CONVERSATION: The Grumpy / Sunshine Trope
Janine: Recently we had an in-depth chat about the enemies-to-lovers trope, and I thought it might be fun to do the same thing with Kaetrin’s recent favorite, grumpy/sunshine. I put the following questions to all the participants on DA’s email loop.
Is grumpy/sunshine a trope you are drawn to or one you avoid? What works for you about it and what doesn’t? Which grumpy/sunshine books have you enjoyed most and least, and why? Have you always felt the same way about grumpy/sunshine books or have your feelings changed over time? And has the trope changed over the decades?
This is the conversation we had.
Sirius: Grumpy v sunshine, you (author) better give me some additional reason for conflict, because this alone may not be enough for me.
Janine: I hope Katerin mentions examples—I have the feeling it would help me focus my thoughts. I admit I’m not 100% clear on what the grumpy/sunshine trope is, and if I have it wrong, I want to be corrected. Just the title of the trope makes me want to grind my teeth.
Grumpiness is okay, of course, but not an appealing trait. I don’t want to see persistent grouchiness presented as cute because I don’t feel it generally is. If it’s just gruffness or reserve I’m more open to it. The sunshine half of the equation is actually my bigger issue. Of course, there are situations where one person’s sunny outlook can help another think more positively or influence them to open up to joy. Mary Balogh does that really well in many of her books. But sometimes I’m not in the mood to read about a sunny person coming in to cheer up someone, because life isn’t always like that.
Speaking from the experience of clinical depression, there are circumstances when friends and family can’t cheer you up that much. Making an active effort to cheer up someone in that situation can sometimes be counterproductive. There are times when you are really suffering and no amount of sunshine is going to get through to you. To be told “cheer up!” or expected to be happy just adds another level of pain. There are better ways to help.
So while each individual book within the trope has the potential to be just fine, as with baby epilogues, there are aspects of life this trope can’t capture well.
Kaetrin: Grumpy/sunshine is both a trope and a romantic pairing. It can be just part of the setting. I don’t think it’s about the sunshiney one changing the grumpy one. It’s an opposites attract kind of thing. There’s often more than one trope in these books and the differences between the characters are not necessarily the only or even the main conflict.
All the Feels by Olivia Dade is grumpy/sunshine. Alex is the sunshiney one in this pairing and Lauren is the grump – most commonly in MF it’s the other way around.
Axel and Rooney in Chloe Liese’s With You Forever are also a grumpy/sunshine pairing. Rooney has serious health issues (Crohn’s Disease) and they’re not glossed over in the book but in the general sense she’s an upbeat, look on the bright side person. Axel is a neurodiverse grumpy loner who thinks no one would ever be happy with him because he needs his alone time and will never be a social person. These things are in conflict but the solution isn’t for one character to change the other.
I don’t even really need a sunshiney one to be honest – Julia London’s Suddenly Engaged has the must delightfully grumpy hero and watching him be totally won over by the heroine’s young daughter (who is a bit of sunshine now that I think about it) just melted me. (He doesn’t end up that grumpy but that’s because he was grumpy because reasons rather than as a character trait.)
Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey is a recent winner for me as well. Aiden is a Ted Lasso-type character. Stella is grumpy – an ex-con who has reason to be mistrustful of just about everyone. Aiden doesn’t try to change Stella but wins her over because he’s kind and that kindness is bone-deep and genuine.
The ABCs of Spellcraft series by Jordan Castillo Price features a grumpy/sunshine MM pairing but that’s not the conflict. They’re humorous paranormal mysteries, all novella length – available on audio in bundled volumes as well as singly in ebook. (Excellent narration by Nick Hudson by the way.)
There are so many ways for the pairing to work. I love it. Each character has a different way of seeing the world and they have to navigate how they move forward together and compromise and still be themselves so they can both be happy.
Janine: Thanks, Kaetrin, that really helps. You did an excellent job of explaining the trope. To clarify, though, I didn’t mean that the sunshiney one changes the grumpy one, but rather that the sunshiney one’s presence in their lives changes their outlook so that they are no longer grumpy.
I went looking for examples of grumpy/sunshine online and the only one I saw mentioned that I had read was Mary Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous. I loved that book but I wouldn’t have described Wulfric/Bewcastle as grumpy, just haughty and projecting coldness. Christine was sunshiney but I was more into Wulf. I loved the way her presence in his life changed his outlook, so it’s not that I don’t enjoy the outlook-changing trope. I very much do. It’s more that I associate the word “sunshine” with relentlessly positive people. When you throw in this kind of personality it can annoy me because in my experience people like that sometimes try to foist their outlook onto others.
I often think specific grumpy/sunshine books aren’t for me. I haven’t read any of the examples you mentioned and in most cases your descriptions didn’t attract me. Since you mentioned Milla Vane’s A Heart of Blood and Ashes in our enemies-to-lovers conversation post, I think it can be counted as grumpy/sunshine as well as an enemies-to-lovers book. In addition to disliking Maddek’s meanness to Yvenne, I was also annoyed by Yvenne’s upbeatness. It felt like she was clueless to Maddek’s bad qualities.
Jayne: I’ve only tagged one reviewed book with Grumpy/Sunshine but I did give it an A-. Looking at a lot of the books that are listed this way on Goodreads, I see quite a few I started but ended up DNFing.
The one I finished is The Geek Who Saved Christmas by Annabeth Albert and I liked it because I didn’t feel that the grumpy character got jollied out of why he didn’t enjoy the Christmas season. The other character understood why Grumpy felt the way he did and helped him but didn’t try to change him.
I read a bit on one author’s website about the G/S trope. Five character types are listed, one being “introvert.” And immediately I realized why some of these books don’t work for me. Lots of people see introverts as grumpy or misanthropes when in reality, all we want (and yes, I’m an introvert) is to sit quietly and not be forced into things or “dragged out of our shells and made to mingle.” So when I see books with this type of character and that other characters are trying to basically force them to change and be extroverts, I want to slap this away.
Jennie: I feel like I always say this, but this is a trope that doesn’t work for me, until it does. I was racking my brain trying to think of an example, and came up with Sarina Bowen’s Overnight Sensation. The hero is a grumpy hockey player and the heroine is a very bouncy rich girl trying to make it on her own. When I reviewed it I noted that I liked the heroine much more than the hero, which tracks. Grumpy men don’t appeal to me and in fact I find the concept kind of off-putting unless it’s in a very humorous context (for some reason the first example of a grumpy male character that came to mind for me was not in romance but in television – Parks and Recreation‘s Ron Swanson).
Kaetrin: There are so many ways for the grumpy one to be grumpy. And grumpy is a vast oversimplification anyway. Sometimes it means introvert (+/- sick of people trying to force them to be other than they are), sometimes it means angry at the world because of a thing that happened, sometimes it means uptight and stiff or cold and haughty – I’m sure there are plenty of others that fit too.
I have huge love for the grumpy character because they’re so often misunderstood. They’re the ones who try and fade into the background, who are scared of being hurt and cover it up with gruffness, they’re usually incredibly kind and generous but don’t make a big deal of it (often they’re acting in secret). They’re introverts (like me!). They’re overlooked and undervalued. And then the sunshiney one comes along and really sees them for who they are and values them just as they are. I really don’t see the pairing/trope as being about changing the inherent characteristics of the people involved at all. That’s a part of why I love it so much.
Janine: I think I liked these stories better in the 1990s because then they were often handled with a lot of emotion and I love that. For example, Balogh’s in novella “The Best Christmas” the heroine brings together an unhappy gentleman and his four-year-old illegitimate daughter, and in her book A Christmas Bride the genders are flipped and the heroine is the grumpy, unhappy one. Some of Linda Howard’s heroes could be grumpy—Rome in Sarah’s Child comes to mind (he had excellent reasons). LaVyrle Spencer’s book Years also had a grumpy hero. I think those all worked for me because there was a moving emotional journey but no sunshiney one. And it wasn’t comical in any way. The unhappiness was treated very seriously and the reasons usually went very deep.
Remembering the Baloghs makes me think about the association of the grumpy character with Christmas. That’s probably because Dickens’ iconic A Christmas Carol is about a grumpy, unhappy man whose heart is softened and warmed. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is another example. I do like this kind of story at Christmastime–there’s something about the warming of the heart that’s very fitting for the cold and dimming days of winter. These kinds of books are exactly what I’d want to read curled up with a mug of cocoa in front of a fireplace.
Layla: I have mixed feelings about the sunshine/grumpy trope because like Jennie mentioned I actually dislike grumpiness in real life. I associate it with moodiness which I also dislike. I like the idea again of reframing it as optimistic vs cynical or cold vs warm — that works for me really well and I like it as a trope when it’s done well.
Some examples: Laura Kinsale The Shadow and the Star (Samuel isn’t grumpy so much as cold and closed down from trauma but Leda is definitely “sunshine” or warm). I’m going to apply this to a series, Patricia Briggs’ Alpha and Omega— the books have a concept of an omega wolf which is kind of analogous to “sunshine” as a concept. Anna the heroine of her wolf shifter series is an omega and Charles again isn’t so much grumpy as mysterious or perhaps more jaded. I also read Charlie Adhara’s wolf shifter series where one male lead was more sunshine— naive a bit soft and sweet— and the other appeared to be more cynical and strong and grumpy. Of course it’s revealed that he’s not and then the books did a series of shockingly bad twists that changed the dynamic of everything (I can say more if anyone is interested!).
I remember also — just a side note I’m terrible at remembering titles and authors which is why I don’t jump to contribute sometimes —a Sophie Jordan book where the hero was handsome and thought to be stupid and the heroine was a grumpy nerd. I like when the so-called grumpy person is actually just shy or introverted or in a gender reversal, is the heroine or a woman.
Sirius: I think this is the first time I learned that grumpy/sunshine can even be considered a separate trope!
What are your thoughts, DA readers? How do you feel about the grumpy/sunshine trope and why? Do you feel that the trope and/or your feelings about it have changed over time? And what are your favorite and least favorite executions of the grumpy/sunshine trope?
“Act Like It” by Lucy Parker is probably the best grumpy/sunshine book for me.
This is reminding me of the “Pitbull Dates Puppy” trope on TV Tropes (which I admittedly made up, could not think of a better title, and years later nobody else has thought of one either) in which a tough, grumpy person dates a cinnamon roll/marshmallow type. That’s always an odd one to me…
Overall, grumpy-sunshine is not a big favorite of mine, but I do think it works better for me in m/m romances (for example, Rachel Reid’s ROLE MODEL) because of our culture’s insistence that women always appear to be happy rays of positivity and sunshine even when they’re not. In m/m, grumpy/sunshine loses its gendered expectations. I think g/s works best in m/f romance if there’s a very valid reason for the hero’s grumpiness (for example, he’s lost his wife—there seem to be quite a few grumpy-sunshine m/f romances featuring widowers).
@Jennifer: I know Act Like It has many fans, but Laini’s sunniness in Act Like It irritated me. Her sixteen-year-old sister had died of cancer eighteen months earlier and Laini evinced very little grief or heartbreak over that. Nor were there attempts to comfort grieving relatives. She was so chipper given the circumstances that it irritated me.
@DiscoDollyDeb: That is a good point about gendered expectations. I think that’s why I found Balogh’s A Christmas Bride so refreshing; because the heroine was the cynical, “bah humbug!” Christmas figure.
I agree with you that in m/f there needs to be a powerful reason for the grumpiness to work for me. I can’t say yet about m/m, I haven’t read as much as you have, but surely that would be true there too? Giving characters strong motives is always a good thing.
I really liked Role Model as you know (BTW did you see the comment I left you yesterday on that thread?) but I felt Troy was a better-developed character than Harris and I think that might be because Harris had to have the sunshine role. Troy could be grumpy or depressed or joyous, but Harris had a narrower emotional range. That was a big part of why I connected with Troy more.
This is an interesting conversation. I found myself nodding in agreement with several differing points of view in the conversation – as an introvert with anxiety, I don’t like some of the ways that so called grumpy characters are portrayed as needing to relax or cheer up or whatever. But I like Kaetrin’s expansive definition – I sometimes like opposites attract and I definitely like it when the MCs in a romance really see each other clearly and accept each other.
Grumpy / sunshine is a trope / pairing that I’ve just recently become aware of. I looked it up on Goodreads and I haven’t read a lot of the books shelved as g/s but I mostly like the one’s I’ve read recently. Most of my favorite examples have MCs that I consider more uptight than grumpy.
The Lodestar of Ys by Amy Rae Durreson (mm fantasy) – this probably has the grumpiest and sunniest MCs in my list and it’s one of my favorite comfort reads.
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur (ff contemporary)
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert (mf contemp, bi MCs)
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall (mm contemp)
Role Model by Rachel Reid (mm hockey contemp) – I’d call the MC a recovering a-hole rather than a grump
Unlike Janine, my very least favorite version of this trope is set in the holidays. I am not a fan of the “help the cranky person discover the meaning of the holidays” type holiday romance. Annabeth Albert has a lot of these – Better Not Pout is the most recent that I’ve read. (I’ve heard that The Geek who Saved Christmas is less annoying but I probably won’t read it either).
@cleo:
I prefer the “meaning of Christmas” angle in classic books for all ages like A Christmas Carol or How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In a Christmas romance with a character who is experiencing emotional difficulties, I actually prefer something different. The prime example that comes to mind is Mary Balogh’s book A Christmas Promise, where the heroine has entered into a marriage of convenience at her dying father’s request. Her father’s other request is that she hold a big Christmas celebration that year and invite the whole extended family. It’s hard for her to envision celebrating anything. She and the hero are both unhappy with having to marry each other, so as all this is happening they are each learning who the other person is. The heroine has not been able to cry over her father’s death–if I remember right, she fears that once the floodgates open she won’t stop–and so the hero thinks she’s cold. As they get to know each other over the holidays (there is also a class-difference issue, and each has invited guests from their own background) they start to appreciate who the other person is. The holiday is marked by the absence of the heroine’s late father. She is grieving even as she is comforted by the closeness of her loving relatives and by her growing closeness to the hero.
The book has a melancholy feel that captures Christmas so well, and the stark loneliness the holiday can represent when one of the people you love most isn’t there anymore. In that way it reminded me of songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “I’ll be home for Christmas” with their wistful or melancholy lyrics (“through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow,” “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”) It ends with an amazing scene where the heroine finally opens the floodgates and allows herself to sob out her grief. The hero is there with her–and that is the HEA, that they have each other and their love, though she has lost her father.
I guess this is the kind of book I’m talking about, once that is really in touch with how melancholy December and the holidays can be, how they can bring up all kinds of sad feelings and a sense of loneliness, and then at the end of the book the character isn’t so alone. They are less about getting into the spirit of the holidays and more about having finding support in the midst of difficulties. Kind of like “The Little Match Girl” if she could actually be invited to join the feast instead of freeze to death outside, looking into their window.
@Janine – Mary Balogh really does write wonderful Christmas romances. I think I’ve read the one you mention or one with a similar plot and really liked it.
Hm. It occurred to me that my parents were a very literal grumpy/sunshine and they were a HORRIBLE mismatch :P
To me, the G/S trope isn’t about changing the G one. It’s about the S one bringing some light into the other’s life. Not by encouraging her/him to “smile!” but by smiling at them. That’s how I like it to be done anyway. I’m sure there are versions I would dislike. I don’t like “brat” characters and I can see that being used as a stand-in for S.
I really love The ABCs of Spellcraft series and have listened to the audio multiple times. In the hands of a lesser writer, I could have easily hated Dixon, the S character, but JCP gives him depth and shows his impact through Yuri’s POV.
Act Like It by Lucy Parker is a great example of G/S. I love Adhara’s Big Bad Wolf series but I don’t think of it as G/S. They both seemed G to me, or at least G and broody.
@Sirius: “I think this is the first time I learned that grumpy/sunshine can even be considered a separate trope!”
It’s really more of a character type pairing. Now that I think about it, turning it into a full blown trope is probably what leads to weak books with characters trying to change each other in place of an actual plot.
I really don’t care for the idea that G is male and S is female, either. It’s true though that I haven’t noticed many with G heroines. Maybe it should be renamed as Sunshine/Grumpy to scotch the idea that the order corresponds to the order in the label M/F.
@MaryK: Right, that was my impression as well, previously I mean.
@MaryK and @Sirius: Character pairings can be tropes IMO. Rake and virgin was for many years a hugely popular trope, for example (trope just means a theme or device that is used a lot).
@Jennifer: LOL. My parents are a grumpy/grumpy pairing. It seems to work for them but it doesn’t work for us kids.
I like this trope although like others, I don’t love the sunshine label. Maybe spirited or open is a better way to describe the other half. Examples I love include Uprooted, Pride and Prejudice, and Beauty and the Beast. Like Kaetrin, I enjoy a grumpy hero (or heroine but unfortunately I can’t think of any good examples, I’m sure they are rarer), because it’s so rewarding when we find out what is hiding underneath. Not how to fix them /change them, because that’s less compelling to me, but rather what makes them tick and how they fit together with their partner. If the grumpy one has been a jerk, then this trope can be good set up for a very rewarding grovel/apology scene.
@Li: It’s interesting the way people definite sunshine. I look at it as optimistic, you look at it as spirited, Layla, from what I can tell, reads it as gentle and soothing. There are multiple ways to partner up with a grumpy hero, I think.
For a grumpy heroine, I recommend Helena in Balogh’s A Christmas Bride, although she did something awful in her past, and you have to be able to get past that. There are other imperfections as well, but the main characters and their relationship are well-handled from what I remember. And Edgar is not a sunshine and much closer to spirited.
You are a fan of Laura Kinsale, correct? I would also count Melanthe in For My Lady’s Heart as a grumpy heroine.
Good points about finding out what makes them tick and about the apology. I love apologies in romance (though I’m not a fan of the world grovel—it seems kind of degrading to me).
@Janine it’s interesting that you bring up the melanthe. While she is cold and unsympathetic toward Ruck at times, she is too changeable, childlike, impish for me to categorize as grumpy. Grumpy to me is a mature trait so anyone who is even a bit childlike probably wouldn’t fit that label in my head. Maybe Irene from the thief series fits the label better and is in a similar mold?