You’re reading a romance novel or one with a major romantic subplot and then the designated love interest of the female (or male) protagonist does something that hurts the protagonist and you hate them for it, and wish they didn’t end up together… but sure, they end up together.
Due to the nature of this discussion, spoilers from the books are included.
Example of how to write:
Gideon de Villiers from The Ruby Red Trilogy.
>!spoiler here!
Pretty much every love pairing in Twilight, especially the main one. Granted, those books are highly problematic in many ways, but the romance…gag. Now that I’m older and have more life wisdom, I not only see the poor character development and bad writing, but also the harmful nature of romanticizing such a controlling relationship for a YA audience. Shudder.
Now for books I actually like: >!Shallan and Adolin!< in Stormlight. There’s an aspect of the relationship that feels imbalanced and is characterized by both of them being immature and naive. I would forgive this (they are young, after all), but it bugs me that they just kinda…see each other and are like “yep, I love you” with pretty much no reason or depth other than finding one another physically attractive.
I don’t love romance in fiction. It tends to be too simplified and gloss over the messy realities of building a romantic/sexual partnership.