make up her damn mind.

The point is it’s getting old. Readers don’t want to be torn between two characters they love. They don’t want to see one character depressed and lonely and abandoned. People love happy endings. It’s hard to do that without coming up with a cop out for the character that gets the cold shoulder. (I’m looking at you, Twilight.)

We need more epic romances. Some slow burns. Think Ron and Hermione or Percy and Annabeth. Something with substance that’s more about choosing between two characters that are both perfect in their own ways. Give us some real curve balls.

Here’s the inevitable follow-up question. Do you like love triangles, or are you so over them? Which were the best? Which were the worst? What are some more examples of slow-burn, epic loves that you’d like to see more of?

More Valentine’s Day articles

Hypable is gearing up for some serious VDay love around here (with a few anti-Valentine’s Day treats as well). Be sure to keep checking out all of our previous articles.

First we had the best modern day couples in young adult fiction. Then Richard so eloquently wrote the article about why we hate Valentine’s Day.

More will be on their way soon!