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“Something that¡¯s bothered me for a while now is the current profligacy in YA culture of Team Boy 1 vs Team Boy 2 fangirling. [...] Despite the fact that I have no objection to shipping, this particular species of team-choosing troubled me, though I had difficulty understanding why. Then I saw it applied to Suzanne Collins¡¯s The Hunger Games trilogy ¨C Team Peeta vs Team Gale ¨C and all of a sudden it hit me that anyone who thought romance and love-triangles were the main event in that series had utterly missed the point. Sure, those elements are present in the story, but they aren¡¯t anywhere near being the bones of it, because The Hunger Games, more than anything else, is about war, survival, politics, propaganda and power. Seeing such a strong, raw narrative reduced to a single vapid argument ¨C which boy is cuter? ¨C made me physically angry.

So, look. People read different books for different reasons. The thing I love about a story are not necessarily the things you love, and vice versa. But riddle me this: are the readers of these series really so excited, so thrilled by the prospect of choosing! between! two! different! boys! that they have to boil entire narratives down to a binary equation based on male physical perfection and, if we¡¯re very lucky, chivalrous behaviour? While feminism most certainly champions the right of women to chose their own partners, it also supports them to choose things besides men, or to postpone the question of partnership in favour of other pursuits ¨C knowledge, for instance. Adventure. Careers. Wild dancing. Fun. Friendship. Travel. Glorious mayhem. And while, as a woman now happily entering her fourth year of marriage, I¡¯d be the last person on Earth to suggest that male companionship is inimical to any of those things, what¡¯s starting to bother me is the comparative dearth of YA stories which aren¡¯t, in some way, shape or form, focussed on Girls Getting Boyfriends, and particularly Hot Immortal Or Magical Boyfriends Whom They Will Love For All Eternity.

Blog post: Love Team Freezer”
― Foz Meadows

“That's it...I'm completely giving up on boys and concentrating on staying alive.”
― Samantha Young, Scorched Skies

“Mustardseed grinned at Bertie. "I was never any good at geometry, but you¡¯re stuck in a love triangle, aren¡¯t you?"

"Shut up," she ordered even as Moth asked, "But what if there were four of them?"

"That¡¯s a love rectangle, and five people would be a love pentagon."

"And what are six people in love?" Cobweb demanded.

Mustardseed thought it over a moment. "Manslaughter, I suppose.”
― Lisa Mantchev , So Silver Bright

“Tell me you do not feel as I do and I will leave you and you may be with another.”
― Tamara Rose Blodgett, The Savage Blood

“...Fate forced me to become a two-man woman. But there was no effing way I could be a four-man woman.
Even metaphysics couldn't keep that from being whorey.”
― Sierra Dean, A Bloody Good Secret

“A.Coward," he repeated, and I briefly considered picking up the vase in the center of the island and throwing it at him."Not making a choice is the coward's way out. You love both of them. I get that. But you don't feel the same kind of love for both of them, and the sooner you accept that the better.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Every Last Breath

“He's really jealous, Ybon said rather weakly. Just have him meet me, Oscar said. I make all boyfriends feel better about themselves.”
― Junot D¨ªaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Just close your eyes and fall. Fall backwards in your mind and tell me who you see catching you. Is it him... or is it me?”
― Victoria L. James, Natexus

“As a fantasist, I well understand the power of escapism, particularly as relates to romance. But when so many stories aimed at the same audience all trumpet the same message ¨C And Lo! There shall be Two Hot Boys, one of them your Heart¡¯s Intended, the other a vain Pretender who is also hot and with whom you shall have guilty makeouts before settling down with your One True Love ¨C I am inclined to stop viewing the situation as benign and start wondering why, for instance, the heroines in these stories are only ever given a powerful, magical destiny of great importance to the entire world so long as fulfilling it requires male protection, guidance and companionship, and which comes to an end just as soon as they settle their inevitable differences with said swain and start kissing.

I mean to invoke is something of the danger of mob rule, only applied to narrative and culture. Viz: that the comparative harmlessness of individuals does not prevent them from causing harm en masse. Take any one story with the structure mentioned above, and by itself, there¡¯s no problem. But past a certain point, the numbers begin to tell ¨C and that poses a tricky question. In the case of actual mobs, you¡¯ll frequently find a ringleader, or at least a core set of agitators: belligerent louts who stir up feeling well beyond their ability to contain it. In the case of novels, however, things aren¡¯t so clear cut. Authors tell the stories they want to tell, and even if a number of them choose to write a certain kind of narrative either in isolation or inspired by their fellows, holding any one of them accountable for the total outcome would be like trying to blame an avalanche on a single snowflake. Certainly, we may point at those with the greatest (arguable) influence or expostulate about creative domino effects, but as with the drop that breaks the levee, it is impossible to try and isolate the point at which a cluster of stories became a culture of stories ¨C or, for that matter, to hold one particular narrative accountable for the whole.”
― Foz Meadows

“When I was twelve, someone stole all those dreams of normal from me." ~ Blake”
― Ashley Poch, Luck of Love

“We were walking that tightrope between friends and something more...”
― Melissa Aragon, Unexpectedly Out of Focus

“Hayabusa¡­it¡¯s one of the fastest production motorcycles in the world. Believe me when I say you¡¯ll never ride on another motorcycle after you feel the power this baby has. It is unlike anything you¡¯ll ever feel between your legs.”
― Nicole Gulla, The Lure of the Moon

“She just kept staring at her," she lamented. "Like I wasn't even there."

..."The trouble with lesbian love triangles is you can't tell which 'she' and which 'her' we're talking about.”
― Molly Ringle, Underworld's Daughter

“But their whole love-triangle dynamic is so persistently stupid, you can't blame me for blocking it out.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“Love triangles can get so fucking awkward, don't you think?" Imogen says.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flame

“How lucky am I that a beautiful girl like you spills a drink on me?¡±
I blushed. Shit! I couldn¡¯t take my eyes off him, he was strikingly handsome.”
― Nicole Gulla, The Lure of the Moon

“My hands were trembling, but only because of who he was, not because I was scared of him. I oddly felt calmed by his presence. He smiled as he placed his hands in the pockets of his charcoal gray pants. He was finely dressed in a black button up shirt that was unbuttoned at the top low enough to see where his chest began. It clung to him, accentuating every muscular detail. I shook my head. I had to stop evaluating him.
¡°Is everything okay?¡± Ethan asked, tilting his head to the side, trying to read my expression.
¡°Huh¡­oh, yeah, fine.”
― Nicole Gulla, The Lure of the Moon

“Zajebana stvar kod ljubavnih trouglova je to ?to si
uvek u ?o?ku.”
― Aleksandar Ili?

“There has been a time or two when I haven't been able to escape having tea with him. For someone so young, he knows a lot. I sense incredible esprit and joie de vivre from him. Each time, I came away feeling that the time I spent conversing with him was well spent."
"Ooh, that's a good sign!"
"Oh yeah! Come to think of it... hasn't Yukihira been chasing you around too?"
"Yo, Nakiri! I brought you 30 new recipes I'm working on!
Taste 'em and lemme know what you think!"
"What?! I'm not eating all of that!"
"Yikes. There's nothing romantic or princely about that."
"You're telling me! He could certainly stand to learn a thing or two about manners from Instructor Suzuki."
"Oho, what's that? You're admitting there's something about Mr. Suzuki that you like?"
"Ah! Manners are not the same thing! First off, I doubt I'm ready for anything like... like romance or dating. What about you, Tadokoro? Is there anyone that you, um... like?"
"M-me?! Um... I-I'm not sure. I don't know much about romance."
"There! See? I'm not the only one behind!"
"Ooh, so you haven't found your first love yet?"
"Wow, really? But you have to have an idea of what your type is, right? What's your ideal man like?"
I have admired Chef Saiba for some time. Would that count as a first love, I wonder?
"I'm not certain this counts as, er... first love... but I do have a picture of what I would consider ideal. First... he would have to be passionate about and fully devoted to cooking.
He would never grow complacent or lose the desire to improve himself. And, um... I-I wouldn't mind if he had a little bit of a wild and dangerous side. Someone who could do things and creating dishes far beyond anything I can imagine. I would truly respect someone like that...
And I think I might like to date such a gentleman too."
Wait...
But isn't that like...”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 32 [Shokugeki no Souma 32]

“She saw him first. Twenty years first. Yes, yes: very junior high. But this whole thing feels very junior high. Maybe that's always how it feels when you are both grown, smart, articulate, mature women. Maybe you always feel like the other person cannot possibly love him, loves instead some fictionalised version of him.”
― Claire Handscombe, Unscripted

“How is my freedom at stake and everything is still all about Lila?"
I froze, my own dessert spoon halfway to my mouth. "What? The only reason we're all gathered here tonight is for you. You're the one who asked me to investigate."
"Yes, to help me. And instead you're twisting it into some quest your beloved suitors need to fulfill in order to win you over. Spoiler alert, Lila: Nobody likes love triangles. Nobody.”
― Mia P. Manansala, Homicide and Halo-Halo