My Least Favorite Physical Traits for YA Characters

I did a post about this a few years ago, but I thought I’d make another, updated one.

I found some physical aspects of characters that I don’t like and I’m just going to share them. Now, before I get started, these character traits don’t reflect how I feel about real people, just book characters, and I’ll tell you my reasons.

So, here are some physical traits that I cannot stand in my characters.

Fake-Colored Hair

This one is the same as the last post I did. I cannot stand it when a character has blue, yellow, silver, etcetera, hair. It throws me off. Even Day’s hair from Legend by Marie Lu made me shudder in disgust. This, I realized, is because I could never imagine getting my hair dyed a random, unnatural-looking color.

Short Love Interests

Once again, this isn’t meant to offend. I like my guys taller than 6’ simply because I’m almost 5’9”. When I read a story about a short love interest, for example, Etienne St. Clair, I’m pretty much thrown off immediately.

Tattoos

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a tattoo hater. I just think that tattoos don’t need to be all over the body. Like in The Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I couldn’t even get past the first five pages of the book because she has a sleeve of tattoos. And fake-colored hair. But, once again, I think this is just because I can’t ever see myself getting a lot of tattoos. The main character of a book is supposed to be who you empathize with, and you’re basically supposed to picture yourself as them, so if I can’t do that, I’m not reading it. However, I’m not opposed to the guy having a lot. Does that seem incredibly sexist?

Kick-A$$ Girls and Wimpy Boys

So, I love a wonderful kick-a$$ female lead. I just don’t like it when the boy in her life isn’t as strong, or even close to as strong, as she is. Books like Throne of Glass, Angelfire, and Vampire Academy did it right with their mutual levels of a$$ kickery. However, there are some books, like School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins that I can’t find myself loving the relationship in. I want my fictional guy to have all the muscles. ;)

Freaky Eyes

This isn’t a huge deal, but sometimes authors will have their characters have some sort of weird eye color. Silver, violet, red, etc. It only really bothers me whenever they mention it in the story, otherwise I’m fine. Unlike with all of the stuff I’ve mentioned earlier. Those, I continuously think about throughout the entire novel.

That’s all I’ve got for my least favorite character traits. What are some of your book character turn-offs?

*Note: These images do not belong to me. They were all found through Google.