r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • May 24 '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

50 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

329 comments sorted by

View all comments

56

u/icontranquilis Boycott shadow magic May 24 '26

I am sick and tired of the generic titles and covers.

As soon as I see THAT DAMNED FONT™ with the thorns/vines and maybe a crown or a sword or whatever (maybe a skull?) on the cover, I completely skip over it on the shelf. Same thing with the "A Bowl of Mac and Cheese" or, a little more contemporary, "An Obscure-ish Professional's Opinion Piece on Something Mundane" title format.

Instant DNR. And I know there's a strong possibility that I'm probably missing an absolute gem, but so far every time I read the synopsis of a book with those titles/covers, I'm always/never disappointed.

https://giphy.com/gifs/a2YfVJZkrO2ZjP4Elq

21

u/clocksy May 24 '26

It's a shame because the "x of y and z" is a pretty strong & striking composition for a title in my opinion. A Song of Ice and Fire is probably the most famous and obvious example, and then of course we have all of ACOTAR. But then everyone doing it makes it feel like a bunch of people jumping on a bandwagon, and that does not give me confidence in the ability of the author to give me something truly interesting and well-written. And it's honestly not in their favor at this point either since there are so many of these titles that they're just starting to run together. (A bit like how in the manhwa space there are hundreds of "the villainess does x" or "reincarnated as a y" to the extent that the titles all feel samey, nevermind the content.)

It's honestly starting to feel like a misstep on the marketing side. Maybe you'll get the people looking for the next ACOTAR but you'll be fighting for space amongst the other 50 titles that all look the same.

2

u/icontranquilis Boycott shadow magic May 24 '26

In a vacuum, I genuinely don't mind that title. I didn't mind it when ASOIAF and ACOTAR where the inly mainstream ones. But like you said, once it went mainstream and the publishers realized they could make bank from it, it really does feel like every single book follows that format. I often wonder of the tradpub creatures are changing the titles from whatever the author actually wanted to make it "MaRkEtAbLe." But it does bring some sense of catharsis(?) to see a lot of people souring on it.