Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the Twilight Syndrome

There's a weird trend going on in YA fantasy these days, one that gets more and more troubling with each book I read.

It starts when I pick up an awesome-looking title at the bookstore/library/St. Mark's High School, room 331. The premise looks fascinating, the book jacket enticing, and sure enough, the first 100 pages fly by with a breeze. There have been so many new YA titles coming out these past few years, what with Harry Potter and the Twilight saga already collecting dust on the shelves. 

These books start out promising enough. A strong, usually female main character with great looks, killer attitude, and a mysterious world to discover takes the stage, and I'm more than ready to hang on for the ride. The problem starts when I hit about a third of the way through, when the male protagonist enters the scene. 

Suddenly, this isn't a fantasy adventure about a strong-willed character anymore. It's a love story. Just a love story. I've dubbed it the Twilight Syndrome, personally, although I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone else hasn't already been using that term, since I can't be the only one who feels this way. 

This exact phenomenon happened while I was reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I absolutely loved it for the first 200 pages - the novel is lush with detail, and Karou is a fresh and entertaining protagonist. Even the setting, in the heart of Prague, added to the mystery and flavor of the book. But once Akiva, her seraphim lover, enters the book, it all goes downhill from there. The plot is almost entirely forgotten as they fall in love in less that a day for inexplicable reasons other than "heat passing between them" whenever they touched - 

- and did I mention they met as Akiva was trying to kill her?

Yes, Karou falls head-over-heels in love with her would-be killer that she narrowly escaped from after suffering major wounds at the tip of his sword, mainly because she becomes captivated by his "otherwordly beauty" and the strange magnetic pull she feels between them. This is where I begin to lose patience. There is no development of romance, no natural progression of a relationship. There is no real love in these books, just automatic attraction that is frankly unhealthy. These supernatural male megahunks turn female protagonists into piles of goo and it's a little painful to read. 

I can't help but feel as if these books send the message that the real purpose for a girl is to stop everything once a hot guy enters their lives. Karou's family is missing, possibly dead, but she forgets all of that as soon as she meets Akiva? Please. 

The worst part is that I keep seeing this pattern repeated over and over again in YA fantasy. And I'm constantly searching for something to help me keep faith in this genre.