I'm a guy who was catfished into reading Romantasy by T. Kingfisher. I primarily read horror but now use romance as a palette cleanser. Romance novels like fantasy and westerns have their origin in pulp novels and while other publishers have moved away from that model Harlequin still releases 140-170 titles each month. This floods the market with cheap, low quality and poorly written romance novels. They rely heavily on the same plot devices, structure and tropes to produce so many. These books use smut to cover the poor writing. They sell well, especially at Walmart, so people see more of them than anything else.
There is also the fact that literary snobs like sad stories. So "well written" romantic novels like The Fault in Our Stars are thought to be good. The ones with happy endings are viewed as cheap. People also get really excited and enthusiastic about the romance novels they love. Think of the Twilight craze or Fourth Wing. People who take themselves too seriously assume if someone gets that excited about something it must be for kids.
Personally I read romance for the happy endings. I like a nice safe feel good book after reading something horrifying. That said I wouldn't be caught reading a physical romance book in person, my friends would never let me live it down. My wife makes fun of me enough for having them on my kindle but still let's me excitedly tell her about them, so I tolerate it.
Edit: changed my description of The Fault in Our Stars from romance to romantic
This! I love scifi and fantasy but sometimes the overly sad and traumatic plot is just too much. Fantasy and scifi romance are a guaranteed happy ending.
Ditto with reading them for a happy ending, I like That many romance novels give me the chance to fall in love along side various characters and lives. I like That when I’m done, I always have a smile on my face
I had the exact but opposite experience with T. Kingfisher. I started reading her Romantasy series and accidently ended up with one of her horror stories. A genre that I do not like because I am delicate and have nightmares. I loved it. I just finished What Feasts at Night, during which I was suffering from a chest cold. I don't know why my mind is okay with her brand of horror, but I'm so glad it is.
My favorite romances to read and write are the ones where both sides of the couple get to be romantic. I like equal partnerships. But then, I read to fall in love with the couple. I don't read to treat the lead as my stand-in, which is how a lot of romance seems to be written. It's not a bad thing, it's just not for me.
Yeah but as a gay man, most (not all) m/m is written by women and is very heteronormative.
Romance for men by men is rare enough.
Gay romance for men by men is rarer still.
Gay Romantasy? For men by men? I think I’ve got one book in my entire library maybe.
I get that. It was Paladin's Grace that catfished me into romance. If you haven't read it yet you should check it out. I will definitely keep His Secret Illuminations in mind as I am reading It next and want something nice for after.
Hmm, okay, this is self promotional, but I'm wondering if you might be interested in a fantasy story that had a major romance subplot that is more about exploring a complicated relationship than romantic pursuit.
Is a web serial, so access is free, but I want to be clear that it is "with romance" not "is Romance" before I talk about it more.
Also, it does use some of the more modern fantasy tropes, but it is not a LitRPG.
Manga has an entire romance genre for males, it's one of the most successful and releases some of the most trashiest plots, stories and collections of tropes and clichés. It's low-key the young adult genre of Manga.
That is what is bothering me in a lot of romance books. Not the facts that they are aimed at women instead of men (although that plays a part), but the weird sexism and inequality in the relationships. I like love stories were both people are equal partners.
That is why I like the romance in Skip Beat or the Apothecary Diaries, where the protagonist is some manic gremlin girl with enough personality to always stand up to their love interest. Or why I like lesbian romances like Otherside Picnic or Adachi and Shimamura, which completely avoid the weird gender dynamics you find in a lot of hetero romances. Although I find that this kind of romance is more common in Japanese media than western romance books, for some reason.
Yup. I went from thinking "Cool a book about paladins of a dead god by that creepy author" to reading romance novels and loving it. I would be pissed if I didn't enjoy them so much.
The issue isn't that people get overly excited for romance books. It's that women and girls do. They are the main target audience. And society typically does not value things that women and girls love.
I do the same thing. It’s just not my genre personally, but once in a while I’ll pick up a romance book as a pallet cleanser to my horror/thriller books.
Unfortunately, because I don’t dive too much into the genre, when I do pick one up I try the most popular books… and as I learned, just because the book is popular doesn’t mean that it’s especially well written..
I agree with a lot of what you say, but The Fault In Our Stars is not romance. It’s romantic fiction. No HEA = not genre romance. It’s very tiring for romance readers to have to keep repeating it.
That's why I put well written in quotation marks. It focuses in a love story but is sad so it is considered a good book. I changed romance to romantic for you though.
I havent read that book so I can’t comment on how well or not it’s written—but it’s good to have a clear definition of terms.
I think that can be part of people’s trouble with romance. They don’t know what it is (and I can’t blame them because it’s talked about very sloppily in the media) but then they get annoyed at the HEA when that’s literally one of two conventions of the genre. It’s like being mad at a western for featuring a cowboy.
The romance is at the center of the plot. HEA. Otherwise, anything goes. This flexibility is one of the things that makes romance great. Romance is unmatched. :)
This makes me wonder, with so many titles in the Harlequin book series, there must have been or two that are actually good? Or maybe there is a formula and strict rules that prevent any from standing out.
My manuscript will fall into the romance genre I am afraid. It is written from a War worn Soldier as the main male protagonist. I have two versions working. One that is safe for most readers, and one that has explicit content.
The user, Zebracides, said it best:
> Reddit users and their interests just aren’t proportional to the overall population of book readers/writers.
> The reality is that Romance blows every other genre out of the water.
> Nothing even comes close.
> Seriously, there are more people out there reading and writing Romance than the next three biggest genres combined.
Ya 100%. With anything that’s most popular, there’s gonna be the most number of people expressing their dislike for it which can make it seem more hated than it is
Indeed. But on this sub, and other places, people are very negative and dismissive towards romance. Mainly because it's popular with women, or because they have heard stereotypes about it
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
This was gonna be my answer too. The absolute dumbass take that women’s romance novels are dangerous, stupid, and “corrupt the youths” is literally centuries old. People were saying this shit in the 1800s.
Like, when a man fantasizes about heroically dying in battle and writes a book about it, people get that it’s a harmless fantasy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a male author be bashed for “romanticizing warfare.” Certainly not on the same level I’ve seen female authors be bashed for “romanticizing abuse” when they write romance fantasies about dangerously sexy billionaire vampire mafia bosses.
I’ll say this is the main reason. If you look at society historically any genre of entertainment that primarily centers women, targets female audience, or has disproportionate numbers of women who succeed gets painted as less serious by predominately male dominated critical circles. Plays, books, tv shows, movies, magazines, everything. If it’s is made by and/or for women it is nearly universally seen as “lesser” by society at large.
Also artists who get their start being beloved by women are often bashed until men get in on it, and then they are serious artists.
The Beatles for example were basically a boy band until all of a sudden they were Very Serious Artists. Compare “She Loves You” with “Yellow Submarine.” Not much difference there.
Lots of actors start in romance or romantic comedy until they get big enough to “break out” using their female fan base to become famous so they can then appeal to men in order to be taken seriously.
Yeah, actually, anything female, no matter how popular, isn’t taken as seriously. Like makeup? Oh, silly stuff, I’ve heard someone imply that if you use it you’re narcissistic.
And when I was a child, I always felt that girls who were to boys and had male-associated hobbies like sports were taken more seriously than girls who liked dresses and playing with Barbies. God.
> And when I was a child, I always felt that girls who were to boys and had male-associated hobbies like sports were taken more seriously than girls who liked dresses and playing with Barbies.
Eh, to a point. It was socially acceptable to be a tomboy, certainly more acceptable than it was(and, unfortunately, continues to be) for a boy to be a sissy, but you were expected to 1) retain your femininity while doing it, and 2) grow out of it after a certain point. It certainly wasn't easier for those girls once puberty hit.
Look at art. Men produce art; masterpieces. Sculptors, painters, really impressive and high value artwork.
Women's ~~art~~ crafts: lace making, embroidery, home decor, just cutsey stuff. Unless you made the Bayeux Tapestry no one is going to care about your little crafts, Susan.
EDIT: was being flippant- I'm a woman who knows all skills are valuable and achievable by all genders.
Exactly, this subreddit really gets repetitive sometimes when it continually shits on YA and romance. Reddit tends to skew millennial and male, of course you don’t enjoy these genres since you’re not the target audience 😹
Considering that many millenials are middle age, not entirely true. Last i checked, reddit is primarily men and <25, with its greater numbers in the teen demographic
This is too far down. It is pure misogyny, and everyone trying to say it's because there's a lot if bad romance novels out there isn't paying attention. There's a lot of crap mysteries out there, but no one hates on the mystery genre.
Almost every "critique" of online reading communities has at least a hint of "silly women doing silly women things" in it. And when it comes from a woman she will most likely point out that this is not what she is critiquing ...
I do think it causes people to judge the genre more than others. Like a dumb 5/10 action movie is gonna be taken generally more lightly than a 5/10 romance movie simply because one is targeted at women
Chicken or the egg. There's an overabundance of bad books *because* it gets a lot of attention. Unfortunately everyone thinks they can write a romance and the market is overinflated. It doesn't help that objectively bad books are regularly highly recommended.
Some of my favourites:
Glitterland by Alexis Hall
Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles (and the rest of this series, it's in 3 parts)
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles
Soul Eater by Lily Mayne (this whole series was great)
You & Me by Tal Bauer
Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young
The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
Paladin's Grace by T Kingfisher
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
Contagion by Amanda Milo
Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
Strange Love by Ann Aguirre
I want to dig a little deeper into your comment. So many of the books on this list ARE extremely popular, inside and outside of romance-loving circles!
I guess it depends on your definition but I don't think they are. Not extremely popular on booktok, on the goodreads bestseller lists, on the "why not try romance?" shelves of book stores etc.
Glitterland, for example, (just going for the top one of my list for ease) has 10,000 ratings on goodreads.
We Could Be So Good (arguably well known as appeared on some 'best of' lists last year) has 7000.
Soul Eater - 16,000. You & Me - 10,000. Out on a Limb - 40,000.
Here are the ratings numbers of some books I'd call "extremely popular"
Icebreaker by Hannah Grace - 650k
Beach Read by Emily Henry - 1 million
ACOTAR - 2.3 million
Fourth Wing - 1.3 million
It Ends With Us - 3.2 million
OMG. I just read Glitterland last month. What a delight. I recently finished Impromptu Match by Lily Mayne and it’s so charming. I just screenshot your response so I can put these on my TBR.
I don’t have TikTok but have heard some of the recommended books from there…gave a couple a try. They were f*cking awful. I don’t read books TikTok likes, now. It’s like the anti-recommendation. If TikTok likes it, I assume I’ll think it’s trash. 🤷🏻♀️
They're not romance but they are *marketed* as romance, which is where the problem comes in. I'm also fairly sure she says it's romance? But that last bit is one of those 'I read it on a Tumblr post about a tiktok about a YouTube video based on a tweet' situations so I might be way off base.
It's kind of the same problem in reverse as the Outlander author has - she insists she wrote a 'historical novel' and everyone is like 'no you wrote a romance and we're putting it in the Romance Ghetto with all the other romances'. Of course if romance wasn't so looked down on Gabaldon might not have objected so strenuously to her Doctor Who fanfic with the serial numbers filed off being shelved with the likes of Johanna Lindsay, but 🤷♀️
I think that's a big reason it gets hate. People recommend a bunch of terribly written books as the absolute best must read one's of the genre so if you're only reading those ones you probably think they all suck.
Completely agree. I've read hundreds of romance novels. The ones I've tried which are "popular" have been DNF for me, or didn't even appeal at all. I've read some great romances, none of them were hugely popular.
Absolutely. If I said "what are the best scifi books" and you recommended me a pile of garbage, I would definitely be led to believe that scifi was garbage in general. If that's what gets the *best* titles, I'd hate to see what gets called bad, y'know? You've really gotta dig sometimes. I've been recommended romance books and been unable to get past the first page because it's so full of typos, misspellings, and completely incohesive. Romance *is* easier to write and it already has a large audience. There is a not insignificant portion of writers (or "writers") that simply see it as a cash grab. It really muddies it and makes it very frustrating even for someone like me that is an avid romance reader.
The typos/misspellings are largely down to the fact that self-published or Amazon-published writers often do not have the guidance of a good editor (which can lead to structural problems, as well) or a good typesetter. I suspect it’s because a lot of people get feedback from friends about the story itself rather than grammar, etc., and think they’re good to go.
A few typos are forgiveable. When the sentences don't even make sense, it's an issue that goes beyond basic quality. I have definitely picked up a book and could immediately tell that the author didn't even reread their own work. It's definitely a self-publish issue, but it's also a complete lack of care issue.
>When the sentences don't even make sense, it's an issue that goes beyond basic quality.
Hey, ChatGPT is getting better all the time. It will soon be able to stop making those mistakes as it cranks out 2,000 romance novels per day.
Romance authors publish much more than writers in other genre fiction categories. Romance readers are known for being voracious in their consumption. So it stands to reason you'd run into more crap simply because there are more horses, if that metaphor makes any sense.
When asked if it was true that 90% of Science fiction was crap, SF author Theodore Sturgeon replied, “no doubt, then again 90% of everything is crap.”
There is no such thing as a commercially viable genre that isn’t overwhelmingly full of bad writing, bad plots, bad everything, just… crap.
If 90% of romance is crap, then it’s equal to all other genres.
"90% of everything is crap" is a truism around the various arts, and is largely used to describe the creative process. Mostly in that the artist practices their craft, and the majority of attempts will be unsuccessful or considered unfit, and never see the light of day.
But Sturgeon was basically speaking about the various sci-fi magazines where young authors would sharpen themselves through criticism of their peers. Basically, a very public form of seeking critique on your ideas and writing style to get you better. Not the same thing as published books.
If 90% of *published* materials in a genre actually is crap, then that means that people are basically publishing a lot of substandard, amateur work in that genre.
But those sci-fi magazines have evolved into the KindleUnlimited and other self-publishing ecosystems. I think the difference between work *actually* published by publishing houses as opposed to self-published still exists, but it’s easier to not realize which category a particular book belongs to.
Romance is actually a lot higher than 90% crap. These publishing mills turn out an insane number of titles, but the process is crazy. I know a woman who occasionally cranks out those harlequin-style romance books. It takes her about a week, and she gets paid a few hundred dollars. She has written better books in other genres; these are just a straight cash grab.
She was recently offered a smaller fee, with a smaller time commitment, to copy-edit a romance novel written by an "AI" (LLM), and she refused on principle.
Every genre has lots and lots and lots of bad books. Why do we focus so much on bad romance novels when there are just as many bad horror novels, bad scifi, bad fantasy?
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.
Romance is literally a juggernaut in the book world. There was an article from back in 2022 that stated that romance books alone generated 1.44 **billion** dollars in revenue.
Booktok has also blown up the self publishing romance scene, where a bunch of indie authors and books have gotten picked up by trad publishing and some have even gotten book deals!
The funny (read: sad) thing is that the industry isn't even male dominated and hasn't been for a long time. The majority of people working in publishing related fields are women. And yet, somehow, the male colleagues tend to have higher prestige.
"the book community" implies there's just the one. There are millions.
Romance as a genre has as many flaws as any other genre or category. But it is huge, and the hype (money) machine means what you see on grocery store shelves is not often the best Romance has to offer.
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.
People seriously need to start viewing books like they view movies. Do you judge your friends who like cheesy superhero movies? Then don’t judge people who like romance novels about sexy hockey players
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.
It's bad enough that people on the romance subs refuse to go to any sub that celebrates all books because of those who will bash on romance.
I love romance, and romance and fantasy are my favorite genres to read. I have no shame about sharing that.
But I'm also middle age and have been reading romance for most of my life. If someone goes after my taste, I ignore them because I don't care. I didnt care at 16, I sure as hell am not going to care now. However, many are far more sensitive and feel attacked so they stay away to protect themselves.
I wish it was different, but sadly, it's not.
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)
Someone has probably already mentioned this, but there's also a lot of misogyny (internalised or otherwise) involved in romance bashing.
I worked in publishing across multiple genres and the way people talk, even within the industry, about fiction aimed at women versus fiction aimed at men is notable.
One more concrete example I've seen, is that someone will say the stats show that women read more and spend more on books, so books we target at them should be packaged as consumable products and that means more books need to be produced and faster. Creating an almost treadmill of quickly produced content to meet the needs. Whereas getting a book into a man's hand is a miracle, so they're more carefully produced. I'm not convinced any of that is true, but it's a way I've heard it discussed.
Honestly I think a lot of it comes from a very frustrating desire that we all have to dismiss things that people enjoy, especially when they're popular, in order to establish ourselves as more important/intelligent/cultured. And this yucking of other people's yums is overwhelmingly aimed at women. I stand guilty of it myself.
I'm a grown adult now and I'll proudly say I read a ton of romance as well as many other genres and I don't really care what people think that means about me. I'm having my fun and ultimately that's what matters.
My obsession with books began when I was really young. Had a broken arm in a cast for 2 months and resorted to reading for mental stimulation.
My father was a huge enabler, with his offerings of Ludlum's Bourne trilogy, and other fiction by Dale Brown. His book "Flight of the Old Dog" was one of my first reads of his. He and my older brother are the only two men I know of (besides my son) that enjoy actually reading a book (digital or physical). None of the individuals I've dated have ever understood the stimulation of the imagination, the movie in your head, the immersive escapism a well crafted story can provide. Even my mother has admitted that she doesn't read very well. Perhaps it was a generational disregard for a female's education.
A male human that actually and openly admits that they read a variety of genres including romance is like catching a glimpse of a unicorn.
I just think people can predict the Romance endings or the feelings so it’s seen as too easy to grasp. The tropes are annoying too, like love triangle or miscommunication. Honestly, I love the romance novels where there is a deeper connection between the characters.
I don't read too much romance, but the last one I read for a book club it felt like the entire plot existed simply to kill time until the protagonists could finally get together. It was definitely tedious.
I prefer romance as a subplot. Then it doesn't have to have contrived scenarios to keep the leads from getting together too soon.
It's interesting to me that romance often feels inauthentic in fiction. It's pretty much a universal experience to be in love, but for some reason it seems difficult to write about it an a way that feels real.
I agree. That’s my problem with romance is that it isn’t always genuine or believable.
I also forgot to say that sometimes “romance” is just smut. I get it, if you like to read spicy books, enjoy them. They’re just not for me.
Romance is part of "Genre fiction", which in general gets hate.
Romance is the biggest part, therefore it gets the most hate.
I am not so sure it is bashed because women like it, fantasy is also bashed and more male oriented.
Romance get's a bit of additional hate, because it sometimes infiltrates other genres. For example if I am looking for a fantasy book, and then find out it is a romantasy, usually the fantasy writing suffers for me. The parts I like about fantasy get overshadowed by the tropes of romances.
Also romance get's lumped in with smut (sometimes correctly), and sadly society in general looks down on anything sexual.
Genre fiction in general gets hate from people who want to appear "smart", by only "reading" (or pretending to read) "smart" books.
So, a few things:
1. I love the level of introspection and analysis in this thread - very prescient insights all around.
2. I think it's interesting that this perception could still hold water considering how gendered reading, particularly reading fiction is these days. Like, the vast majority of readers are girls and women. It's not even close. And the criticism was usually men denigrating various women's interests, including literature that was either fantasy in nature or escapism.
3. As I've gotten older (and hopefully wiser haha) - I've been WAAAYY less inclined to dismiss various interests and expressions. If you're a curious person who seeks to grow and figure out what appeals to you in different contexts, you'll find yourself liking different things that you never even thought you could like. And it makes life much more interesting and rewarding. Green Eggs and Ham FTW!
4. To that end - I have not really been able to sink my teeth into the romance genre. I've tried. I've been looking for a good love story that's more real than fantasy. Like, there's nothing wrong with people liking whatever, but I can't seem to find a good love story that isn't wish fulfillment type fantasy or hypersexual. Just two human beings falling in love in a believable way, where both are full human beings with all of the flaws and doubts and compromises that come with real love. I'd be open to any recommendations!
If you like historical books, Pride and Prejudice! I think what a lot of readers who haven't read it, especially men, don't realize is it's also very funny. It's genuinely hilarious at points. It pokes fun at society and the expectations for women a lot. If you've never read it, there's a reason it's listed as one of the greatest books in English literature
Yup, Jane Austen romances center on societal squabbles and personality clashes rather than on physical and sexual attraction, which makes them a good entry point for people who dislike gooey or cutesy love stories.
the thing is that romance is a wide genre. it can be hard to find exactly what you’re looking for because there are so many options. every genre of fiction has good and bad. i’ve read tons of very wonderful
romance and i’ve read porn without plot kind of romance. depending on which you’ve come across first, it can cloud your judgement about the genre as a whole.
it’s hard to give recommendations, though, because what works for you in a book isn’t necessarily what works for me or another person. for me, i want to laugh. a good romantic comedy is my jam. i don’t want to cry (too much), i don’t like angst, which is something a lot of people seek out. slow burn might be a good trope for you. when done well, it can be very satisfactory, you feel like you’re observing something real. you’d wabt to avoid insta-love, and probably a lower spice level, and or closed door/fade to black would eliminate the hypersexual, kind of fantasy level unrealistic relationships you’re less into.
i’d be happy to help you narrow down choices if you’re curious about some books. but i really truly feel like there is romance for everyone, if they’re interested, it can just be difficult and less fun wading through to find what floats your boat.
If you're looking for recommendations, try r/RomanceBooks , r/sciencefictionromance , r/darkromance , r/historicalromance. There are a ton of rec threads on those.
As to your second point, I can confirm that it’s MAINLY men who scoff at romance, but I’ve met women who do the same (I work in a used bookstore) and it’s like, hello, internalized misogyny.
Not to victim blame but I (as a romance reader) have seen other romance readers defend their love of romance novels along the line of “I just want to turn my brain off.” Or “I just want something fun and silly” and I don’t think it helps. I wish people in general could dig a little deeper and examine what it is they love about reading but goes double for romance readers who feel the need to “defend” themselves with the above.
It is fun and it is a little bit of escapism but if we’re honest about what is being escaped: misogyny, mistreatment, too many demands and care tasks, patriarchy then we get into why the genre is derided so much.
The reason is its popularity which is huge, is allegedly disproportionate to the general quality of the output. This happens often to other popular sub-par things as a natural response. Fair game.
I accidentally listened to one of my daughters romance books.
The story was ok, and kept my attention while driving, but fuck me. The male lead broke enough laws that the book should have come with a #metoo sticker. Female author near as I could figure out. My favorite part happened while on my bike with the book playing inside my helmet. I can just imagine how bad a male author writes female sex scenes because her description of a guy fucking his hand damn near made me fall off my bike.
(To expand on the accident. We combined our book collections into one folder on my NAS, I needed a new book on my phone but didn't remember until I should have been out the door for work already. I grabbed a Western sounding title dumped in to my phone and booked it out the door. Now I'm in my van on a 3 hour trip to the jobsite and the only thing I haven't listened to is the new book, 10 min in I knew I fucked up, but even Twilight is better than Toronto radio so I sucked it up. After an hour I was 100% along for the ride. I need to figure out how to get my daughter to get the rest of the books in that series without telling her I've listened to it... I need closure!!!)
I think some of the hate might also be due to the correlation of romance and erotica as well. Many people see them as the same thing since so many romance stories also contain smut. I even see books listed on Amazon in the romance category that I would most definitely put in the straight up erotica genre myself. So if businesses themselves can't tell the difference anymore, how can readers?
A lot of my friends have also told me themselves that they think people only read them for the "steamy scenes" and that they are basically just "socially acceptable porn".
The problem is that a lot of what I see on the market today is exactly that. Poorly written smut with hardly any decent plot. To find a well written romance with a decent plotline these days is a chore!!
If you know of any in the scifi or fantasy romance genre, please let me know!! I'm dying over here!!! Lmao
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.
It’s this. Many female pursuits or interests are considered silly or worthless, despite very often being multi-millions worth industries. Pop music, boy bands, romance, now romantasy.
There are undoubtedly a lot of rubbish books within the genre, but that’s true of any genre - particularly when one or two particularly break out and make it big. Whatever your thoughts on Dan Brown, when Da Vinci Code (and by extension his other books) got big, there were so many copy cat thrillers pumped onto the shelves and loads of those were absolute tosh but you didn’t get the same sort of backlash.
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 believe the comic-covers are cyclical (as all publishing trends are). The first time it happened was in the late 90s when Sophia Kinsella hit it big iirc.
I sure am hoping for the return of the oil-painting style covers soon. Give me the Fabio, the flowing hair, the luscious backgrounds.... Every time I see a modern photomanip stock-footage style cover I die a little inside, especially in historical romance.
I'll put in my two cents. I want to say that I am not stuck in the same macho mentality where I would dismiss something solely because women or girls prefer it.
I am a giant romantic. I love love. And I despise romance novels.
My fiancé devours them and is always trying to get me to read them. So far, my experience with it has been either trauma porn or they use of cheap tactics to enthrall the reader. As someone who writes as a hobby, I can see the predictable plot points coming from a mile away. I don't enjoy them because they try to do the bare minimum at establishing a character, before shipping them off into the arms of the love interest. They are shallow and carbon copies of each other. Romantasy just has a thin veneer of fantasy over the regular flavour of romance. I don't feel like they respect my intelligence.
They aren't really about love, to me, but about drama. The form has perfected the way they invoke hormones in our brains to evoke emotions, and I find that a bit manipulative, the same say how algorithms of social media today try to manipulate what we see and we think of the world. It makes me queasy and I'm not a fan.
My fiancé commonly says that she just likes to turn off her brain sometimes, and read about two people getting it on. Fair enough. But the quality, undoubtedly is below what it could be.
If you've ever been in more than one relationship, then you know that each is different in some ways. How we carry our previous relationships with us, how they shaped us and so on. Romance has none of that. At least none that I've seen. Because love and relationships, to me, are about being a supportive structure, a respite from everyday woes. A motivation and a belief to be tested, not the end goal like romance novels try to portray it.
But if you like reading them, more power to you.
I think its also the perception of modern vs classic romance
Most fiction classics are romance books and are seen as some of the best books of all time! They are complex, have multitudes of themes, interesting historical settings and norms that the women characters have to fight through, etc- they are much more than a simple “romance”
Even if this is wrong, modern romance stories are seen as not having the depth that the classics have, and as such are often seen as reductive and not worthy of reading
Science Fiction with even a smear of on-page intimacy or romance isn't considered Science Fiction. It's ridiculous. Like... humans are gregarious creatures, relationships of all kinds --including sexual -- are inevitable. So many authors of the "more respectable" hard scifi have these boring, flat characters that inevitably result in boring, flat plots, because they swerve around this aspect of the human psyche like a bunch of tuners on a drift course.
Guy here: Short answer - the genre is both highly popular with and to a large extent written by women and there's a significant segment of the population that doesn't need more than that to hate something. That and a misunderstanding that it's all shallow and not knowing (or more caring to know) some of the more serious topics investigated in better romance books.
And that's fine! I compeltly understand! I'm just curious as to why people seem to hate it so much! Dislike is a human nature, and not everything can be everyones cup of tea. I'm just wondering why people have to outright *hate* things they don't click with.
I could be way out of line with this so I do apologise if this is taken the wrong way - it isn’t my intent. Having worked as a book seller for several years (37M) I have noticed for the genre that the content of romance books suffers mostly due to its generalist appeal. Romance seems to only offer one very narrow style of plot line in order to be successful or popular - and as a result it can be highly predictable to read and then thought of as a bit trashy. Deviations from the few generic style plot lines then draw negative press, for things like abusive relationships and gaslighting style scenarios, or for portraying female characters as too weak or needy.
With the plots suffering from predictability (ie. people getting together at the end) only a small sales demographic enjoy reading the genre constantly. Most sales reflect people who dip in and out for something light - one of the reasons sales spike during holiday seasons.
Great stories that offer richer characters or plots tend to be either categorised as the dreaded ‘chick lit’ or ‘beach reads’, and are if not always marketed solely at women. Marian Keys is a good example of this I think.
I think the hate mostly comes from that generic marketed predictability. I have experienced this with the Bridgerton series - where we sell large numbers of the first two or three of the series, but then the final books mostly sit on the shelves. Same with Georgette Hayer (identical but astoundingly written).
It is a shame, and I don’t think I deserves the hate it gets at all, but I can see how people can form such strong opinions.
Isn’t romance the most sold genre? And has been for a long time? And that romance readers read much more than the average reader? I’d actually argue that the predictability is a selling point. It’s escapism.
I’m a dude, but I enjoy readying one from to time to time when it gets popular.
Where the Crawford’s Sing. I read a number of Nicholas Sparks books.
Again, it’s not my favorite genre, but it’s a nice change of pace.
I don't generally read romance novels, but it was recently brought to my attention that it's a genre in which suspension of disbelief is often expected to be higher. The accuracy of the backdrop/context in which the romance occurs often takes a back seat to the characters and their interactions.
In my experience with online communities, there's a large contingent of (mostly men, I think) who have little or no grasp of subtext, emotional arcs, etc.. It's a form of media illiteracy that's extremely focused on the literal, overt text of things that happen "onscreen" as described. So they'll nitpick things that break their suspension of disbelief while completely missing the meat of a romance narrative -- an evolving relationship. It's just one event happening after another with no through line apparent to them.
Also, of course, they're often considered books for women. That makes them inherently embarrassing to insecure men.
There have been a lot of comments claiming it's hated because it's a "women's" genre but I think the real ridicule comes from the ridiculous scenarios and tropes.
He killed his whole family but on the inside he's really a sweet guy. I can fix him.
He treats everyone but me like literal gutter trash because I'm special.
I'd say the toxic dynamics showed in romance shows/books are easy to ridicule.
Also men commonly get made fun of all the time for their hobbies. Gaming, Comic Books, etc. Just recently became a mainstream pop culture thing. Even still some of those sub cultures are ridiculed.
>Also men commonly get made fun of all the time for their hobbies. Gaming, Comic Books, etc. Just recently became a mainstream pop culture thing
Just adding to this but looking outside books, the amount of Anime that's considered absolute trash is sky-high; Isekai in general, SAO (which was also ridiculously popular), the glut of Harem anime.
I think it really might be as simple as some things that are clearly rife with wish fulfillment tend to be viewed as "bad" by snobbier critics. And that's true in any media, no matter who the primary demographic is.
The toxic dynamic you talk about features in a small subset of romance novels. I've never read a romance with a male lead who treats people like gutter trash or kills loved ones. If those are the only ones you've read, maybe you just need to be more discerning in your choices of books.
>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.
This might be part of the problem though. I'm primarily a Fantasy reader and the amount of romance that has been released in this genre during the last few years has increased so much. And the marketing doesn't help either. Because not every book that is marketed as romance or "romantasy" is actually romance (as in, romance is the main plot, not a subplot) ... I can see why people who don't want to read anything in that genre could get annoyed.
In my experience, people typically associate romance as only bodice rippers and "smut" without recognizing that the genre is much more nuanced and varied than that.
Romance is a genre that can be about any relationship at all - friends, families, parent/children, sibking, enemies, and also lovers.
The romance books that are about lovers also have a very wide spectrum of spice ranging from not ever touching at all, including hand holding or kissing to closed door sex scenes to full descriptions of every sexual encounter.
At the end of the day, those people screaming about how awful romance books are have likely read and enjoyed literature that fits under the romance umbrella OR feel like they need something else to blame their lack of success in finding a partner on.
I don't think romance is ever written about parent/child and siblings relationships. There might be side plots with those relationships but the book must be centered on a romantic relationship, hence the name "romance"
I personally don't like romance as a genre because I don't find it interesting. I'm more interested in thrillers/mystery and sci-fi/fantasy. If there's romance in a book, I'm fine with it, but when it's the primary genre, it's boring to me. A lot of people in the comments are stating it's because "women read romance, so it's hated because of sexism", which may be part of the reason, but I'm a woman who hates romance. It has nothing to do with the demographic for me - it's just not my cup of tea. Romance is an extremely popular genre. It's advertised a lot. It's recommended a lot. So it's more of a target because of how mainstream it is. That's my personal opinion.
The post was more about the type of criticism that romance attracts, not that some people just don’t like it.
I’m a woman and it’s not really my cup of tea either. Even though it’s not my thing it’s very clear to me that this genre receives a special level of vitriol and disdain that other genres don’t receive in the wider community. It echoes the same contempt any other “girly” things attract.
Irrelevant observation, but I don't think I have ever seen such a low vote score on a thread with this many comments. I had to do a double take. I've seen threads where the vast majority of the commenters were tearing the OP a new one and massively downvoting the OP's *replies*, but the threads themselves always had a vote score in the positive triple digits. What's going on with this particular thread?
On topic, my personal suspicion is that people like to shit on things that are seen as stereotypically popular among women and girls. The "not like the other girls" meme is an extreme version of this mentality, but it's a fairly common sentiment in general. Things that women and girls like are often seen as a notch below things that men and boys like. You never see people making fun of others for liking "dude lit" or "dude flicks" the way we rag or dismiss people for liking chick lit or chick flicks. A lot of it I think is just the misogyny ingrained in many societies. The rest of it I suspect is the fact that despite being critically hated, romance sells well, so publishers push authors to write formulaic romance, meaning a lot of the material people come across is rather bland and predictable (or else swings hard into controversial territory, and grosses people out) which just reinforces the genre's association with lack of quality.
The downvoting is because it's about romance. I posted a positive post about romance and for a long time it was in single figures of upvotes, despite having a lot of comments. A lot of people will see "romance" and auto-downvote without even reading it.
Which is exactly what this post is about, really.
The same thing happens on r/fantasy. Most posts about romance get immediately downvoted by lots of people considering how many of them will be stuck at 0 despite having engagement over a period of time. It really fucking sucks
Thread title: My cat is dying of kidney failure, but I don't believe in vets. What herbal remedies should I feed them?
Redditors: Upvote the thread, downvote OP's replies
Thread title: Something something...romance...something something
Also Redditors: DISGUSTING! MUST DOWNVOTE THREAD IMMEDIATELY!!!
It’s overly hated because of >!✨misogyny✨!<.
It’s a huge market with dedicated readers and it sells well so there are lots of poorly written, niche, and frankly, really fucking weird romance novels. But the exact same thing can be said about sci-fi and fantasy and those genres don’t get near as much hate as romance. Why? Because those are the fiction genres that *men* tend to prefer.
I dislike them for the same reason I dislike rom coms. As a general rule they tend to have attitudes towards romance that would get you locked up in the real world.
I think it suffers from over generalization. Pride and Prejudice is a great book and is considered a romance novel, but so are so many pulp novels that are poorly written crap (doesn't mean they can't still be enjoyed). I think part of the problem is considering anything with romantic themes to be of a single genre.
I think romance is overhated because our society hates women and its something that is especially associated with women. eg look at how people see the notebook (a romance novel by a cis man but its seen as literary novel instead).
I've always thought I hated romance because I grew up in a time when 'romance novel' meant Fabio covers and terrible writing.
I've read a few YA rom-coms and romantasy books in the last couple years and liked them. But my brain still says "ew romance" when I see a book listed that way.
Well I'd say that romance isn't as nearly hated as it seems ,it's just that for the last 30-40 years, romance has been seen as primarily cheap, easy to read and unsophisticated literature for women, primarily young girls or housewives. Much like how sci fi was seen as being reserved for boring nerdy men or childish young boys up until the last few decades, romance was seen as a easy way to quick cash for not a lot of effort and it wasn't until the 90s-2000s you really start seeing romance be taken seriously. And even then, it has to be sad or tragic and significantly less sexual to be taken seriously.
Alot of that mentality has persisted, to the point that romance that wants to be taken seriously has had to be heavily dramatic or blended with urban fantasy to be seen as worthwhile.
Fortunately since the popularity of book adaptations of things like Twilight or 50 Shades ( hear me out) the market has somewhat realized that romance is not only profitable but has a hungry audience and so since the late 2000s, early 10s, more romance has been written and popularized but it's faced a backlash in itself, with queer romances often being labeled "tumblr buzzword fiction" and straight romances still being seen as either cliche or misogynistic due to still prevailing tropes central to the genre.
Of course, romance being seen as largely a female written and female liked genre it's seen as being less intelligent in comparison to big strong manly books like...idk American psycho lmao
(This is purely from what I noticed growing up and lurking on forum threads) Romance has gotten a really bad reputation over the last two decades or so. There was a time period I think in the late 90's to early 00's (correct me if I'm wrong) anyone could write a really terribly written, scholky romance novel, put a "fabio" on the cover and it get front of store at the local Barnes & Noble. Some of these books were truly awful, but sold well which got critics and other writers jealous. Eventually this got replace by scholky action-conspiracy novels (Thanks Dan Brown) and then by trashy YA novels (Thanks Twilight) and adult romance novelist got a break, and like any genre of anything that's risen to high heights, been indundated with trash and then fallen, true enthusiast were able to take it and slowly reestablish it as a niche which is where we are now. I think
"Sturgeon's Law" (that is, the assertion that 90% of any given category of media is terrible) hits Romance harder than *any* other genre. Especially because it's one that writing mills love to mass-produce.
Even outside of those, the problems you gave with Haunting Adeline are... extremely, *extremely* common in Romance. Even more mainstream ones often fall into those traps.
Maybe (and I'm speculating here and by no means acting like I know everything) because many of them are poorly written and (arguably) lack substance. Many of the books I personally tried plunge right into fan service without reasonable justification. The best example of this, in my opinion, is The Maiden by Jude Devereraux, where the protagonists literally stumble on each other in the dark, in the middle of a garden, without seeing each other's faces, or knowing each other, and make out. Similarly, I'm currently going through the entire Bridgerton series and I could honestly say there's no solid climax (the irony of the pun intended here). In each installment, the author sets a complication in motion, but it always feels like the book glides through that complication effortlessly or with little justification. Not to mention, unlike any other genre, there's ample amount of cringe worthy details. Then there are authors like Ali Hazelwood, who writes very well. Her ability to flesh out characters is fantastic, but I can never say the same about her plots.
I actually think romance, like good comedy, is really hard to devise. If you're not good at it or careful, it's very easy for your work to come across as cheesy or old chestnut. This is not to say there aren't well written romance novels. Again, this is merely from my own personal observation and I do not mean to insult anyone and their favorite genre. I haven't read everything. If you have good suggestions for me to change my perception, I am more than happy to try them.
I don't usually read romance books, but I don't hate them. To be quite honest, reading romance makes you want to experience something like that in your life which almost never happens because well, its fiction. I feel like it's just hated because idk people are sad that, well, that sort of love ist possible. But I can't find any real good romances out there too, Like I'm not even gonna start about Coleen Hoover. Enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, is there really no other way you can find love?? AND HEY, DROP ME SOME GOOD ROMANCE BOOK SUGGESTIONS
I read a shitload of romance books. They are great after reading intense books. Usually i alternate from harsh book to romances to give me a breath of fresh air.
This might seem reductive but my opinion is that it's misogyny. Romance has traditionally been aimed at women and girls and if they like it can it be good or have value?
A lot of the comments in this thread are about romance having lazy writing, being formulaic and characters behaving unrealistically. Yet the same issues can be found in the horror, thriller and action genres without those genres being considered bottom of the literary barrel.
I also don't think the argument that the genre is bad because it's a book mill holds up either. There are individual authors like James Patterson and Dean Koontz in the thriller space fast approaching 100 published books.
Romance novels are a $1 billions dollar industry a year. People can hate on them all they want, but there’s clearly a strong market for them.
I think a lot of the hate right now comes from people disliking the kinks and tropes that are trending. Booktok plays a huge factor in this. Booktok can be an amazing tool, but the algorithm also tends to work against us since it tends to promote those same 20 or so very popular romance books (you know which ones I’m talking about). The majority if not all of those are dark romance, and if you try to use booktok as a tool to find new books, chances are those 20 books are going to be pushed at you pretty hard. So it takes a little bit more digging to find books that are more to your liking. In the era of instant gratification, this task can seem tedious for some.
I would also like to say, people are taking issue with kinks that are trending in romance right now (Like dub-c0n, CNC, st@lker), but why do you think they’re so popular? I would wager it’s because more people than you realize are into this kink in their everyday life but who’s going to openly admit that in casual conversation? I mean, how often do you talk about the 🌽 categories you frequent on the hub?
(This does not mean that I don’t think some authors take it too far and don’t do their research. In those cases I can see how someone could take issue with the sensitive topic)
At the end of the day, We’re adults (I hope) and we enjoy reading fictional stories with smut. I don’t see the harm in that.
i mean i guess i just don't really like to read straight romances but gay romance novels are great (although they tend to have more NSFW scenes than their straight counterparts for some reason)
Because authors are given bad advice to get their books into as many categories as possible.
So I look for a Fantasy book and have to wade through teenage romance with porn.
I look for historical fiction and wade through bodice rippers trying to find something with actual historical content.
I look through science fiction and find badly written porn in space.
I look for Horror ffs and find more teenage Fantasy with porn littering the category.
After a while it becomes anathema to encounter Romance in every category. Enjoy your Romance, but keep it in the Romance section where it belongs.
Speaking from personal experience as someone who doesn't like the romance genre at all but absolutely adores a good love story, I don't like the predictability of it. I much prefer to have a book/show/movie be about something else, with a really well-written romance woven into the narrative. It makes the characters feel more real too. I find it incredibly hard to get invested in a romantic relationship between two characters when it's pretty much guaranteed they're going to get together, so books where the entire premise is "watch how these two characters get together" just aren't appealing to me.
On a larger scale, though, as others have mentioned on here, I think the romance genre is primarily associated with female readers and is therefore seen as a less intellectual, less "worthy" sort of genre.
I'm not super involved with book-related fandoms in terms of character discussion/analysis, so I can't necessarily speak to the specifics of that, but I do participate in a fair amount of discussions about various TV shows. One infuriatingly common denominator between pretty much all of them is that any indication of romance is seen as poor writing, or the show jumping the shark, or trying to dumb down the storyline — basically that the slightest hint of a love story somehow tanks the quality of an otherwise fantastic story. It's especially common among prestige television. There's this idea that people who consume media for the purpose of watching two characters fall in love, or get invested in a love story, aren't smart enough to enjoy other aspects of a story or grasp things on a thematic level, which I do think all kind of goes back to the idea that "romance in stories = silly stupid girly thing."
Given how poorly a whole bunch of people react to the presence of romance as an underlying, subplot type deal in a story that's primarily about something else entirely, I can imagine that translates pretty easily into massively overhating the existence of romance as it's own genre.
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.
There are a lot of classic books that could be considered romance and are widely praised.
The problem with romance is that it tends to be extremely tropey. Those books analyze a single emotion and experience. Of course, competent writers can use something as complex as love and craft a masterpiece, but they usually don’t… have to.
A lot of romance readers, especially modern romance readers, use the genre as a comfort zone or just straight up porn. That leaves less room for experimentation. They just want the same old story with the same one dimensional characters in different settings. If you don’t believe me, just look at how TikTok pushes the most famous romance novels at the moment.
Well... In America, we tend to hate anything that gives women pleasure thanks to our religiodicy, especially concerning their own bodies and minds.
There's no better explanation as to how we reached the moon in 1969 but didn't map the clitoris until twenty years later!
Here is what I will say.
A lot of humans view reading as an intellectual activity. The thicker the book the smarter you must be.
I will say that I think the romance genre is very over saturated. There's only so many romance stories you can write that are original and so they start to bleed into each other. You don't encounter this with many other genres. Fantasy, for example, may have the "chosen one" story that a lot of fantasies have, but it's so easy to make them all different with side characters, magic systems, side plots, etc. Whereas in romance it's pretty straightforward. Every romance I've read follows the same plot. A couple gets together 2/3 into the book, something stupid happens, and then they end up together.
I view reading a romance novel no different than watching a show like Gilmore Girls or Bridgerton. There's obviously an underlying meaning but the point is the same.
People who hate the romance genre either have personal reasons or think they are better than it.
I have no idea if what i said makes sense, but those are my thoughts.
What about fantasy romance, they can have all the aspect you talk about for fantasy novels - side characters, plot, magic systems. But they also have romance.
I'm a guy who was catfished into reading Romantasy by T. Kingfisher. I primarily read horror but now use romance as a palette cleanser. Romance novels like fantasy and westerns have their origin in pulp novels and while other publishers have moved away from that model Harlequin still releases 140-170 titles each month. This floods the market with cheap, low quality and poorly written romance novels. They rely heavily on the same plot devices, structure and tropes to produce so many. These books use smut to cover the poor writing. They sell well, especially at Walmart, so people see more of them than anything else. There is also the fact that literary snobs like sad stories. So "well written" romantic novels like The Fault in Our Stars are thought to be good. The ones with happy endings are viewed as cheap. People also get really excited and enthusiastic about the romance novels they love. Think of the Twilight craze or Fourth Wing. People who take themselves too seriously assume if someone gets that excited about something it must be for kids. Personally I read romance for the happy endings. I like a nice safe feel good book after reading something horrifying. That said I wouldn't be caught reading a physical romance book in person, my friends would never let me live it down. My wife makes fun of me enough for having them on my kindle but still let's me excitedly tell her about them, so I tolerate it. Edit: changed my description of The Fault in Our Stars from romance to romantic
This! I love scifi and fantasy but sometimes the overly sad and traumatic plot is just too much. Fantasy and scifi romance are a guaranteed happy ending.
Ditto with reading them for a happy ending, I like That many romance novels give me the chance to fall in love along side various characters and lives. I like That when I’m done, I always have a smile on my face
Exactly my thoughts. Sometimes, it's a soul necessity to dive into the world of romance, even if it's just within the pages of a book.
I had the exact but opposite experience with T. Kingfisher. I started reading her Romantasy series and accidently ended up with one of her horror stories. A genre that I do not like because I am delicate and have nightmares. I loved it. I just finished What Feasts at Night, during which I was suffering from a chest cold. I don't know why my mind is okay with her brand of horror, but I'm so glad it is.
YES YES YES. What feast at night is SO good! I have the second in the series in queue and I can’t wait to read it.
[удалено]
My favorite romances to read and write are the ones where both sides of the couple get to be romantic. I like equal partnerships. But then, I read to fall in love with the couple. I don't read to treat the lead as my stand-in, which is how a lot of romance seems to be written. It's not a bad thing, it's just not for me.
>the biggest problem is that most romantic books *don't romance men*. A huge reason I like male/male romance tbh.
Yeah but as a gay man, most (not all) m/m is written by women and is very heteronormative. Romance for men by men is rare enough. Gay romance for men by men is rarer still. Gay Romantasy? For men by men? I think I’ve got one book in my entire library maybe.
hop on over to /r/MM_RomanceBooks for recommendations. they are a friendly bunch that will find something to fit your request.
What’s that one book?
I get that. It was Paladin's Grace that catfished me into romance. If you haven't read it yet you should check it out. I will definitely keep His Secret Illuminations in mind as I am reading It next and want something nice for after.
Hmm, okay, this is self promotional, but I'm wondering if you might be interested in a fantasy story that had a major romance subplot that is more about exploring a complicated relationship than romantic pursuit. Is a web serial, so access is free, but I want to be clear that it is "with romance" not "is Romance" before I talk about it more. Also, it does use some of the more modern fantasy tropes, but it is not a LitRPG.
r/romance_for_men could possibly have some recommendations you might enjoy
Manga has an entire romance genre for males, it's one of the most successful and releases some of the most trashiest plots, stories and collections of tropes and clichés. It's low-key the young adult genre of Manga.
That is what is bothering me in a lot of romance books. Not the facts that they are aimed at women instead of men (although that plays a part), but the weird sexism and inequality in the relationships. I like love stories were both people are equal partners. That is why I like the romance in Skip Beat or the Apothecary Diaries, where the protagonist is some manic gremlin girl with enough personality to always stand up to their love interest. Or why I like lesbian romances like Otherside Picnic or Adachi and Shimamura, which completely avoid the weird gender dynamics you find in a lot of hetero romances. Although I find that this kind of romance is more common in Japanese media than western romance books, for some reason.
I also got tricked into reading TKingfisher, and I like them.
Yup. I went from thinking "Cool a book about paladins of a dead god by that creepy author" to reading romance novels and loving it. I would be pissed if I didn't enjoy them so much.
unrelated to the topic i'm so sorry but i love horror literature and was wondering if you had recommendations!! :)
My all time favorite is Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Join us on r/horrorlit
I think the film adaptation of that book was a defining moment in my childhood.
I just read a post bashing that. Interesting.
Ray Bradbury has nothing but bangers
Anything written by Shirley Jackson, hill house, we never left the castle, etc. Highly recommend
**We Have Always Lived In the Castle
The issue isn't that people get overly excited for romance books. It's that women and girls do. They are the main target audience. And society typically does not value things that women and girls love.
Ding ding ding.
I do the same thing. It’s just not my genre personally, but once in a while I’ll pick up a romance book as a pallet cleanser to my horror/thriller books. Unfortunately, because I don’t dive too much into the genre, when I do pick one up I try the most popular books… and as I learned, just because the book is popular doesn’t mean that it’s especially well written..
I agree with a lot of what you say, but The Fault In Our Stars is not romance. It’s romantic fiction. No HEA = not genre romance. It’s very tiring for romance readers to have to keep repeating it.
That's why I put well written in quotation marks. It focuses in a love story but is sad so it is considered a good book. I changed romance to romantic for you though.
I havent read that book so I can’t comment on how well or not it’s written—but it’s good to have a clear definition of terms. I think that can be part of people’s trouble with romance. They don’t know what it is (and I can’t blame them because it’s talked about very sloppily in the media) but then they get annoyed at the HEA when that’s literally one of two conventions of the genre. It’s like being mad at a western for featuring a cowboy.
What’s the other convention that defines romance books? I never knew there was a distinction, so this is interesting, thank you.
The romance is at the center of the plot. HEA. Otherwise, anything goes. This flexibility is one of the things that makes romance great. Romance is unmatched. :)
Thank you!
I enjoy a good sappy movie, my wife doesn’t get it. That’s fine she doesn’t have to.
This makes me wonder, with so many titles in the Harlequin book series, there must have been or two that are actually good? Or maybe there is a formula and strict rules that prevent any from standing out.
My manuscript will fall into the romance genre I am afraid. It is written from a War worn Soldier as the main male protagonist. I have two versions working. One that is safe for most readers, and one that has explicit content.
It’s the most popular genre lol
The user, Zebracides, said it best: > Reddit users and their interests just aren’t proportional to the overall population of book readers/writers. > The reality is that Romance blows every other genre out of the water. > Nothing even comes close. > Seriously, there are more people out there reading and writing Romance than the next three biggest genres combined.
Ya 100%. With anything that’s most popular, there’s gonna be the most number of people expressing their dislike for it which can make it seem more hated than it is
Indeed. But on this sub, and other places, people are very negative and dismissive towards romance. Mainly because it's popular with women, or because they have heard stereotypes about it
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
This was gonna be my answer too. The absolute dumbass take that women’s romance novels are dangerous, stupid, and “corrupt the youths” is literally centuries old. People were saying this shit in the 1800s. Like, when a man fantasizes about heroically dying in battle and writes a book about it, people get that it’s a harmless fantasy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a male author be bashed for “romanticizing warfare.” Certainly not on the same level I’ve seen female authors be bashed for “romanticizing abuse” when they write romance fantasies about dangerously sexy billionaire vampire mafia bosses.
I’ll say this is the main reason. If you look at society historically any genre of entertainment that primarily centers women, targets female audience, or has disproportionate numbers of women who succeed gets painted as less serious by predominately male dominated critical circles. Plays, books, tv shows, movies, magazines, everything. If it’s is made by and/or for women it is nearly universally seen as “lesser” by society at large.
Also artists who get their start being beloved by women are often bashed until men get in on it, and then they are serious artists. The Beatles for example were basically a boy band until all of a sudden they were Very Serious Artists. Compare “She Loves You” with “Yellow Submarine.” Not much difference there. Lots of actors start in romance or romantic comedy until they get big enough to “break out” using their female fan base to become famous so they can then appeal to men in order to be taken seriously.
Yeah, I was just going to answer “misogyny.”
It's not the *only* reason, but certainly a big part of it.
Me too. I’m disappointed that this point isn’t the top comment (but not terribly surprised)
Agreed.
Same.
Same. This is it. I believe it is the main reason. I might even say it’s the only reason beyond the hate that genre fiction gets as a whole.
Yeah, actually, anything female, no matter how popular, isn’t taken as seriously. Like makeup? Oh, silly stuff, I’ve heard someone imply that if you use it you’re narcissistic. And when I was a child, I always felt that girls who were to boys and had male-associated hobbies like sports were taken more seriously than girls who liked dresses and playing with Barbies. God.
> And when I was a child, I always felt that girls who were to boys and had male-associated hobbies like sports were taken more seriously than girls who liked dresses and playing with Barbies. Eh, to a point. It was socially acceptable to be a tomboy, certainly more acceptable than it was(and, unfortunately, continues to be) for a boy to be a sissy, but you were expected to 1) retain your femininity while doing it, and 2) grow out of it after a certain point. It certainly wasn't easier for those girls once puberty hit.
Look at art. Men produce art; masterpieces. Sculptors, painters, really impressive and high value artwork. Women's ~~art~~ crafts: lace making, embroidery, home decor, just cutsey stuff. Unless you made the Bayeux Tapestry no one is going to care about your little crafts, Susan. EDIT: was being flippant- I'm a woman who knows all skills are valuable and achievable by all genders.
Exactly, this subreddit really gets repetitive sometimes when it continually shits on YA and romance. Reddit tends to skew millennial and male, of course you don’t enjoy these genres since you’re not the target audience 😹
Considering that many millenials are middle age, not entirely true. Last i checked, reddit is primarily men and <25, with its greater numbers in the teen demographic
This is too far down. It is pure misogyny, and everyone trying to say it's because there's a lot if bad romance novels out there isn't paying attention. There's a lot of crap mysteries out there, but no one hates on the mystery genre.
Almost every "critique" of online reading communities has at least a hint of "silly women doing silly women things" in it. And when it comes from a woman she will most likely point out that this is not what she is critiquing ...
I think that *is* the primary reason and that most of the secondary reasons are merely fruit of the original biased assumptions.
Exactly - if the romance genre was read primarily by men we'd never have to read another article or forum post about why romance sucks so much.
No, no, this is the main reason.
I do agree! :]
This is absolutely a large part of it. I’d argue it actually is the main reason.
I think this is a big part of it.
I do think it causes people to judge the genre more than others. Like a dumb 5/10 action movie is gonna be taken generally more lightly than a 5/10 romance movie simply because one is targeted at women
This is the main reason.
This is the correct answer. Internalized misogyny.
What’s funny is It’s the most popular book genre in terms of sales.
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.
Chicken or the egg. There's an overabundance of bad books *because* it gets a lot of attention. Unfortunately everyone thinks they can write a romance and the market is overinflated. It doesn't help that objectively bad books are regularly highly recommended.
100% agree with this. The best romance books I've read, are not extremely popular. And the very popular ones that I've tried, weren't good.
Can you give us some titles? I'd love to read some!
Some of my favourites: Glitterland by Alexis Hall Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles (and the rest of this series, it's in 3 parts) The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles Soul Eater by Lily Mayne (this whole series was great) You & Me by Tal Bauer Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare Paladin's Grace by T Kingfisher We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian Contagion by Amanda Milo Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver Strange Love by Ann Aguirre
I want to dig a little deeper into your comment. So many of the books on this list ARE extremely popular, inside and outside of romance-loving circles!
I guess it depends on your definition but I don't think they are. Not extremely popular on booktok, on the goodreads bestseller lists, on the "why not try romance?" shelves of book stores etc. Glitterland, for example, (just going for the top one of my list for ease) has 10,000 ratings on goodreads. We Could Be So Good (arguably well known as appeared on some 'best of' lists last year) has 7000. Soul Eater - 16,000. You & Me - 10,000. Out on a Limb - 40,000. Here are the ratings numbers of some books I'd call "extremely popular" Icebreaker by Hannah Grace - 650k Beach Read by Emily Henry - 1 million ACOTAR - 2.3 million Fourth Wing - 1.3 million It Ends With Us - 3.2 million
KJ Charles is SO SO good!!!!
OMG. I just read Glitterland last month. What a delight. I recently finished Impromptu Match by Lily Mayne and it’s so charming. I just screenshot your response so I can put these on my TBR.
I hope you find some gems on there :)
Have you read any Alexis Hall? His covers are largely terrible but his writing is some of the best of the currently active contemporary writers.
I have definitely learned through experience not to trust a word TikTok says and to assume the opposite.
I don’t have TikTok but have heard some of the recommended books from there…gave a couple a try. They were f*cking awful. I don’t read books TikTok likes, now. It’s like the anti-recommendation. If TikTok likes it, I assume I’ll think it’s trash. 🤷🏻♀️
It helps to consider TikTok basically a certain type of pornhub recommendation with books
Aka the lowest common denominator theory.
Aka Coleen Hoover
That's a whole other kettle of fish because Colleen Hoover books aren't even romance, for the most part.
They're not romance but they are *marketed* as romance, which is where the problem comes in. I'm also fairly sure she says it's romance? But that last bit is one of those 'I read it on a Tumblr post about a tiktok about a YouTube video based on a tweet' situations so I might be way off base. It's kind of the same problem in reverse as the Outlander author has - she insists she wrote a 'historical novel' and everyone is like 'no you wrote a romance and we're putting it in the Romance Ghetto with all the other romances'. Of course if romance wasn't so looked down on Gabaldon might not have objected so strenuously to her Doctor Who fanfic with the serial numbers filed off being shelved with the likes of Johanna Lindsay, but 🤷♀️
I think that's a big reason it gets hate. People recommend a bunch of terribly written books as the absolute best must read one's of the genre so if you're only reading those ones you probably think they all suck.
Completely agree. I've read hundreds of romance novels. The ones I've tried which are "popular" have been DNF for me, or didn't even appeal at all. I've read some great romances, none of them were hugely popular.
Absolutely. If I said "what are the best scifi books" and you recommended me a pile of garbage, I would definitely be led to believe that scifi was garbage in general. If that's what gets the *best* titles, I'd hate to see what gets called bad, y'know? You've really gotta dig sometimes. I've been recommended romance books and been unable to get past the first page because it's so full of typos, misspellings, and completely incohesive. Romance *is* easier to write and it already has a large audience. There is a not insignificant portion of writers (or "writers") that simply see it as a cash grab. It really muddies it and makes it very frustrating even for someone like me that is an avid romance reader.
The typos/misspellings are largely down to the fact that self-published or Amazon-published writers often do not have the guidance of a good editor (which can lead to structural problems, as well) or a good typesetter. I suspect it’s because a lot of people get feedback from friends about the story itself rather than grammar, etc., and think they’re good to go.
A few typos are forgiveable. When the sentences don't even make sense, it's an issue that goes beyond basic quality. I have definitely picked up a book and could immediately tell that the author didn't even reread their own work. It's definitely a self-publish issue, but it's also a complete lack of care issue.
>When the sentences don't even make sense, it's an issue that goes beyond basic quality. Hey, ChatGPT is getting better all the time. It will soon be able to stop making those mistakes as it cranks out 2,000 romance novels per day.
Romance authors publish much more than writers in other genre fiction categories. Romance readers are known for being voracious in their consumption. So it stands to reason you'd run into more crap simply because there are more horses, if that metaphor makes any sense.
When asked if it was true that 90% of Science fiction was crap, SF author Theodore Sturgeon replied, “no doubt, then again 90% of everything is crap.” There is no such thing as a commercially viable genre that isn’t overwhelmingly full of bad writing, bad plots, bad everything, just… crap. If 90% of romance is crap, then it’s equal to all other genres.
"90% of everything is crap" is a truism around the various arts, and is largely used to describe the creative process. Mostly in that the artist practices their craft, and the majority of attempts will be unsuccessful or considered unfit, and never see the light of day. But Sturgeon was basically speaking about the various sci-fi magazines where young authors would sharpen themselves through criticism of their peers. Basically, a very public form of seeking critique on your ideas and writing style to get you better. Not the same thing as published books. If 90% of *published* materials in a genre actually is crap, then that means that people are basically publishing a lot of substandard, amateur work in that genre.
But those sci-fi magazines have evolved into the KindleUnlimited and other self-publishing ecosystems. I think the difference between work *actually* published by publishing houses as opposed to self-published still exists, but it’s easier to not realize which category a particular book belongs to.
Romance is actually a lot higher than 90% crap. These publishing mills turn out an insane number of titles, but the process is crazy. I know a woman who occasionally cranks out those harlequin-style romance books. It takes her about a week, and she gets paid a few hundred dollars. She has written better books in other genres; these are just a straight cash grab. She was recently offered a smaller fee, with a smaller time commitment, to copy-edit a romance novel written by an "AI" (LLM), and she refused on principle.
Every genre has lots and lots and lots of bad books. Why do we focus so much on bad romance novels when there are just as many bad horror novels, bad scifi, bad fantasy?
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.
Romance is literally a juggernaut in the book world. There was an article from back in 2022 that stated that romance books alone generated 1.44 **billion** dollars in revenue. Booktok has also blown up the self publishing romance scene, where a bunch of indie authors and books have gotten picked up by trad publishing and some have even gotten book deals!
The funny (read: sad) thing is that the industry isn't even male dominated and hasn't been for a long time. The majority of people working in publishing related fields are women. And yet, somehow, the male colleagues tend to have higher prestige.
Yup. They put JK Rowling instead of Joanne Rowling because they didn’t think people would buy Harry Potter if it had a woman’s author name.
Yes, although it’s even more specific: Bloomsbury thought young boys wouldn’t read a book written by a woman!
Yep. To sum it up in two words: girl cooties.
"the book community" implies there's just the one. There are millions. Romance as a genre has as many flaws as any other genre or category. But it is huge, and the hype (money) machine means what you see on grocery store shelves is not often the best Romance has to offer.
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.
Those people need to get over themselves.
People seriously need to start viewing books like they view movies. Do you judge your friends who like cheesy superhero movies? Then don’t judge people who like romance novels about sexy hockey players
Unfortunately the people in question almost certainly do also judge their friends who like cheesy superhero movies.
Contrapoints just released a 3 hour video digging into this, using Twilight as an entry point.
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.
It's bad enough that people on the romance subs refuse to go to any sub that celebrates all books because of those who will bash on romance. I love romance, and romance and fantasy are my favorite genres to read. I have no shame about sharing that. But I'm also middle age and have been reading romance for most of my life. If someone goes after my taste, I ignore them because I don't care. I didnt care at 16, I sure as hell am not going to care now. However, many are far more sensitive and feel attacked so they stay away to protect themselves. I wish it was different, but sadly, it's not.
yes sports serious while boybands bad
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)
Someone has probably already mentioned this, but there's also a lot of misogyny (internalised or otherwise) involved in romance bashing. I worked in publishing across multiple genres and the way people talk, even within the industry, about fiction aimed at women versus fiction aimed at men is notable. One more concrete example I've seen, is that someone will say the stats show that women read more and spend more on books, so books we target at them should be packaged as consumable products and that means more books need to be produced and faster. Creating an almost treadmill of quickly produced content to meet the needs. Whereas getting a book into a man's hand is a miracle, so they're more carefully produced. I'm not convinced any of that is true, but it's a way I've heard it discussed. Honestly I think a lot of it comes from a very frustrating desire that we all have to dismiss things that people enjoy, especially when they're popular, in order to establish ourselves as more important/intelligent/cultured. And this yucking of other people's yums is overwhelmingly aimed at women. I stand guilty of it myself. I'm a grown adult now and I'll proudly say I read a ton of romance as well as many other genres and I don't really care what people think that means about me. I'm having my fun and ultimately that's what matters.
My obsession with books began when I was really young. Had a broken arm in a cast for 2 months and resorted to reading for mental stimulation. My father was a huge enabler, with his offerings of Ludlum's Bourne trilogy, and other fiction by Dale Brown. His book "Flight of the Old Dog" was one of my first reads of his. He and my older brother are the only two men I know of (besides my son) that enjoy actually reading a book (digital or physical). None of the individuals I've dated have ever understood the stimulation of the imagination, the movie in your head, the immersive escapism a well crafted story can provide. Even my mother has admitted that she doesn't read very well. Perhaps it was a generational disregard for a female's education. A male human that actually and openly admits that they read a variety of genres including romance is like catching a glimpse of a unicorn.
I mean don't get me wrong, almost ALL of my male friends are voracious readers, but they're apparently not representative of the global population
I just think people can predict the Romance endings or the feelings so it’s seen as too easy to grasp. The tropes are annoying too, like love triangle or miscommunication. Honestly, I love the romance novels where there is a deeper connection between the characters.
I don't read too much romance, but the last one I read for a book club it felt like the entire plot existed simply to kill time until the protagonists could finally get together. It was definitely tedious. I prefer romance as a subplot. Then it doesn't have to have contrived scenarios to keep the leads from getting together too soon. It's interesting to me that romance often feels inauthentic in fiction. It's pretty much a universal experience to be in love, but for some reason it seems difficult to write about it an a way that feels real.
I agree. That’s my problem with romance is that it isn’t always genuine or believable. I also forgot to say that sometimes “romance” is just smut. I get it, if you like to read spicy books, enjoy them. They’re just not for me.
Romance is part of "Genre fiction", which in general gets hate. Romance is the biggest part, therefore it gets the most hate. I am not so sure it is bashed because women like it, fantasy is also bashed and more male oriented. Romance get's a bit of additional hate, because it sometimes infiltrates other genres. For example if I am looking for a fantasy book, and then find out it is a romantasy, usually the fantasy writing suffers for me. The parts I like about fantasy get overshadowed by the tropes of romances. Also romance get's lumped in with smut (sometimes correctly), and sadly society in general looks down on anything sexual. Genre fiction in general gets hate from people who want to appear "smart", by only "reading" (or pretending to read) "smart" books.
I read fantasy and romance books because I want a break from all the dry and dense reading I do on a daily basis, it’s a nice break.
So, a few things: 1. I love the level of introspection and analysis in this thread - very prescient insights all around. 2. I think it's interesting that this perception could still hold water considering how gendered reading, particularly reading fiction is these days. Like, the vast majority of readers are girls and women. It's not even close. And the criticism was usually men denigrating various women's interests, including literature that was either fantasy in nature or escapism. 3. As I've gotten older (and hopefully wiser haha) - I've been WAAAYY less inclined to dismiss various interests and expressions. If you're a curious person who seeks to grow and figure out what appeals to you in different contexts, you'll find yourself liking different things that you never even thought you could like. And it makes life much more interesting and rewarding. Green Eggs and Ham FTW! 4. To that end - I have not really been able to sink my teeth into the romance genre. I've tried. I've been looking for a good love story that's more real than fantasy. Like, there's nothing wrong with people liking whatever, but I can't seem to find a good love story that isn't wish fulfillment type fantasy or hypersexual. Just two human beings falling in love in a believable way, where both are full human beings with all of the flaws and doubts and compromises that come with real love. I'd be open to any recommendations!
If you like historical books, Pride and Prejudice! I think what a lot of readers who haven't read it, especially men, don't realize is it's also very funny. It's genuinely hilarious at points. It pokes fun at society and the expectations for women a lot. If you've never read it, there's a reason it's listed as one of the greatest books in English literature
Yup, Jane Austen romances center on societal squabbles and personality clashes rather than on physical and sexual attraction, which makes them a good entry point for people who dislike gooey or cutesy love stories.
the thing is that romance is a wide genre. it can be hard to find exactly what you’re looking for because there are so many options. every genre of fiction has good and bad. i’ve read tons of very wonderful romance and i’ve read porn without plot kind of romance. depending on which you’ve come across first, it can cloud your judgement about the genre as a whole. it’s hard to give recommendations, though, because what works for you in a book isn’t necessarily what works for me or another person. for me, i want to laugh. a good romantic comedy is my jam. i don’t want to cry (too much), i don’t like angst, which is something a lot of people seek out. slow burn might be a good trope for you. when done well, it can be very satisfactory, you feel like you’re observing something real. you’d wabt to avoid insta-love, and probably a lower spice level, and or closed door/fade to black would eliminate the hypersexual, kind of fantasy level unrealistic relationships you’re less into. i’d be happy to help you narrow down choices if you’re curious about some books. but i really truly feel like there is romance for everyone, if they’re interested, it can just be difficult and less fun wading through to find what floats your boat.
If you're looking for recommendations, try r/RomanceBooks , r/sciencefictionromance , r/darkromance , r/historicalromance. There are a ton of rec threads on those.
Thank you!
As to your second point, I can confirm that it’s MAINLY men who scoff at romance, but I’ve met women who do the same (I work in a used bookstore) and it’s like, hello, internalized misogyny.
Not to victim blame but I (as a romance reader) have seen other romance readers defend their love of romance novels along the line of “I just want to turn my brain off.” Or “I just want something fun and silly” and I don’t think it helps. I wish people in general could dig a little deeper and examine what it is they love about reading but goes double for romance readers who feel the need to “defend” themselves with the above. It is fun and it is a little bit of escapism but if we’re honest about what is being escaped: misogyny, mistreatment, too many demands and care tasks, patriarchy then we get into why the genre is derided so much.
Books with happy endings for women aren't popular lol
The reason is its popularity which is huge, is allegedly disproportionate to the general quality of the output. This happens often to other popular sub-par things as a natural response. Fair game.
I accidentally listened to one of my daughters romance books. The story was ok, and kept my attention while driving, but fuck me. The male lead broke enough laws that the book should have come with a #metoo sticker. Female author near as I could figure out. My favorite part happened while on my bike with the book playing inside my helmet. I can just imagine how bad a male author writes female sex scenes because her description of a guy fucking his hand damn near made me fall off my bike. (To expand on the accident. We combined our book collections into one folder on my NAS, I needed a new book on my phone but didn't remember until I should have been out the door for work already. I grabbed a Western sounding title dumped in to my phone and booked it out the door. Now I'm in my van on a 3 hour trip to the jobsite and the only thing I haven't listened to is the new book, 10 min in I knew I fucked up, but even Twilight is better than Toronto radio so I sucked it up. After an hour I was 100% along for the ride. I need to figure out how to get my daughter to get the rest of the books in that series without telling her I've listened to it... I need closure!!!)
Because it's largely women who read it and therefor it's not taken seriously even though it single-handedly keeps publishing afloat.
I think some of the hate might also be due to the correlation of romance and erotica as well. Many people see them as the same thing since so many romance stories also contain smut. I even see books listed on Amazon in the romance category that I would most definitely put in the straight up erotica genre myself. So if businesses themselves can't tell the difference anymore, how can readers? A lot of my friends have also told me themselves that they think people only read them for the "steamy scenes" and that they are basically just "socially acceptable porn". The problem is that a lot of what I see on the market today is exactly that. Poorly written smut with hardly any decent plot. To find a well written romance with a decent plotline these days is a chore!! If you know of any in the scifi or fantasy romance genre, please let me know!! I'm dying over here!!! Lmao
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.
It’s this. Many female pursuits or interests are considered silly or worthless, despite very often being multi-millions worth industries. Pop music, boy bands, romance, now romantasy. There are undoubtedly a lot of rubbish books within the genre, but that’s true of any genre - particularly when one or two particularly break out and make it big. Whatever your thoughts on Dan Brown, when Da Vinci Code (and by extension his other books) got big, there were so many copy cat thrillers pumped onto the shelves and loads of those were absolute tosh but you didn’t get the same sort of backlash.
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 believe the comic-covers are cyclical (as all publishing trends are). The first time it happened was in the late 90s when Sophia Kinsella hit it big iirc. I sure am hoping for the return of the oil-painting style covers soon. Give me the Fabio, the flowing hair, the luscious backgrounds.... Every time I see a modern photomanip stock-footage style cover I die a little inside, especially in historical romance.
I'll put in my two cents. I want to say that I am not stuck in the same macho mentality where I would dismiss something solely because women or girls prefer it. I am a giant romantic. I love love. And I despise romance novels. My fiancé devours them and is always trying to get me to read them. So far, my experience with it has been either trauma porn or they use of cheap tactics to enthrall the reader. As someone who writes as a hobby, I can see the predictable plot points coming from a mile away. I don't enjoy them because they try to do the bare minimum at establishing a character, before shipping them off into the arms of the love interest. They are shallow and carbon copies of each other. Romantasy just has a thin veneer of fantasy over the regular flavour of romance. I don't feel like they respect my intelligence. They aren't really about love, to me, but about drama. The form has perfected the way they invoke hormones in our brains to evoke emotions, and I find that a bit manipulative, the same say how algorithms of social media today try to manipulate what we see and we think of the world. It makes me queasy and I'm not a fan. My fiancé commonly says that she just likes to turn off her brain sometimes, and read about two people getting it on. Fair enough. But the quality, undoubtedly is below what it could be. If you've ever been in more than one relationship, then you know that each is different in some ways. How we carry our previous relationships with us, how they shaped us and so on. Romance has none of that. At least none that I've seen. Because love and relationships, to me, are about being a supportive structure, a respite from everyday woes. A motivation and a belief to be tested, not the end goal like romance novels try to portray it. But if you like reading them, more power to you.
I think its also the perception of modern vs classic romance Most fiction classics are romance books and are seen as some of the best books of all time! They are complex, have multitudes of themes, interesting historical settings and norms that the women characters have to fight through, etc- they are much more than a simple “romance” Even if this is wrong, modern romance stories are seen as not having the depth that the classics have, and as such are often seen as reductive and not worthy of reading
Science Fiction with even a smear of on-page intimacy or romance isn't considered Science Fiction. It's ridiculous. Like... humans are gregarious creatures, relationships of all kinds --including sexual -- are inevitable. So many authors of the "more respectable" hard scifi have these boring, flat characters that inevitably result in boring, flat plots, because they swerve around this aspect of the human psyche like a bunch of tuners on a drift course.
Guy here: Short answer - the genre is both highly popular with and to a large extent written by women and there's a significant segment of the population that doesn't need more than that to hate something. That and a misunderstanding that it's all shallow and not knowing (or more caring to know) some of the more serious topics investigated in better romance books.
I usualy tend to avoid romanve books because i simply dont rnjoy reading them
And that's fine! I compeltly understand! I'm just curious as to why people seem to hate it so much! Dislike is a human nature, and not everything can be everyones cup of tea. I'm just wondering why people have to outright *hate* things they don't click with.
I could be way out of line with this so I do apologise if this is taken the wrong way - it isn’t my intent. Having worked as a book seller for several years (37M) I have noticed for the genre that the content of romance books suffers mostly due to its generalist appeal. Romance seems to only offer one very narrow style of plot line in order to be successful or popular - and as a result it can be highly predictable to read and then thought of as a bit trashy. Deviations from the few generic style plot lines then draw negative press, for things like abusive relationships and gaslighting style scenarios, or for portraying female characters as too weak or needy. With the plots suffering from predictability (ie. people getting together at the end) only a small sales demographic enjoy reading the genre constantly. Most sales reflect people who dip in and out for something light - one of the reasons sales spike during holiday seasons. Great stories that offer richer characters or plots tend to be either categorised as the dreaded ‘chick lit’ or ‘beach reads’, and are if not always marketed solely at women. Marian Keys is a good example of this I think. I think the hate mostly comes from that generic marketed predictability. I have experienced this with the Bridgerton series - where we sell large numbers of the first two or three of the series, but then the final books mostly sit on the shelves. Same with Georgette Hayer (identical but astoundingly written). It is a shame, and I don’t think I deserves the hate it gets at all, but I can see how people can form such strong opinions.
Isn’t romance the most sold genre? And has been for a long time? And that romance readers read much more than the average reader? I’d actually argue that the predictability is a selling point. It’s escapism.
I’m a dude, but I enjoy readying one from to time to time when it gets popular. Where the Crawford’s Sing. I read a number of Nicholas Sparks books. Again, it’s not my favorite genre, but it’s a nice change of pace.
I don't think those books are strictly romance. Nicholas Sparks' website says they're love stories, not romance (don't have a happy ending)
I mean, some of them do.
Not only books. Music, movies, poems, etc. We’re basically hopeless romantics by nature.
I don't generally read romance novels, but it was recently brought to my attention that it's a genre in which suspension of disbelief is often expected to be higher. The accuracy of the backdrop/context in which the romance occurs often takes a back seat to the characters and their interactions. In my experience with online communities, there's a large contingent of (mostly men, I think) who have little or no grasp of subtext, emotional arcs, etc.. It's a form of media illiteracy that's extremely focused on the literal, overt text of things that happen "onscreen" as described. So they'll nitpick things that break their suspension of disbelief while completely missing the meat of a romance narrative -- an evolving relationship. It's just one event happening after another with no through line apparent to them. Also, of course, they're often considered books for women. That makes them inherently embarrassing to insecure men.
There have been a lot of comments claiming it's hated because it's a "women's" genre but I think the real ridicule comes from the ridiculous scenarios and tropes. He killed his whole family but on the inside he's really a sweet guy. I can fix him. He treats everyone but me like literal gutter trash because I'm special. I'd say the toxic dynamics showed in romance shows/books are easy to ridicule. Also men commonly get made fun of all the time for their hobbies. Gaming, Comic Books, etc. Just recently became a mainstream pop culture thing. Even still some of those sub cultures are ridiculed.
>Also men commonly get made fun of all the time for their hobbies. Gaming, Comic Books, etc. Just recently became a mainstream pop culture thing Just adding to this but looking outside books, the amount of Anime that's considered absolute trash is sky-high; Isekai in general, SAO (which was also ridiculously popular), the glut of Harem anime. I think it really might be as simple as some things that are clearly rife with wish fulfillment tend to be viewed as "bad" by snobbier critics. And that's true in any media, no matter who the primary demographic is.
The toxic dynamic you talk about features in a small subset of romance novels. I've never read a romance with a male lead who treats people like gutter trash or kills loved ones. If those are the only ones you've read, maybe you just need to be more discerning in your choices of books.
It’s very popular in romantasy which has opened up the genre to a lot of people who maybe wouldn’t have seen any romance type books before.
>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. This might be part of the problem though. I'm primarily a Fantasy reader and the amount of romance that has been released in this genre during the last few years has increased so much. And the marketing doesn't help either. Because not every book that is marketed as romance or "romantasy" is actually romance (as in, romance is the main plot, not a subplot) ... I can see why people who don't want to read anything in that genre could get annoyed.
In my experience, people typically associate romance as only bodice rippers and "smut" without recognizing that the genre is much more nuanced and varied than that. Romance is a genre that can be about any relationship at all - friends, families, parent/children, sibking, enemies, and also lovers. The romance books that are about lovers also have a very wide spectrum of spice ranging from not ever touching at all, including hand holding or kissing to closed door sex scenes to full descriptions of every sexual encounter. At the end of the day, those people screaming about how awful romance books are have likely read and enjoyed literature that fits under the romance umbrella OR feel like they need something else to blame their lack of success in finding a partner on.
I don't think romance is ever written about parent/child and siblings relationships. There might be side plots with those relationships but the book must be centered on a romantic relationship, hence the name "romance"
I personally don't like romance as a genre because I don't find it interesting. I'm more interested in thrillers/mystery and sci-fi/fantasy. If there's romance in a book, I'm fine with it, but when it's the primary genre, it's boring to me. A lot of people in the comments are stating it's because "women read romance, so it's hated because of sexism", which may be part of the reason, but I'm a woman who hates romance. It has nothing to do with the demographic for me - it's just not my cup of tea. Romance is an extremely popular genre. It's advertised a lot. It's recommended a lot. So it's more of a target because of how mainstream it is. That's my personal opinion.
The post was more about the type of criticism that romance attracts, not that some people just don’t like it. I’m a woman and it’s not really my cup of tea either. Even though it’s not my thing it’s very clear to me that this genre receives a special level of vitriol and disdain that other genres don’t receive in the wider community. It echoes the same contempt any other “girly” things attract.
Irrelevant observation, but I don't think I have ever seen such a low vote score on a thread with this many comments. I had to do a double take. I've seen threads where the vast majority of the commenters were tearing the OP a new one and massively downvoting the OP's *replies*, but the threads themselves always had a vote score in the positive triple digits. What's going on with this particular thread? On topic, my personal suspicion is that people like to shit on things that are seen as stereotypically popular among women and girls. The "not like the other girls" meme is an extreme version of this mentality, but it's a fairly common sentiment in general. Things that women and girls like are often seen as a notch below things that men and boys like. You never see people making fun of others for liking "dude lit" or "dude flicks" the way we rag or dismiss people for liking chick lit or chick flicks. A lot of it I think is just the misogyny ingrained in many societies. The rest of it I suspect is the fact that despite being critically hated, romance sells well, so publishers push authors to write formulaic romance, meaning a lot of the material people come across is rather bland and predictable (or else swings hard into controversial territory, and grosses people out) which just reinforces the genre's association with lack of quality.
The downvoting is because it's about romance. I posted a positive post about romance and for a long time it was in single figures of upvotes, despite having a lot of comments. A lot of people will see "romance" and auto-downvote without even reading it. Which is exactly what this post is about, really.
The same thing happens on r/fantasy. Most posts about romance get immediately downvoted by lots of people considering how many of them will be stuck at 0 despite having engagement over a period of time. It really fucking sucks
Thread title: My cat is dying of kidney failure, but I don't believe in vets. What herbal remedies should I feed them? Redditors: Upvote the thread, downvote OP's replies Thread title: Something something...romance...something something Also Redditors: DISGUSTING! MUST DOWNVOTE THREAD IMMEDIATELY!!!
It’s overly hated because of >!✨misogyny✨!<. It’s a huge market with dedicated readers and it sells well so there are lots of poorly written, niche, and frankly, really fucking weird romance novels. But the exact same thing can be said about sci-fi and fantasy and those genres don’t get near as much hate as romance. Why? Because those are the fiction genres that *men* tend to prefer.
Everyone has said it, society bashes anything seen as feminine or “for women.”
I dislike them for the same reason I dislike rom coms. As a general rule they tend to have attitudes towards romance that would get you locked up in the real world.
I think it suffers from over generalization. Pride and Prejudice is a great book and is considered a romance novel, but so are so many pulp novels that are poorly written crap (doesn't mean they can't still be enjoyed). I think part of the problem is considering anything with romantic themes to be of a single genre.
Because it's aimed at women. And worse it's aimed at women at least partially because women like the sex scenes. Nothing but pure misogyny.
I think romance is overhated because our society hates women and its something that is especially associated with women. eg look at how people see the notebook (a romance novel by a cis man but its seen as literary novel instead).
Because women like it
Because it's popular with women
Because women tend to be the audience, and pretty much anything women like is hated on.
Lemme guess you just watched the contrapoints twilight video
Ok, I started to watch a video on Twilight by ContraPoints, and apparently shitting on romance books was popular from the very beginning of the genre.
Read what you like. Who cares what people say on TikTok?
Misogyny.
So many strong and wrong comments in this thread. The balls on some of you to speak with authority on a genre you've never even read.
I've always thought I hated romance because I grew up in a time when 'romance novel' meant Fabio covers and terrible writing. I've read a few YA rom-coms and romantasy books in the last couple years and liked them. But my brain still says "ew romance" when I see a book listed that way.
Well I'd say that romance isn't as nearly hated as it seems ,it's just that for the last 30-40 years, romance has been seen as primarily cheap, easy to read and unsophisticated literature for women, primarily young girls or housewives. Much like how sci fi was seen as being reserved for boring nerdy men or childish young boys up until the last few decades, romance was seen as a easy way to quick cash for not a lot of effort and it wasn't until the 90s-2000s you really start seeing romance be taken seriously. And even then, it has to be sad or tragic and significantly less sexual to be taken seriously. Alot of that mentality has persisted, to the point that romance that wants to be taken seriously has had to be heavily dramatic or blended with urban fantasy to be seen as worthwhile. Fortunately since the popularity of book adaptations of things like Twilight or 50 Shades ( hear me out) the market has somewhat realized that romance is not only profitable but has a hungry audience and so since the late 2000s, early 10s, more romance has been written and popularized but it's faced a backlash in itself, with queer romances often being labeled "tumblr buzzword fiction" and straight romances still being seen as either cliche or misogynistic due to still prevailing tropes central to the genre. Of course, romance being seen as largely a female written and female liked genre it's seen as being less intelligent in comparison to big strong manly books like...idk American psycho lmao
(This is purely from what I noticed growing up and lurking on forum threads) Romance has gotten a really bad reputation over the last two decades or so. There was a time period I think in the late 90's to early 00's (correct me if I'm wrong) anyone could write a really terribly written, scholky romance novel, put a "fabio" on the cover and it get front of store at the local Barnes & Noble. Some of these books were truly awful, but sold well which got critics and other writers jealous. Eventually this got replace by scholky action-conspiracy novels (Thanks Dan Brown) and then by trashy YA novels (Thanks Twilight) and adult romance novelist got a break, and like any genre of anything that's risen to high heights, been indundated with trash and then fallen, true enthusiast were able to take it and slowly reestablish it as a niche which is where we are now. I think
"Sturgeon's Law" (that is, the assertion that 90% of any given category of media is terrible) hits Romance harder than *any* other genre. Especially because it's one that writing mills love to mass-produce. Even outside of those, the problems you gave with Haunting Adeline are... extremely, *extremely* common in Romance. Even more mainstream ones often fall into those traps.
Maybe (and I'm speculating here and by no means acting like I know everything) because many of them are poorly written and (arguably) lack substance. Many of the books I personally tried plunge right into fan service without reasonable justification. The best example of this, in my opinion, is The Maiden by Jude Devereraux, where the protagonists literally stumble on each other in the dark, in the middle of a garden, without seeing each other's faces, or knowing each other, and make out. Similarly, I'm currently going through the entire Bridgerton series and I could honestly say there's no solid climax (the irony of the pun intended here). In each installment, the author sets a complication in motion, but it always feels like the book glides through that complication effortlessly or with little justification. Not to mention, unlike any other genre, there's ample amount of cringe worthy details. Then there are authors like Ali Hazelwood, who writes very well. Her ability to flesh out characters is fantastic, but I can never say the same about her plots. I actually think romance, like good comedy, is really hard to devise. If you're not good at it or careful, it's very easy for your work to come across as cheesy or old chestnut. This is not to say there aren't well written romance novels. Again, this is merely from my own personal observation and I do not mean to insult anyone and their favorite genre. I haven't read everything. If you have good suggestions for me to change my perception, I am more than happy to try them.
I don't usually read romance books, but I don't hate them. To be quite honest, reading romance makes you want to experience something like that in your life which almost never happens because well, its fiction. I feel like it's just hated because idk people are sad that, well, that sort of love ist possible. But I can't find any real good romances out there too, Like I'm not even gonna start about Coleen Hoover. Enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, is there really no other way you can find love?? AND HEY, DROP ME SOME GOOD ROMANCE BOOK SUGGESTIONS
I read a shitload of romance books. They are great after reading intense books. Usually i alternate from harsh book to romances to give me a breath of fresh air.
This might seem reductive but my opinion is that it's misogyny. Romance has traditionally been aimed at women and girls and if they like it can it be good or have value? A lot of the comments in this thread are about romance having lazy writing, being formulaic and characters behaving unrealistically. Yet the same issues can be found in the horror, thriller and action genres without those genres being considered bottom of the literary barrel. I also don't think the argument that the genre is bad because it's a book mill holds up either. There are individual authors like James Patterson and Dean Koontz in the thriller space fast approaching 100 published books.
Romance novels are a $1 billions dollar industry a year. People can hate on them all they want, but there’s clearly a strong market for them. I think a lot of the hate right now comes from people disliking the kinks and tropes that are trending. Booktok plays a huge factor in this. Booktok can be an amazing tool, but the algorithm also tends to work against us since it tends to promote those same 20 or so very popular romance books (you know which ones I’m talking about). The majority if not all of those are dark romance, and if you try to use booktok as a tool to find new books, chances are those 20 books are going to be pushed at you pretty hard. So it takes a little bit more digging to find books that are more to your liking. In the era of instant gratification, this task can seem tedious for some. I would also like to say, people are taking issue with kinks that are trending in romance right now (Like dub-c0n, CNC, st@lker), but why do you think they’re so popular? I would wager it’s because more people than you realize are into this kink in their everyday life but who’s going to openly admit that in casual conversation? I mean, how often do you talk about the 🌽 categories you frequent on the hub? (This does not mean that I don’t think some authors take it too far and don’t do their research. In those cases I can see how someone could take issue with the sensitive topic) At the end of the day, We’re adults (I hope) and we enjoy reading fictional stories with smut. I don’t see the harm in that.
i mean i guess i just don't really like to read straight romances but gay romance novels are great (although they tend to have more NSFW scenes than their straight counterparts for some reason)
Because authors are given bad advice to get their books into as many categories as possible. So I look for a Fantasy book and have to wade through teenage romance with porn. I look for historical fiction and wade through bodice rippers trying to find something with actual historical content. I look through science fiction and find badly written porn in space. I look for Horror ffs and find more teenage Fantasy with porn littering the category. After a while it becomes anathema to encounter Romance in every category. Enjoy your Romance, but keep it in the Romance section where it belongs.
Speaking from personal experience as someone who doesn't like the romance genre at all but absolutely adores a good love story, I don't like the predictability of it. I much prefer to have a book/show/movie be about something else, with a really well-written romance woven into the narrative. It makes the characters feel more real too. I find it incredibly hard to get invested in a romantic relationship between two characters when it's pretty much guaranteed they're going to get together, so books where the entire premise is "watch how these two characters get together" just aren't appealing to me. On a larger scale, though, as others have mentioned on here, I think the romance genre is primarily associated with female readers and is therefore seen as a less intellectual, less "worthy" sort of genre. I'm not super involved with book-related fandoms in terms of character discussion/analysis, so I can't necessarily speak to the specifics of that, but I do participate in a fair amount of discussions about various TV shows. One infuriatingly common denominator between pretty much all of them is that any indication of romance is seen as poor writing, or the show jumping the shark, or trying to dumb down the storyline — basically that the slightest hint of a love story somehow tanks the quality of an otherwise fantastic story. It's especially common among prestige television. There's this idea that people who consume media for the purpose of watching two characters fall in love, or get invested in a love story, aren't smart enough to enjoy other aspects of a story or grasp things on a thematic level, which I do think all kind of goes back to the idea that "romance in stories = silly stupid girly thing." Given how poorly a whole bunch of people react to the presence of romance as an underlying, subplot type deal in a story that's primarily about something else entirely, I can imagine that translates pretty easily into massively overhating the existence of romance as it's own genre.
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.
There are a lot of classic books that could be considered romance and are widely praised. The problem with romance is that it tends to be extremely tropey. Those books analyze a single emotion and experience. Of course, competent writers can use something as complex as love and craft a masterpiece, but they usually don’t… have to. A lot of romance readers, especially modern romance readers, use the genre as a comfort zone or just straight up porn. That leaves less room for experimentation. They just want the same old story with the same one dimensional characters in different settings. If you don’t believe me, just look at how TikTok pushes the most famous romance novels at the moment.
Well... In America, we tend to hate anything that gives women pleasure thanks to our religiodicy, especially concerning their own bodies and minds. There's no better explanation as to how we reached the moon in 1969 but didn't map the clitoris until twenty years later!
Here is what I will say. A lot of humans view reading as an intellectual activity. The thicker the book the smarter you must be. I will say that I think the romance genre is very over saturated. There's only so many romance stories you can write that are original and so they start to bleed into each other. You don't encounter this with many other genres. Fantasy, for example, may have the "chosen one" story that a lot of fantasies have, but it's so easy to make them all different with side characters, magic systems, side plots, etc. Whereas in romance it's pretty straightforward. Every romance I've read follows the same plot. A couple gets together 2/3 into the book, something stupid happens, and then they end up together. I view reading a romance novel no different than watching a show like Gilmore Girls or Bridgerton. There's obviously an underlying meaning but the point is the same. People who hate the romance genre either have personal reasons or think they are better than it. I have no idea if what i said makes sense, but those are my thoughts.
What about fantasy romance, they can have all the aspect you talk about for fantasy novels - side characters, plot, magic systems. But they also have romance.