I propose a new way of shelving romance novels: by trope. Screw by author, this is useless when I’m browsing. Instead, it should be “bodyguards, celebrities, military, long lost love, urban fantasy, period fantasy, regencies, Victorians, ah here’s the biker section”. How much better would that be than guessing by title and spine art?

I concur

I most heartily agree with this. But more than that, what I wouldn’t give for a robust tagging system like Ao3s and an alert for a specific trope… oh so and so just released a menage time travel romance with shifters, witches, and demigods? Yes, please!

Before she could lose her nerve, Serena made a fist and delivered an extremely rude gesture.

He stood at the window, stock-still, before turning away. She received his note not two minutes later. She opened it, her heart pounding. But there were only two words on the paper.

Marry me.

—Courtney Milan, The Governess Affair

It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”

Like.

No?

Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.

Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)

Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.

Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.

But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?

Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.

It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).

“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”

THANK YOU.

According to the website smartbitchestrashybooks, which analyzes romance novels to a great degree, one common element of the average romance novel is what they call the grovel.  That is, there’s a turning point near the climax of the book where the leading man says, in effect, “I hurt you.  I had my reasons, but they don’t make it right.  I am devastated that I hurt you, and I will do whatever it takes to make it okay again.  Leaving you is completely on the table even though I find the prospect horrific.”

And that’s a very important fantasy.  To have your feelings, your pain, be made so absolutely central to the narrative, to someone else’s world.  You could call it a power fantasy, but I don’t think that’s exactly right.  It’s a significance fantasy.  A romance story is a story in which the woman is the most significant damn thing in the book.

And when you think of it like that, you realize why some people are really, really threatened by it.

I dislike most romance novels, simply because I’m not a fan of formulaic fiction, no matter the genre. If I want the comfort of a book I can predict the plot of that easily I’ll just reread one of my faves that I know well.

BUT! Romance novels, in all their glory and shame are incredibly important for ask reasons mentioned above. If someone truly has a problem with them the answer is quite simple - start making healthy, adult relationships that value the female characters as much as the males a common, standard thing in all genres. Then they won’t have to be segregated off as their own genre and can simply be.

Why is it women don’t actually give men who are like the romance novel characters the time of day?

Please explain.

Sure honey I’ll explain.

The problem you’re actually experiencing is that a lot of bland, sexist men walk around mistakingly thinking they are romance novel hero material and when women correctly clock them as entitled assholes and steer clear they end up posting stupid shit on tumblr.

Official @sortinghatchats quiz!

The time has come! Who wants to try out our @sortinghatchats style sorting quiz? 

Go here and begin your adventure: 

https://ejadelomax.itch.io/sortinghatchats

If you run across any bugs or errors, let us know in the sortinghatchats ask box. If the whole thing just jumps to the top of the page and… shakes… that is a known bug and we’re not sure why it’s happening. But it doesn’t happen very often! (I think it’s to do with the hosting site?)

We had a blast making this quiz, coming up with wording and questions, and testing the paths people can take through the quiz content. We even made some new friends along the way! 

We hope you have as much fun with it as we did. We think this is one of the culminations of our system, especially in terms of making it more accessible for newcomers. Enjoy. 

According to this, I’m either a Hufflepuff primary or a Slytherin primary…

To Sir Phillip, With Love (Bridgertons V) by Julia Quinn

He shook his head in wonder. “You are magnificent.” “I keep telling everyone that,” she said with a nonchalant shrug, “But you seem to be the only one to believe me.” 

Lit Meme 3/10 Ten Books/Series: Brothers Sinister

“If family is a matter of choice, I’ve chosen you.”

[x][x][x][x][x]

[x][x][x][x][x]

Love the romance community because tropes gets reused and reinvented, plots bear similarity to one another, certain types of books become popular all at once, covers are similar across the genre depending on the year and like, no one is out here screaming plagiarism or unoriginal.

We’re all like “yes pls I do need another dating app romance” and “I’ll take five more snowed in Christmas novels.” “This cover looks similar to the hating game, which spawned a hundred graphic covers? Cool I love it and need it on my shelf.”

When you realize that your previous knee-jerk dismissal of romance novels were ignorant at best and misogynist at worst

You know how people dismiss “female culture” all the time? Romcoms, chicklit, romance novels - without having read or seen much of it, because you know - if it’s for women, it must be bad? (Patriarchy you sneaky devil) And that assumption is misogynist. No way around it. I was one of those girls. I had barely read a romance novel and thought I was too good for them. Internalized misogyny is a bitch. Basically. Thankfully, if you work on it - you get better. And get to enjoy a lot more awesome culture in the process.

It’s so ingrained in people to dismiss romance novels that they can’t even connect dots on why it’s misogynistic.

I never hated “female culture” because I hated women. I hated it because it was ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS about men and heterosexuality. I’ve been bored at best and pissed off at worst by how much entertainment aimed at women is just heteronormative bullshit. It romanticizes femininity, passiveness, submissiveness, allowing abuse. 

Exactly, I hate this “if you don’t enjoy media that condescends to you, and is designed to encourage you to embrace toxic societal norms, you have internalized misogyny” bullshit. 

I’m too good for romance novels not because I’m better than other woman but because I’m deserving of media that doesn’t brainwash me into accepting abusive and manipulative behavior from men and that doesn’t fetishize unhealthy relationships. I’m not stupid enough to enjoy that trash, sorry.

Everyone on here defending the kind of trash that is deliberately marketed towards women to condition us into putting up with more bullshit should be ashamed to call themselves a feminist. And if you’re a woman who enjoys reading like, dumbass romance novels peppered with quasi-rape fantasies and racist undertones (which is shockingly common), then I don’t have respect for you or your opinions on media and culture. 

Also you dumbasses realize that all these crap industries are controlled by male executives, right? The creepy “haha stalking is romantic” rom com that you’re defending was paid for and probably produced and directed by men, yeah?

Y’all are dumb as hell but okay continue to read trash because it has a woman on the cover. I’ll be over here consuming things that aren’t absurdly sexist and supporting female creators who produce actual high quality work. Maybe people disrespect this stuff because it’s trash. The real misogyny is that this crap is what our society offers to women

The post above sort of illustrates the point I was trying to make. I didn’t say “If you don’t like it - you’re being misogynist”. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it and that’s fine. At least not liking it tells me you’ve actually given it a shot. I said DISMISSING it right off the bat is. Which you’re doing in your post. And that’s a big shame because I don’t know many fandoms that are as aware of its faults and history as the romance community. Romance readers are HIGHLY critical of the thing they love and it has pushed romance novels into something frankly amazing. The romance community (readers and writers alike) are still having to deal with the fucked up things the genre contained in the 80′s. Still fighting those old stereotypes and misconceptions. And as above tells us, they are still very much alive. And you know what? Romance novels have gotten better and deserve way more credit. It’s a HUGE industry, and yes, as with any other mediums - it’s going to have better and worse representatives. Yes, the alpha men are still very much there - but they have evolved. Consent is a HUGE thing in today’s romance novels (even when they’re set 200 years ago) and there’s something in them for everyone. Because the genre is HUGE. It ranges from paranormal to historical to contemporary and it contains WORLDS.  So dismissing it, and the people who create and enjoy them as dumb, sexist and trash is doing exactly what I said in my original post. It’s ignorant. And misogynist. And you’re missing out. Because dismissing romance authors and romance readers like you just did, while praising “actual high quality work”, seemingly without having actually read any of the things you’re criticizing isn’t doing any of us any favors. You are missing out when you dismiss it as “trash”. And that was my point to begin with.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the romance novel industry is the most female-driven, woman-positive corner in all of publishing. The huge majority of romance novel authors? Women. The huge majority of romance novel editors? Women. Marketers, publicists, art directors? Women! If we want to talk management, the huge majority of editorial directors? Women. While many CEOs are still men, that isn’t true across the board–and by the way, those CEOs are the same CEOs overlooking everything from cookbooks to science fiction to literature. That’s a social problem, not a romance-specific problem. And more and more women CEOs are pushing back against the strangehold of the “Big Five”.

Like the OP said, there are both terrible examples of the genre and wonderful examples full of incredibly strong women expressing the full spectrum of female desire–something that tends to automatically get short shrift in our society. It makes me terribly sad to see people who don’t even realize the whole wide feminist world of romance that’s out there.

Because GDI, whether or not we can all agree with each others’ choices about what we find appealing on that spectrum of desire, and whether or not we can all agree on what is toxic culture vs. what is a transformative expression filtered through the female gaze, we should at least be able to recognize that an industry owned, run, fueled and consumed by all kinds of women, cis or trans*, queer or straight, is. Freaking. Feminist.

Hey guess what you can totally be an intersectional feminist and still read, write, and market romance. I do all of that. Because I don’t blanket love or hate it; as mentioned i’m a fan who is highly critical of the thing she loves, and works hard to make it better and better. More diverse. More feminist. More of want fans want. So some people -coughtaranoirecough - can get off their high horses and go somewhere else and leave romance fans to enjoy this women-driven industry,

This.

We’re not talking about Hollywood where things aimed at women are still, by and large, written by men. We’re talking about a female-driven industry. There are writers like EL James who write things, I guess, for that market. But there’s also a LOT of work out there written by feminists for feminists that are anatomically accurate and everything. The romance genre has come light years in the past 20, 30 years. If you’re unwilling to see past the label to actually read a thing, well, you’re the reason this is a thread.

Certainly @theladyofingenuitea! First and foremost: Courtney Milan (we seriously can’t praise her enough). The way she approaches sex is refreshing and realistic, she’s funny, her heroes are varied, flawed, funny, charming and respectful. She handles the class system in a realistic way in her historicals, she’s got a book with a trans heroine, she’s got one with a virgin hero (my catnip!). It’s intersectional and just overall amazing. Another big fave of ours is Sarah MacLean. Her Love by numbers-series and Rules of scoundrels-series build an amazing little universe that I just wish I could live in. Her books are basically what got me hooked on romance novels. We’re also huge fans of Bec MacMaster. The other girls love The london steampunk-series the most, but personally I think her Dark Arts-series have them beat. MacMaster writes high stakes romance in fantasy and sci fi- settings and I swear, this woman must have bargained with some dark force herself because she writes the best sex scenes I have ever read. I love what little I have read from Lucy Parker (which are the two books she’s released so far) and I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next. Superwitty dialogue, realistic use of todays tech in romance and yeah. Funny and delightful. Misc tips: Mr Impossible by Loretta Chase (it’s like the movie The Mummy BUT WITH SEX), Eva Leigh’s Wicked quills of London-series, Lisa Kleypas Wallflower-series… Yeah. I think you’re covered for a while now! Happy reading!

I had to blink a few times at that reply about romance being degrading because yeah, uh, that was in, like, 70s-80s. That was a while ago. what I recommend, before you dismiss a genre, is to ask yourself, “What is the most recent title I have read in this genre?” Not saying there aren’t shit romances out there, because as has been pointed out the industry is humongous, but claiming that in that sea there aren’t damn good books is frankly ridiculous. I like romance novels. I LOVE them. What I don’t like are bad romance novels. Funnily enough, we readers can tell the difference. And we have so much choice that we don’t have to read shit. We vote with our money. You’re doing things right, we’ll buy your stuff. I’m so tired of people going “bodice rippers” and thinking they’ve made a compelling argument. I STUDY this genre. I’ve read its history and development and current criticism and analysis. Yes, the genre has its faults; it does need to get more intersectional. But your argument is basically what the early 80s criticism says, and it gets very tiring when people can’t update to this millenium. So tiring. Because the field of popular romance studies has had to have his conversation for decades. Having to explain the very basics every time is tedious. And if a genre that is by women for women about women has to defend itself for decades I really think we can claim misogyny. Above list of authors seems good to me even though I’m not familiar with MacMaster or Parker myself. Courtney Milan tho. Awesome.

Having to explain the very basics every time is tedious. And if a genre that is by women for women about women has to defend itself for decades I really think we can claim misogyny.

Talia Hibbert

Alisha Rai

Jezz de Silva - a MoC whose work is hugely empowering for women and anti-toxic masculinity

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics

A Little Light Mischief - Cat Sebastian

Jenny Han

Helen Hoang

Beverly Jenkins

Carina Press has multiple nb editors

Is the industry still dominated by white heternormativity? Absolutely. But it’s changing and fast.

Of course you’d never know that if you decide to dismiss the entire genre outright because you’re so committed to listening to the misogynistic narrative you won’t listen to anything else.

Adding some more to this list, because there are so many incredible authors who are writing smart, compelling, diverse, feminist texts. There’s literally something for everyone!

Alyssa Cole

Mia Hopkins

Adriana Herrera

Jeannie Lin

Alexis Daria

Sally Thorne

Sierra Simone

Sonali Dev

Joanna Shupe

Sophie Jordan

Emily Foster

Christina Lauren

Zoraida Córdova

Kristen Callihan

Nana Malone

Penny Reid

Bout to send some fools to God

OK this is like…..aesthetic!?

“Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil… prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon…”

“uh oh sisters” *shoots demon*

i😡😡😡😡😡wanna😡😡😡😡😡cuddle😡😡😡😡😡and😡😡😡😡😡😡watch😡😡😡😡😡spooky😡😡😡😡😡movies😡😡😡😡😡with😡😡😡😡😡you😡😡😡😡😡

in-abalone replied to your post “I love going through this romance novel journal i picked up because a…”

So, How To Write A Romance Novel is a pretty cute little book, but it’s definitely been mis-named; it’s less of a how-to book and more of a prompt and inspiration journal for people who are writing romance novels. There are scenarios, character prompts, elements of planning scenes, but it’s not super in-depth. It feels more like the kind of thing you might use when you’re throwing around your plot to see what sticks, or you’re stuck in writer’s block hell, like me. 

Omg this looks so fun

does anyone wanna fake date as a joke and accidentally fall in love through unforeseen circumstances 👉👈

well-written romance novels are both chill fun reads AND empowering as hell thank you for coming to my TED talk

Sarah MacLean  (via sarah-maclean-completist)

Damn, this book. I don’t think I’ll ever look at apples the same way again, though I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way....

Having not read this yet I’m over here like ... apples!?!?

Oh just wait until you read it. Then you’ll be looking at apples like the rest of us! 😂

Character A tilting Character B’s chin up to get a better look at their face and the evidence of the fight. A delicately thumbs away the streak of blood by B’s mouth, saying nothing as they examine it. After a brief pause, B’s heart skips a nervous beat as A looks them dead in the eyes. Their voice is quiet and tense, their anger barely restrained.

“Who did this to you?”

#i am a weak and simple woman okay