Holy crap, it’s like every YA book has this exact same setup!
SOME EXAMPLES:
A Court of Thorns and Rosés
A house of sky and breath
A house of earth and blood
a house of salt and sorrows
a court of mist and fury
scales of ash and smoke
court of ice and ash
queen of rot and pain
like they don’t even sound good at this point, like a house of SALT and freaking sorrows?? wtf lol
like i’m unsure why this continues to be a trend but it’s sounding kinda ridiculous now
heres 400+ examples
update: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/90430.The_Blank_of_Blank_and_Blank
thanks /u/aidoll
by oh_sneezeus
47 Comments
A Game of Thrones!
Some of the books you listed are sequels of each other and I think a naming convention within a series makes sense. Though, I know there are more than what you listed. It doesn’t really bother me, though, personally.
Please read my exciting YA novel “A Bowl of Mac and Cheese”. In stores now.
A thread of u/oh_sneezeus and rage
I know it’s annoying, but I wouldn’t worry too much. Remember when Twilight came out and every YA book was the same paranormal romance theme with a black cover and a single word? Shiver, Marked, and Fallen to name a few. Even if the art was slightly different at times, it was either a jet-black book or had a woman in a dress on the front. See them less now, but they were quite popular then.
Yeah, personally, my pet peeve is the *noun* and *noun* title format.
> Sense and Sensibility
> Pride and Prejudice
> Crime and Punishment
> War and Peace
Enough already! Get some original titles already, please.
It’s the new “Girl with _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.”
A song of ice and fire haha
I’m waiting for The ______’s _________ to die out, as in:
The Pilot’s Wife
The Innkeeper’s Daughter
The Horse’s Ass
(I’m making them up, but you get it)
Half of these books are from the same author…it’s like her thing man
“A List of Tropes and Nouns” By Some Dude Who Is Never Gonna Finish This Series
You know how YouTubers all capitalize random words in their video titles because they’re trying to find the right way to ride the algorithm? Literally the same thing. They see that a series or three finds success with certain elements in common, so they spam those elements hoping they also find the right combination of things to become popular.
So high school, basically. Everything stems from high school bullshit.
I agree with you but you also listed like 75% the same author 🤣
Aren’t most of these titles from the same series?
If a title doesn’t make me pause and double check if the author meant to put those words in that order, I consider the book a failure on paper.
Salt and Sorrows was actually decent, in that it went absolutely not where I was expecting and I enjoyed most of it. Interesting take on the 12 dancing princesses story, very dark and twisted.
A book of words and pages.
Nobody thinks this, [especially several years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/YAlit/comments/eegk1w/titles_the_blank_of_blank_and_blank_trend/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [Nobody thinks this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/gq2i2t/authors_please_stop_naming_your_book_athe_of_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), [even recently](https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/srabr4/what_in_your_opinion_are_the_most_overused_title/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [Why would you think that](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/x1vrln/why_is_this_style_of_titles_so_popular_currently/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)? [It’s not used that much](https://www.reddit.com/r/YAlit/comments/sge9q5/books_with_titles_that_follow_template_like_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [Hardly ever](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/tse2oh/im_so_over_this_title_trend/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [Nobody cares enough to post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/YAlit/comments/itvvgv/in_defense_of_the_of_and_title_trend/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Ah, déjà vu.
I propose a title for this thread: “A complaint of books and titles”
I think we should start making book titles that upend this trope in humorous ways. Like:
A Gaggle Of Children And Rodents
Or
A Boxcar Of Roses And Donkeys
Just stuff that makes no sense.
A Song of Ice and Fire is 27 years old. If anything it set the trend.
I’ll have to rename my “A Sandwich of Peanut Butter and Jelly” project
A bit of this and that.
An overabundance of cliches and tropes?
Ah, it’s fine. No harm, really.
Anyway, please buy my new novel, The (approximately) 4.3134443241215334510056313438820484023 leftover artisanal loaves of bread of Bertha Pokenbarten.
A wheel of crime and punishment
Well there goes half of fantasy and half of sci-fi titles.
[A Bit of Fry and Laurie](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101049/)
I am not a YA enthusiast but definitely see the trends in the titles. Also, notice the cover art/graphics of many books echo other popular ones (like the big face books, the melon rainbow colored books, the faceless people books, etc.– I guess whatever will look good on someone’s TikTok or YT video).
Ugh. It’s “The Good ____” tv-shows all over again.
‘The <whimsical occupation> of <middle eastern city>’
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
The little coffee shop of Kabul
The Stationary Shop of Tehran
A Song of An Unfinished Series.
A Song of Writer’s Block and HBO.
>A Court of Thorns and Rosés
Hehe, just ~~FIY~~ FYI, “roses” are flowers, “rosés” are a type of wine. Thought it was funny
A Post of Rage and Frivolity
I agree. Seeing a title in this format immediately dampens my interest in a book. It’s unoriginal and boring.
It really is A Failure of Creativity and Naming.
Also: “The *number* *noun* of *firstname* *lastname”
Don’t forget “The Adjective Noun of Character Name”
Tbf, that equation (including “the” instead of “and”) is a very common fantasy thing.
A Game of Thrones
A Memory of Light
The Drawing of the Three
The Color of Magic
I’m sure I’m missing some obvious examples.
A Count of Monty & Cristo
Young Adult fiction is not particularly well known for creativity
To some extent this is just normal marketing, applied to a product where some of us don’t like to think of marketing, because it’s supposed to be individual expressive art, not a product.
If you’re an author and get big on your first book, and are thinking of a title for the second book, maybe you include something from the first title that you hope will cause people to quickly realize with just a quick glance, “oh, hey, that’s that guy who wrote ___”. So after the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you get The Girl Who Played with Fire and then The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.
If you’re John Sandford, you come up with a… well, let’s just go ahead and call it a gimmick. Shadow Prey, Winter Prey, Silent Prey, etc… and now it’s your thing and even if you later feel like it’s kind of corny (I seem to remember reading he regretted the naming convention, but can’t find the reference), he now pretty much HAS to do it.
And sometimes one author’s thing (or one actor, artist, whatever)… becomes a genre’s thing. You got Steven Seagal doing a lot of sorta manly action movies, often with him a military or police role, with names like “Beyond the Law”, “Out for Justice”, “Marked for Death”… years later we get Brad Thor writing manly action novels with names like “Act of War”, “Code of Conduct”, “Use of Force”. The next time you see a title like that, if action is your thing, you’ll pause your browsing or scrolling to see what the description says, and that’s half the work done to get a sale.
Hahahahahah the comments on this thread are gold.
This happened in restaurants also- everyone that opened in my city was ____ &_____.
Sausage & Meat, Salt & Cleaver, Soda & Swine, Juniper & Ivy, Whisk & Ladle, etc
I hated it 😂
“A series of excuses and delays” is George RR Martin’s new series
George RR Martin agrees and has stopped writing his series.
I would like A Burrito of Beef and Cheese.
A Concert of Salt n’ Peppa
I’ve noticed this with romance/young adult – your BookTok type things!
It involves the character name, and some sort of statement after it. For example:
‘Paris Dallencourt is About to Crumble’
‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’
‘Zora Books Her Happy Ever After’
‘Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?’
‘Carrie Soto Is Back’
Like, don’t give me the character name in the book title unless it’s their name alone – Jane Eyre, Emma, Demon Copperhead.