In Defense of Romance Novels
Cliche, cringe-worthy, trashy, stupid, frivolous; romance novels have, over time, built a reputation as an unserious genre, just raunchy covers and brooding heroes concocted in order to appeal to female readers. However, are we right to completely discount a whole genre?
Romance novels are a billion dollar industry and the second largest category of fiction. Of their wide readership, around 90 percent are women. Additionally, in the genre, female characters and perspectives are often central. The pervasive stereotypes about the genre are that romance novels are not serious literature, instead escapist fantasies peddled to discontented women looking for more excitement in their lives. However, a closer examination of the genre reveals that it is more inclusive and deep than it seems and that the widespread stereotypes could just be another example of women’s interests being dismissed as unserious. For many years, women’s literature was met with disapproval or treated as foolish. The modern hatred of romance novels could be viewed as a continuation of that.
Although romance sometimes caters toward predominantly straight women, it is a broader genre than it seems and romance increasingly includes a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds. Not every novel is unserious, repetitive, or overly risque. As the genre changes and evolves, romance can become a place in which everyone is represented, nothing like the stereotypes.
The success of books like “The Kiss Quotient” by Helen Hoang, which features a protagonist with autism, shows romance’s potential to resonate with readers and challenges the stereotypical idea of a romance novel. Others, like “One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston highlight LGBT+ stories, making the genre more and more inclusive. “Normal People” by Sally Rooney, which was longlisted for the Booker prize and ranked 25th on the Guardian's list of the best 100 books of the 21st century, also shows the way that romance novels can gain critical acclaim and prove themselves to be serious literature worth paying attention to. None of these books look anything like the suggestive covers of Harlequin novels or pulp romance books. Yet, they still belong to the romance genre, proving the wide range of experiences, perspectives, and styles within the genre.
Like any genre, romance contains multitudes, both masterpieces that must be read and not-so-masterful books that are better left unread. Writing off a whole genre, especially one that is so inextricably tied with stereotypes about women, may not be the best idea.
