They didn't look very upbeat, either, what with gangrape and slavers and that. Makes me wonder why they're YA books, somehow.

I'm normally not too bothered by romance plots, either, but after reading one too many of the not-well-done sort I started paying attention to them and also started getting pissed off by the fact that they are EVERYWHERE. Therefore I started looking for stories that specifically don't contain them - it's not as though I'll never read anything that contains a love plot ever again, it's just that right now I'm curious whether any books without them exist at all, and so far, they've been devilishly difficult to find.