When Three's a Crowd: the Most Dangerous YA Love Triangles

Oh, those pesky love triangles are everywhere, causing angst for YA heroines and heartbreak for readers!

My friend Lauren and I from Love Is Not a Triangle are doing another joint post on YA triangles.  Lauren's post is about how to disband a love triangle, and there will be a link to that on the bottom.

After doing extensive research on soap operas, movies, literature and pop songs, I've managed to isolate the five most dangerous types of love triangles. With these, you better pick your team carefully...

Warning! Danger Ahead!!

First up is The Casablanca:

In a Casablanca love triangle, the girl thinks the guy she loves is dead, then she takes up with a new guy. Of course, guy #1 turns up alive. Whoops -- love triangle. But in the movie, one of the guys is noble and walks away. No more triangle.

There are definitely some recent YA books that have a triangle with Casablanca elements. In fact, I'm sure you can think of a well-known YA trilogy that has this plot. Raise your hand if you know, but don't say. Naming names would be a spoiler in this case.

Risk factor for reader heartbreak: high. Three's definitely a crowd in this type of triangle.

Next....

In the My Best Friend's Wedding love triangle, there's a guy and a girl who are friends, and one of them wants to move the relationship out of the friend zone. But .... uh-oh. The other friend is not exactly on the same page.  Examples of this in YA:

Schuyler, Oliver and Jack in the Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz

Vee, Zane and Rollins in Slide by Jill Hathaway

Clary, Jace and Simon in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassie Clare

Risk factor for reader heartbreak: medium. It's usually clear which guy will end up out in the cold in this type of triangle.

Closely related to My Best Friend's Wedding triangle:

Ah, that tricky Jessie's Girl Triangle. Lusting after your best friend's significant other just never works out well. 

Examples in YA: 

The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott

Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti

Risk factor for reader heartbreak: medium. But friendships will be broken and the relationship may not last either.

Another very tricky type of triangle is...

The Legends of the Fall triangle is one in which at least two of the people in the triangle are related: brothers, cousins, etc.

Examples in YA:

The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han

Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

Dreamless series by Josephine Angelini 

Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

The Boys Next Door by Jennifer Echols

Risk factor for reader heartbreak: high. In the books, this type of triangle never ends well either. Worst case scenario is that a family is ripped apart at the seams. Best case scenario? Some VERY awkward holiday get-togethers.

Finally...

The Great Gatsby love triangle. The basic structure of this type of triangle is that the girl is with a guy who's kind of a jerk or just obviously completely wrong for her, and there's another guy who's desperately (often secretly) in love with her. 

Risk factor reader heartbreak: extremely high. And often, it's the same for the characters. I mean, you have read The Great Gatsby, right? Well, I'll just say that in this type of set-up, one or more members of this triangle may be doomed to die. 

Examples of this in YA:

Astrid, Dean and Jake in the Monument 14 series by Emmy Laybourne

Tim, Vanessa and Patrick in  The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

Trip, Allie and Blake in Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolfe 

Are there any types of triangles you find tolerable? Be sure to check out Lauren's post: How To Disband The Third Wheel in a Love Triangle here!