The 52 Book Club: 2025 / 2026 Challenge discussion

23 -- Grumpy Sunshine Trope

The grumpy sunshine trope is a popular pairing in romance novels where one character is moody, surly, and cynical (grumpy) and the other is cheerful, bubbly, and upbeat (sunshine). This is a subset of the “opposites attract” dynamic and follows along as the sunshine character slowly softens the rough edges of the grumpy character.

While this trope is most commonly found within the romance genre, it can also be found within other genres like fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, and contemporary fiction.

It does not have to be a romantic pairing and may feature a cynical character paired with an upbeat character as platonic friends, co-workers, individuals on a quest, etc. (For example: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is a grumpy/sunshine friendship). This trope may also be part of the main plot (romance) or simply a secondary plot point like in Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.



Here is our Goodreads List for this prompt

I'll probably go with The Love Hypothesis for this prompt

Twisted Love by Ana Huang

The Heart of Winter According to Google this book works and it is on my TBR so I planning on reading it.

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

I'm planning on Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore