Instalove or love at first sight

I just read a book that some reviewers have branded as "instalove", a word I'm seeing a lot these days, and not a lot of good about it. This post is me just thinking out loud about it.

I love how Disney's Frozen and Maleficient movies embraced better examples of true love saving someone, than someone you hardly know claiming true love. Finally! After decades of feeding us instalove stories, where basically the moment two people set eyes on each other, they know "they're the one."  I'm picking on Snow White and Sleeping Beauty in particular but there are dozens if not hundreds of others, including classics like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

I just finished reading The Fire Wish, by Amber Lough, which I have many things to gush over: the setting, the diversity (Middle Eastern characters), a fantastic plot, and three strong and thoughtful girl characters. More about all of these on Tuesday for my #WeNeedDiverseBooks post (also the book's release day).

The Fire Wish has a strong dose of double Instalove. The plot is basically laid out in the blurb: a human girl and jinni exchange places with unexpected consequences, and fall in love in their new places.

The blurb from Goodreads:

Najwa is a jinni, training to be a spy in the war against the humans. Zayele is a human on her way to marry a prince of Baghdad—which she’ll do anything to avoid. So she captures Najwa and makes a wish. With a rush of smoke and fire, they fall apart and re-form—as each other. A jinni and a human, trading lives. Both girls must play their parts among enemies who would kill them if the deception were ever discovered—enemies including the young men Najwa and Zayele are just discovering they might love.

I love stories like this, a romantic twist on the Prince and the Pauper switch places kind of story.  And while I recognize the Instalove factor, I still loved it.

Is it because I was raised on Instalove stories? Will a new generation raised on movies like Frozen and Maleficent be immune to the effects of Instalove? Or is it something basic to our nature that we (at least some of us) love "true love at first sight"?

I like asking married couples their "how we fell in love" stories. I haven't run across a case of instalove yet (though some divorced people will tell something similar to instalove and later, disaster). My own story (15 years married now) was NOT NOT NOT instalove. We were friends first. We were even interested in other people and involved with other people while friends.

InstaCrush can be mistaken for love.

InstaLust can DEFINITELY be mistaken for love.

"First flush" - which is what I call that first three or four heady months of a relationship - when both sides are on their best behavior, presenting the best sides of themselves, blind to almost everything except each other - is another easy way to feel like this is certainly true love.

I think if there is truly something wonderful out there - real, true love - it makes sense that there would also be lots of counterfeit love. I wish I'd read more books and seen more movies with examples of counterfeit love instead of the instalove stuff and I'm glad there seems to be trend now towards more slow burn and complicated relationships, especially in young adult stories.

But part of me still guiltily enjoys instalove stories.

Thoughts?