“Sarah, have you ever heard of The Twilight Clause?” This was Sarah Rees Brennan at a Books of Wonder
reading a few years ago, quoting a piece of advice her agent gave her about her
Demon’s Lexicon trilogy. The Twilight clause (I am paraphrasing from
memory here): in any young adult novel in which romance is involved, sales increase
if the love occurs in a triangular formation. This may be true, or it may be
that everyone in the publishing industry decided it was true because Twilight sold. Either way, love
triangles have become a pervasive device in the YA fiction world. And just like
any popular trope, some instances of the love triangle seem to have been
opportunistically dropped into a story where they don’t belong. And then there is
Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices
series, which reminds you just how great love triangles can be when wielded
with skill and mastery.
(By the way, Sarah Rees Brennan is quite skilled at
triangles herself, but she tends toward subversion of the convention, which is
another conversation entirely.)
MAJOR spoilers ahoy for The
Infernal Devices, as well as Twilight
and The Hunger Games. If you haven’t
read these books, I suggest you stop right here.
