I used to love YA fiction as much as the next reader. But after a while, it starts to become stale. While I love a good story suited for young adults, there are a few concepts that are largely overdone. Here's what really makes me cringe as a reader.

Perfect popular girls.

The Princess Diaries' Lana. Stargirl's Hillari. You know them and love them (or hate them). Perhaps Anne Mazer's Abby Hayes series is one of the biggest offenders I can remember. Brianna Bauer can speak French, is related to celebrities, dresses like a model, is a great musician, and is wealthy...and the list grows over the course of the series. Gag!

Characters like this are insufferable. It doesn't help that the characters above hardly differ from one another. Even if you're going to include someone who seems perfect at first glance, they need an Achilles heel or dirty laundry...and a personality. Better yet, create a unique antagonist that isn't popular.

Financially struggling, unhappy, relatively friendless, etc. characters.

The opposite of the popular characters mentioned above, these main characters --usually protagonists-- have hardly anything going for them. Maybe it's to make their problems seem even more important to overcome. Why does that mean their whole life should be miserable? Give them multiple friends instead of one best friend. Give them money. Give them something we wouldn't expect! 

Romance...sometimes.

Many times it goes: Guy meets girl, they hate each other, and-surprise!-they fall in love! Many YA novels these days seem to follow that structure. I can't even count how many times I've started reading a novel with an interesting plot that ended as another predictable romance. In Sophie Flack's Bunheads, a young ballerina's motivation to leave her ballet life is a cute guy. Yawn. (And talk about terrible character development!) Not every story needs a love interest and a love story shouldn't be forced.

Whatever's trendy.

Fifty percent of my local library's teen section is vampire books. Very few of them, according to summaries, offered a new concept on Twilight's sparkly vampire concept. The same thing happened after The Fault in Our Stars came out; every book in town was about a dying kid and their love life. I am much more likely to pick up a book where the topic isn't "something that sells these days." Write about something you love and you will be happier in the long run. 

Sorority parties.

If I read one more college book about a character rushing a sorority and enduring ridiculous hazing rituals orchestrated by catty blonde girls, I will scream. Seriously though. I've seen dated sorority plots in recent YA fiction as well. If you're going to write about Greek life, try focusing on something that's not hazing or partying. 

Writing about something popular isn't always a bad thing, though. There are whole genres dedicated to romance, and mean girls can be entertaining. Don't avoid using these ideas just because they're cliches. Just think of a new dish you can bring to the literary table.