I am obsessed with romance novels and going by statistics, so are millions of other readers. For all its popularity, it is not easy to admire this genre in a public setting or on social media comfortably, thanks to the ‘trashy’ reputation that people associate romance novels with. Hardcore readers of this genre soon realize that admitting openly to one’s love for reading romance invites judgement, snobbery, and contempt. After all, romance novels are usually written for women by other women, on sentiment-laden topics like love and marriage. They don’t offer motivation, intellectual invigoration, or bragging rights for reading award-winning fiction. They are dismissed as ‘fluff’ or derided as ‘giving young women unrealistic expectations.’
My experience has been no different. At a team lunch five years ago, my boss asked what my favourite genre of books was. I usually go with “I read all genres” when asked this, but at that moment I blurted, “I enjoy reading romance novels the most” instead. Seven pairs of eyes swivelled to me in surprise, amusement, and judgement. They could not reconcile the dissonance between my sensible demeanour with the perception of ‘frivolity’ that romance novels connotate.
At my book club, we discuss Murakami, Amitav Ghosh, self-help books, epic fantasy novels, or the occasional poetry or biography. If a hapless newbie were to bring a chance romance novel for a book exchange, with or without a bare-chested man holding a blonde in a tight embrace on the cover, they are swiftly judged. This ridicule exists not just among niche communities and in private spheres, but also publicly. Author and politician Stacy Abrams was mocked by Stephen Colbert on his show, with the audience joining in on the ridicule, when he read out sex scenes from her novel in an interview that was supposed to be on her political career.
This attitude is not common of just readers, but also reviewers, publishers, and writers.
Nora Roberts, the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame, has over 200 novels under her belt. She has been reviewed by the New York Times only twice in her career. Eloisa James (author of The Duke Is Mine and the Desperate Duchesses series) was told she would risk tenure at her university if word got out that she wrote romance novels. Authors of most romance novels use a pseudonym – pen name if you like – rather than have their names on the cover of these ‘racy reads.’
Many non-romance readers find traditional romance novels “ploddingly predictable”, like this amusing review I found, to which the author herself replied that the gentleman should steer clear.
Nicholas Sparks, probably best-known as a ‘romance novelist’ to every reader, has distanced himself from the label multiple times. Look at these excerpts from Sparks’ interview:
“I haven’t written a single book that could even be accepted as a romance novel. I mean, there’s a completely different voice. They’ve got very specific structures; they’ve got very specific character dilemmas; they end completely differently; and they’ve got certain character arcs that are required in their characters — I do none of those things.”
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Publishers too, treat romances as a commodity, paperbacks to be churned out for masses like a server handing out burgers at a drive-in. For all the ‘light-reads’ they churn out that actually sell e-books, audiobooks, and paperbacks – they transfer promotional budgets to ‘tough reading’ that will bring in awards.
Famous authors have belittled the romance genre for centuries. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote The Scarlet Letter, declared once that romance writers are “a damned mob of scribbling women and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash.” George Eliot described women’s writing as “frothy, prosy, pious, and pedantic.”
So, what is a romance novel then and why is Sparks right when he says he is not a romance novelist?
Romance Writers of America, a non-profit association dedicated to interests of career-focused romance writers, defines the romance genre as being “a central love story with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.” Sparks’ central conceit tends to be the internal conflict that his characters – usually white, usually from North Carolina – face, where a romantic relationship is deterred not by the character’s own emotional growth but circumstances, such as death or financial gaps. Too many of his characters die for dramatic effect, to advocate for an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending that most romance readers associate with the genre intuitively.
Bridgerton, unlike a novel of Sparks, is a romance. Even when characters are from different worlds financially (Sophie versus Benedict) or have to bridge challenges arising due to social circumstances (Penelope versus Colin) – the conflicts in the series arise due to their emotions and are subsequently resolved through their emotional development, that blooms because of the romance.
Take Pride and Prejudice – Darcy and Elizabeth have a meet-cute (or meet-hate), financial gaps, and circumstances that keep throwing them in each other’s paths. However, at the core of the story, Darcy develops an emotional attachment to Elizabeth and, in loving her, redeems himself in our eyes and hers.
Both Bridgerton and Pride and Prejudice end on ambiguous ‘HEAs’ or ‘Happily Ever Afters’ that are brought on by the romance between the protagonist pairs, and closes only the narrative arcs of the characters realizing their love.
Compare that to Nicholas Sparks’ novels, where characters almost always have a tragic end to showcase the grand melodrama of sacrificial love, or Gone with the Wind, where for all their infuriating passion, Rhett and Scarlett do not have a Happily Ever After to share together.
If I had to draw a culinary parallel, a romance novel is like a steak. A drama, or a fantasy fiction with love as an element, is akin to chopping pieces of the steak into your pasta.
What romance novels do then is offer an emotionally sweeping experience – set anywhere, from an office to the middle of a war, during a ‘Season’ in London or at a snowed-in holiday cabin. This is where our characters exist. A roadblock prevents them from being together, till it doesn’t. It could be the promotion they both wanted but later decide their love trumps the job or, it could be bubbling sexual tension that they can only safely relieve after they have an emotionally vulnerable conversation when locked out of their car.
This is not to say that romance novels do not perpetuate evils like lack of informed consent, (common in the love-hate sub-genre where boundaries are overstepped easily) or unrealistic expectations (how many men with aquiline noses and half-grins exist?), if taken too literally.
On the whole though, romance novels don’t sound too awful, right? What is the harm in reading a fun saga of a governess who enters a marriage of convenience with a wealthy department store owner only for them to fall in love and live happily ever after? It is escapism. A tub of popcorn for the mind while living briefly in a cocoon of fantasy.
After all, video games offer similar comforts – aspirations for a world that cannot exist, but you can briefly mentally associate with. Reading fiction, even if it is romance, has positive second order effects like helping you write better, developing empathy, and developing an insane awareness of trivia (I once trumped someone in an open quiz in Calcutta on a tie-breaker during my college days, based on my obsessive reading of romance novels set in Britain).
Romance novels are also often scoffed at for their lurid covers, and frequently discounted as female erotica, despite maybe only 5-10 pages of the novel committed to the sex scenes they carry.
Image: Epilogue from the first novel of Eloisa James’ Would-be-wallflower series
Image Source: Google auto-correct, the barometer of our collective consciousness
Yet, people continue to snigger at readers of romance for seeking comfort in the pages of a book.
Sexism may be a factor behind this disdain. Women form the bulk of readers of romance. In the case of chick lit in academic libraries, Davis-Kahl alluded to this when he said that, “Romance is an intrinsically feminine genre, which creates a problem in misogynistic societies that are attempting to police women’s bodies and minds.”
Commercialization also has a role to play because hell, romance novels bring in the bucks for
publishing as an industry. In 2021-22 alone, romance novels generated over $1.44 billion in revenue, making it the highest-earning genre of fiction.
Popularity may translate into purchase, not acceptance, since positive perceptions and commercial appeal varies (like a Taylor Swift song or a Marvel movie). Take for instance the perpetual myth that romance novels are written by unhappy women as an outlet to live their own world of fantasy. The truth? Most bestselling novelists in the genre are in happy marriages or relationships. Think Susan Elizabeth Phillips of Chicago Stars (series) fame – who has been married for over 25 years, or Julia Quinn (Bridgerton), whose husband has featured in her acknowledgements more often than the phrase ‘bodice-ripper’ in a review. Closer home, Anuja Chauhan, author of The Zoya Factor, who undoubtedly writes the most refreshing women’s romantic fiction in this country, has three kids, a husband, a dog, and a house with a blue door (that I covet). Tracey Livesay, author of the series’ American Royalty and Shades of Love, writes interracial romances that mirror her own marriage.
There are several analyses on the myths perpetuated by and about romance novels. Two prominent analyses are Maya Rodale’s Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels and Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance, an analysis of the romance genre using reader-response criticism. The former study shares that apparent “intellectual purists” hate romance because romance is templated. According to them, intellect relies on being contrarian, even rebellious, and sounding distinguished while doing so. When a literary piece follows a framework (i.e., must have a HEA, a misunderstanding, and some degree of romance) it takes the agency away from the writer’s intellect and panders it to the reader’s appetite.
If you are part of the publishing industry, most romance novels aren’t ground-breaking enough for you to work on. Once established, most romance novels fly off the shelves with minimal effort, further reducing the role of the commercial critic or editor. Announcing a Nora Roberts release is sufficient, it doesn’t need to be on the Booker longlist. Niche works of fiction have far greater dependence on the publishing, marketing and sales machinery than so-called bodice-rippers. In fact, in the 1980’s, women just pre-ordered everything by their chosen novelists because they were sure of what to expect. In 2022, you see the same trend when enthusiasts will mark an entire upcoming series as to-read even if the publishing date is 2 years away. To me, it seems surprising then that romance novels are the only kind of books where reading positions you as less intelligent than those watching you read, edit, and sell them.
Romance novels enable women to write freely about women, away from the burden of the male gaze. These novels aren’t necessarily feminist – sometimes, they pander to patriarchal structures too. Goodreads has a list of 250+ sheikh romances alone. However, irrespective of shortcomings and marriage being a recurring end-goal, these books speak to the woman who lives inside your head from a perspective that endears a spark of emotional fulfilment and intensity that a lot of women crave. Janice Radway found in her research that romance assures the reader of their own self-worth and the ability to affect a patriarchal world. So, by the end of the novel the female readers, often mothers, feel invigorated and ready to take on the day-to-day tasks of managing the home and family. It is only now that I realize that I love romance novels not because I like the sentimentality or the eroticism, but because it is probably the only genre that is designed to be emotionally rewarding for the reader by the writer.
Take for instance, in films or society – women must become deserving of men’s social protection and love. The ugly duckling becomes a swan or the wallflower has a secretly spunky side. Women in real life are told that it becomes easier to find romance, attention, and respect in the aftermath of weight loss, dermatological visits, switching to contact lenses, becoming ‘less uptight’ and so on. Yet, in a romance novel – whether you are a single mother looking for love, or a cheerleader knocked up by a boy from the wrong side of the tracks – the man must become worthy of the woman’s attention. Most often, the female protagonist is an average Jane Doe, who has quite a few redeeming qualities, just not often on display. When men write romance or literary heavyweights take a swing at love stories, women devolve into being shunned, branded, sacrificed dying for a cause, jumping in front of a train, being left for another cause and so on. Happily Ever After allows women to navigate the perils of romance (often risky and unfair to them in the real world) in a controlled way. Even if that means romance novels with unreal plot lines, where women marry billionaires or hook up with princes with disguised identities
Calling romance novels ‘easy to read’ dismisses the reader’s intelligence and the writer’s effort. Calling sexually charged romance novels ‘porn’ insults the emotional relationship that readers develop with characters (Sebastian in Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels may be fictional but he can give the world’s most eligible men a run for their money). Calling it ‘trash’ is the worst because you are rejecting words that examine people’s needs for love, comfort, and desire.
Since romance is so universally consistent as a genre, everyone has their own universe within which they unfold the same narrative (yet again). Therefore, popular publishers like Harlequin push the same sub-genres (Christian romance, LGBTQ, time travel, gothic, steampunk, regency) over their authors so often. My favourite sub-genre for instance, is sports romance. It is also universally adaptable. Think of the hundreds of versions of Jane Austen adaptations as books alone.
So yes, women read romance novels to escape and live in an idealized, hopeful vision of the world they would rather read. All women who read romance novels know that there are no Viscounts with six-pack abs who enjoy going down on women. They also know romance novels are a safe space away from the prying, morally mansplaining gaze of men and a world that will not let them be.
Women will continue to read romance – to escape, to entertain, to learn about love.
As a woman said in her interview to Janice Radway on why her group reads romance – “We read books so we won't cry." In a tough world, there are worse ways to seek comfort than between the pages of a paperback. Maybe it’s time we appreciate that reading for a HEA is better than not reading at all.
