Throughout my reading (and watching) experience, I've come across tropes where I have to roll my eyes in frustration or completely abandon the boom because it ruined the story for me. Then came the subversion of tropes - and I was stoked!!

What story tropes did you hate and what subversions/developments/changes made you like this particular... um... trope alternative? I'll start with my own tropes dislikes and subversion loves:

• Love Triangle subversion: we all love each other, actually we're all gay for each other (Iron Widow and Our Flag Means Death to an extent)
• the Gendry trope subversion, i.e. the Male Best Friend realizes his Male friend is a disguised girl and addresses her as woman despite her protests, subversion: instead of going "I'm going to remind you again and again that you're a woman, or a Lady, and I won't give you the treatment of being perceived as a boy like you wish", it's just a simple "I don't give a fuck, I always knew, but you'll always be a brother to me, now can we continue being brotherly towards each other?" (She Who Became The Sun)
• when villain does [insert war crime] it's bad, but when heroic protagonist does [insert war crime] it's for the greater good trope subversion: if you want the protagonist to do [insert war crime], let's go batshit crazy and experience the horrifying reality of [insert war crime], I want my characters to suffer (The Poppy War, The Fifth Season, Iron Widow, Iphigenia, etc.)
• the white male abolitionist saviour trope subversion: move aside, dude, I present to you the post-colonial perspective from those directly affected (Things Fall Apart, Kindred, Jazz, Babel, etc.)
• Love at First Sight trope subversion: we can still be platonic friends with people of the opposite sex (Babel, Boys Run The Riot, Witch Hat Atelier, etc.)
• the Chosen One trope subversion: oops he's not the Chosen One, he's in fact the villain, or he is the Chosen One from a certain point of view (Star wars my beloved)
• the main story is the untainted hero's story subversion: We're actually following the villain the entire time (Star wars, The Silmarillion, Attack on titan, etc.)

I'm loving all of the different perspectives that we are getting from this story! Prisoners, spectators, activists, producers, familial relations... We get them all and it really builds up an in-depth and complex view of this world. See how some people defend the CAPE program while others fight against it. Seeing how some people revere the Links, while others despise them. Viewing the perspectives of CAPE from both within and without the program. It all adds up to make a very comprehensive and realistic world and the author does such an amazing job of connecting all these individuals and perspectives together!!!

I'm a little tired of rape-as-worldbuilding in fantasy and historical fiction. This isn't exactly a judgment or critique of Buehlman here. In his defense, he was probably writing this in a pre-HBO's Game of Thrones world, which is what pushed a lot of people to the end of their patience for it.

Rape as a shortcut for showing the brutality of the setting. Rape as an easy way to let us know a morally gray character, like Thomas, isn't too far gone for us to root for, by giving him a chance to protect an innocent girl. Rape as a ticket for ethically pure violence we can cheer for when he slaughters the evildoers.

It doesn't break the book for me. It just feels a little cheap.

Im actually so excited for this. This series is probably my most favorite ever 😭😭

No line has tickled me as much as “Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at a shark”.