Top Ten Tuesday: My Reading Wishlist

I'm ba-ack! I haven't done a TTT in weeks!
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish. 

Today's topic is: Things I'd Make Authors Write About More.

Considering that I am myself an aspiring author, these things will almost definitely pop up in my own writing! 

1. Non-Western-Europe Fantasy. Almost all fantasy is set in a pseudo-Medieval-Western-Europe type culture. Now, I love Medieval Western Europe, but wouldn't it be awesome to see a Slavic fantasy? An African fantasy? A Middle Eastern fantasy? An East-Asian fantasy? The author Lloyd Alexander has a few books of this nature - but I want to see MORE! :-)

2. No Romantic Component. Yes, yes, we all love a little romance. But it would be refreshing to have a book where the romance either ended really early on, or barely existed at all. And continuing on a similar strain...

3. A Guy-Girl-Girl Love Triangle. This DOES happen in real life! But you wouldn't know from reading books nowadays. It's just because men traditionally "chase" the girl, and if a girl "chases" a boy, she's perceived as desperate. Also, when a Guy-girl-girl love triangle is (rarely) used, its a bratty, claw-scratching fight between the girls. Why is a Guy-guy-girl love triangle such a romantic thing, and the flip side just so middle-school-ey? A good author (not me) could probably make an awesome guy-girl-girl triangle which felt sincere.

4. Real Nerds (particularly girls). By this I mean girls who really enjoy some subject in school. REALLY ENJOY. For me, it's chemistry, literature, calculus, and even a bit of physics. The only real nerd girl that I have come upon in literature is Hermione. Seriously? There should be more.

5. Happy Families. One of my favorite blogs (The Thousand Lives) just had a post on this, and it's something I really agree with. There are SOOO many disfunctional families in literature. I know this is because all books need conflict, and it's easier to sympathize with the MC if he/she is in a bad situation. But come ON. Show us some supportive - yet disciplining - parents. Some awesome sibling relationships. Happy marriages. I know that life isn't always fine and dandy, and divorces DO happen, but it seems like almost all books have dysfunctional families.

Okay, I'm running out of things... this one is difficult!

Any thoughts? What would you like to see more of in books?

~Sophia