This will propably be a long post, and I apologize in advance! Also, be not scared by my (propably) many spelling mistakes, as I am not a native english speaker, and when I get really into a topic, I will type as fast as it gets. So, feel free to comment on my spelling in the comments if it’s a huge bother. (Or even a small one!)
So, this is based on my expirience around the book community for some months now, as I have been keeping an eye on this specific topic.
People bash romance as a genre.
And by bash, I don’t mean critizise. Critizism is fine, amazing even, as long as it’s not simply hating on the book for no reason, other than to hate.
Excample:
Haunting Adeline, a book I despise, but why?
I don’t despise it because it’s romance, not because it’s dark romanec, not because it’s unrealistic (as many books are.) These are in my opinion, bad arguments for not liking/despising a book.
So I dig deeper.
I don’t like Haunting Adeline, because it covers topics like rape and stalking in a (to my personal feelings), glorifying and romantazising way. I also do not like the way the ML behaves.
This wont stop me from acknowledging, that to someone else, this book can be a very entertaining and amazing read.
Now what I’m saying with this example isn’t that books can’t be critiqued, as I believe I have shown, but that they should be critiqued well.
Now this doesnt mean people can’t comment on the quality of writing. That is fair game, and not subjective. It is purely an existance which can’t be debated. I am sure all would agree, that the writing in LOTR is better than in The Spanish Love Deception.
But I have seen so many people say/claim that it’s pure fact, not subjective, that all romance books are trash not worth anyones time. This is my expirience, and I undestand if yours is different, dear reader.
But I do think, that people seem to be heavily pouring critique into the romance basket, without even trying romance. Not all romance is contemporary, if that’s whats turning people off. Historical, fantasy, sci-fi, anything that is a genre has romance books written within it. And it’s completly undestandable if someone still doesn’t like romance, as I, for example, never really got into some genres, for example, detective fiction like Sherlock Holmes.
Maybe a lot of this hate stems from the fact that most of booktok/bookstagram and booktube are filled with romace books that they may not like. And it’s fine to not like those popular books. I myself do not like most of them.
This has been a long and quite incoherent rambeling, given that it is late and I am tired, but I do hope that this still resonates with some people.
I would love to see people having civil discussions in the comments, and welcome any thoughts on my opinions, as long as they are not aggressive.
So, what do you think, dear reader?
by shengogol
19 Comments
Wish fulfillment for lonely middle-aged women. It’s what harem anime is for shy teenage boys.
Because it’s largely women who read it and therefor it’s not taken seriously even though it single-handedly keeps publishing afloat.
I don’t hate romance as a genre. I just think it has an over abundance of bad books especially for the amount of attention it gets.
Of course, a huge part of it is just subconscious misogyny. Historically speaking, it is pretty clear that most things enjoyed primarily by women are often looked down upon, and romances are typically written by women for women.
Other than that, romance novels typically have pretty bad writing. Since the priority is to sell the romance and the wish fulfillment of a happy ending, lots of other important aspects of a story are ignored in favor of it. This leads to romance novels often having the worst prose.
On a personal level, I don’t like romance novels because they’re formulaic. They get boring. I feel like reading one is reading most of them. While, I have read some romance novels with good writing, the vast majority have had very questionable prose. I also don’t like smut scenes, they’re just not appealing to me.
I think it’s easy to bash because there’s so much of it and it’s so popular. People who don’t read it, enjoy turning their noses up at it while feeling superior about their own literary choices and men especially enjoy bashing it because they think it’s for lonely middle aged women.
Women of all ages enjoy it and if you look it up you’ll find that the largest group of readers is between the ages of 18-54 which is a huge population!
We all find enjoyment in whatever we find enjoyment in and that applies to men and women. No one thing is more or less valid than another, it’s just that some are easier to make fun of. ;o)
It’s basically pornography. Much like porn, quality is kinda not the main selling point as much as being able to deliver specific fantasies.
Also I don’t think the suggestions in this thread about it being “for women” are wrong. Perhaps overstated, but not wholly wrong.
Im always searching for a good romance it’s just unfortunate that the majority of the ones I read leave a lot to be desired.
That and the genre is rampant with unhealthy relationships.
A lot of it is samey. Boy meets girl, girl hates boy, contrivances, girl loves boy now. In a lot of romantic fiction it is very easy to guess what’s going to happen next, so it gets denigrated.
Also, misogyny.
In the 80s and 90s at least, Harlequin was pumping out more novels than you could read. They were covering up every used book store.
They are primarily seen as porn for women for some.
The ridiculous cover art with six-packs and ripped bodices. If you’ve noticed, romance novels have been given cartoonish covers over the past few years.
I do think romance as a genre gets bashed a lot, but in my experience that isn’t as much from the book reading community but more from popular culture. There is a tendency in popular culture to trash silly things women are more prone to like than men. I always fall back on sports versus soap operas as an example. I think both forms of entertainment are seen as fun escapism that are fine and neither deserve ridicule.
Although I will say, the popular book tube romances that you mention are imo often pure trash. It doesn’t seem like a lot of high quality romantic literature is what’s popular, and when it is, I don’t think it’s ridiculed. Now every genre has plenty of trash, including popular trash, but romance probably gets a lot of heat for its trash because it’s so so so so popular lol. I can’t even hear a romance trope referenced in a book description without cringing anymore, because it feels like it’s everywhere and it’s often so shallow (like “enemies-to-lovers” omg I will never again touch a book with this trope).
It’s sort of like when a franchise goes popular, and suddenly internet “shippers” discover it and almost all discussion is reduced to romances, even if they’re secondary to non-existent in the story. It’s annoying.
Since you mentioned sci-fi as a genre that you can find romance within, I’ll just say sci-fi is my genre and the popular science fiction romances I’ve had recommended to me were pretty bad. Meaning I can easily critique their quality. There are decent ones too, especially historically. But right now, the ones being published like hotcakes are pretty trash.
All of that said, romance as a genre is fine. We all have our preferences of course.
I think part of it is that many people view reading as a more “elevated” form of artistic consumption. “Reading books is for smart people,” that sort of thinking. And for these people, the popularity of romance fiction cheapens the whole concept of reading. They want to be distinguished from these “other” readers, who aren’t as serious as they are.
I think it has to do with everything other than the romance.
At the end of Twilight, when Edward and Bella end up together, it genuinely is a great moment. Despite loathing literally everything else about the book, I did want them to end up together.
I think the problem with a lot of romances like twilight is that everything but the romance gets tossed out. Twilight has awful characters, an awful plot, terrible writing, etc, but hey, Bella and Edward end up together, and that’s what fans of the book cared about.
I think one of the more annoying parts of romance books is that the fans will defend terrible writing just because their ship had a happy ending.
Misoginy
I think a lot of the hate of romance has to do with the fact that women like it. Pretty much anything associated with women or that is known as being primarily liked by women gets hate in our culture.
Romance has been the punching bag of literary genres since *long* before TikTok and Instagram existed, and it’s that way because romance is an easy target; it’s a genre made for (and often by) women in a male-dominated industry where until very, very recently female authors weren’t taken seriously as people who write “real” books and since men don’t read romance (or at least claim not to) it’s an easy scapegoat for misogynists who want to put up a facade of being critics. For a *long* time the non-romance works of female authors had to be published under pseudonyms or they’d bomb too; for instance, Mary Shelly had to publish *Frankenstein* under her husband’s at first because despite being a pretty good writer herself nobody would’ve bought it if they knew she was the author.
With that said, romance books are also the only reason book publishing was ever able to become as big as it did; you don’t hear as much about really successful romance novels for the above reasons (although maybe you do on TikTok, I’m not on there). I have a friend who’s a moderately successful romance author and still gets royalties from books she wrote a decade or more ago that I’d never heard of, and gets swarmed by fans of those books when she goes to writer conventions.
my theory on why, is all the crappy romance books and ones that have aged badly
By crappy, I mean the ones that are badly written. Im sure there are fantastic romance books. Im just staing why I think its hated
It’s because it’s associated with women’s entertainment, which has always been undervalued.
I’m not saying this is the main reason, but romance has a primarily female based demographic, especially teens and middle aged women, two demographics society really likes to shit on. This definitely plays into it