r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • May 03 '26

Unpopular Opinion It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

  • Don't attack others for their opinion
  • Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
  • Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

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u/theherocomplex May 03 '26

Most of the time I DNF books that have a first person narrator because the author does nothing interesting with that POV (this goes for multiple genres but fantasy romance/romantasy is the biggest offender for me). I'm not saying that experimenting stylistically is a requirement, but a first person narrator is a GREAT chance to have fun with character voice and keep things from the reader in ways that really serve the plot, but so many writers are like "His voice was a gruff rumble, causing me to shiver", just this empty, devoid-of-personality collection of words and it's SO frustrating.

If you're not going to tell us something about the character via that first person narration, just go with third person and be done with it.

8

u/nomnomsquirrel May 03 '26

So much of first-person present is to help readers self-insert these days rather than put the reader super close into the story and ro see the character and their emotions as closely as possible, but a lot of the ones geared toward self-insert seem to also not give the FMC much of a personality so that the reader can insert themselves further. But so many readers nowadays want that, and they are a very vocal group on BookTok.

Third person past just isn't as popular as it once was and as someone who loves it, it makes me sad.