the ask@AAR: Why do YOU read romance?
A recent article in the Washington Post was titled Reading will supposedly make you a better person. That’s not the real reason to pick up a book. In it, the author wrote:
If you feel that reading fiction has made you a more empathetic person, that’s to your credit. But I wonder whether the emphasis on achievement that comes with all these studies and reading prescriptions is more off-putting than encouraging.
I confess I find such articles rather irrelevant given that I believe firmly–firmly!–that reading for pleasure is the reason to read.I don’t mind being improved by reading but that has never been my motivation in picking up a book. I read for comfort, for the thrill of being transported into worlds and minds other than my own, to assuage my endless curiosity about the other. I read to experience the power of art, to let the glorious heft of beautiful language pour over me.
Nowhere is this more true than when I read romance. I read romance for the hope it offers–yes, love is possible, yes, happiness is within reach–and for the sheer fun of it. Romance reminds me to savor the passion, compassion, and care in my life and to see those things as extraordinary gifts. I read for joy.
How about you? Why do you read romance?
I read romance because as Marie Kondo might say “It sparks joy” for me. Maybe because it’s the one genre (no matter how “dark” the romance is) that is truly optimistic. It says that people belong together and that being together makes each other happier, better people.
In the world today that’s often considered a naive, “simplistic” and unsophisticated view. As many others have eloquently said above, It’s not in fashion to have stories end happily. You won’t win prizes or acclaim for that kind of work-despite the centuries of great literature that does end on a joyous note.
Another big reason is because I naturally gravitate to a woman’s voice or point of view. It’s not a political statement -it’s just a preference since childhood. Even if I don’t know if the author is female or male, (or incorrectly assumed they were the opposite of what they identified as such as S.E Hinton) I am instinctively drawn to the female voice and perspective. Romance is the one genre and industry where women dominated and controlled it for so many years (which is why it was and still is derided and looked down upon by so many).
If my life was a cartoon, then I would be drawn standing in front of a group called Readers Anonymous saying, “Hi, I’m Still Reading, and I’m a compulsive reader.” The fact of my compulsiveness was driven home to me one time when I was driving along an interstate with another editor in the car. When we pulled off into a rest area, I made some comment about the tractor trailers we had seen on the road and speculated about the origin of one of the company names (Celadon, which recently went out of business abruptly). The other editor looked at me blankly and said she never noticed what was on the trucks. Huh, I thought. If there are words, I read them. Growing up in a rural area led me to read standard magazines, but also stuff like Hoard’s Dairyman, Farm Journal, Barron’s, my parents’ alumni magazine, and anything on offer at the dentist’s office. I read a lot of my dad’s New York Times, too. I was very curious, and there was no internet. I started reading teen romances, I think, and Emilie Loring in the 1960s My grandfather liked books by Gene Stratton-Porter and Robert Neill, among others, so I read them. The helpful bookmobile staff introduced me to Georgette Heyer. I read a lot of other fiction and history in high school, in college I mostly read assigned reading or science fiction. I got married young, and after graduation my husband subscribed to Analog, which broadened our science fiction reading and introduced me to Anne McCaffrey. Most of the rest of my reading in my 20s involved news or history. In my mid-30s, the obstetrician sent me home a few weeks before my second child was due with the admonition to be as sedentary as possible. A co-worker had introduced me to some steamy historicals a few years earlier, but we had both moved on to other jobs and I had been to busy to focus on books. On “doctors orders,” I went to K-Mart and bought a bunch of romances. That was in the mid-1980s and coincided with my switch to full-time SAHM. Since then, there have been very few days (other than about a year after my husband died) when I have not read a romance or reworked a romance plot in my head, because I stayed compulsive about reading even after I resumed working. I read nonfiction to satisfy my curiosity, some science fiction because it prods my curiosity, and romance because I find happy endings reassuring — even now, when I don’t have a partner. I also like romance because it has a lot of relatively short books. My compulsion to finish a book the day I start it does not fit well with longer books, although I do read a fair number of long historicals. Oh, and there was some academic who wrote about romance readers, back in the day, and was sniffily skeptical about the number of romances readers claimed to read in a day or week or whatever. I laughed myself silly because I thought she was clueless. I think at the time I was reading every Regency and contemporary series romance issued in a month and sold at Walden Books, except for the Harlequin Romance titles and Christian romances. I only managed to sustain that about a year and a half, and I slowed down about the time my husband stopped traveling so much. I also got interested in a new hobby, and was spending money differently. That led to years of purchases at used book stores, which gave me quite a collection of paperbacks. As a reader, I have learned a lot about the way certain authors structure their books by binge-reading 40 or 50 or more books in a row. I think I like reading about women. The lowest point in my reading life was a college course where all the assigned readings were male-coming-of-age books, with time out in class while the instructor read suggestive passages from novels that had been controversial for sexual content. Thinking back, all the writers mentioned or assigned in the class were white males. I wonder if that instructor would believe me if I told him some Harlequin Presents novel had given me some interesting insight into my own emotional life, or if he’d sit still to read half a dozen books written by women that explore issues of sexual harassment, unwed motherhood, economic insecurity, or grief and widowhood. First… Read more »
I would be in your tribe. I have never been able to enter a room without reading everything on the walls–my life is an almost nonstop awareness of words.
I love your insight about women’s stories. It’s one I feel strongly about. We are taught to revere endless male stories of violence, often against women and the disenfranchised, as though they are the lessons we should think most valuable. And then we wonder why we are inundated with guns and wars and cruelty.
Loved your contribution. So many of us have had reading lives akin to yours – that is to say we have shared a continuum of reading similar to yours that has grown and changed but had some much-loved and comforting constants. Oh how I loathed some of that “assigned reading” we had to do in high school or university but knowing that once I’d finished it, someone like Georgette Heyer was lurking in the bottom drawer of the bedside table just waiting for me to get into bed and drop into her world. Thank you for a lovely post and, I too, am Still (and Eternally) Reading. xx
I also read romance for balance. I am an environmental engineer and teach engineering at our local university and I live and breathe science and technology. Like you all, I read romance for that emotional uplift of happy endings and the joy from a book that delivers really, really good banter. I was introduced to romance in high school, by our neighbour who was an avid romance reader. Early on, I only read Harlequin Presents, which eventually I got very tired off. Then I discovered AAR, and the very first review I read was of a book by Melody Thomas, “Must Have Been The Moonlight” with a B+ grade. I bought it and I loved it and then I read through AAR top 100 and have never looked back.
Interesting. I was a huge reader as a kid/teen but didn’t really find my way to any “written for adults” romances until I came across someone’s Barbara Cartland collection while babysitting at about the same age, maybe 13? I now own the very first Cartland I read way back then; but at the time quickly decided romances weren’t for me after about the 8th or 9th title, and feeling like I was reading “the same book” over and over again. It never occurred to me to go looking for any other author because the common wisdom from the readers, teachers, and librarians I knew at the time (1970s) was that Cartland is what romances were.
It was literally decades later, in library school, when I was “required” to read a romance for a readers’ advisory class, that I read Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy. I haven’t looked back since. Of course, having access to information about what other people are actually reading and liking – and not just what is on bestseller lists or library shelves – is so much fun. Thanks AAR!
I’ve been romance-happy since I was around…gosh, thirteen? I’ve always been a romantic, and the books have always made me happy.
Twelve or thirteen for me as well – it seems to be a pivotal age for girls, especially, to find their way to romances.
I read Romance because I don’t have any romance in my life. It makes me feel romantic. ❤
I can’t think of a better reason!
Sheer escapism. I learn a lot reading romance but mainly I enjoy getting lost in someone else’s story. I have been amazed over the years at how the genre has grown and expanded- I have found myself embracing storylines that I wouldn’t have considered when I first started reading romance.
I read romance for the fun of it. I have clinical depression and a lot of life issues that make my life dark and challenging. Romance makes me feel good, offers me an escape, and often makes me laugh. I shop especially for romcoms, and avoid sub-genres like mafia romance, motorcycle romance, and BDSM romance. I read across many types of publishing; true crime, memoir/biography, suspense, thriller, etc. But it is always interspersed with romance of the lighter variety because they make me smile. And a smile is worth a million bucks in my opinion!
Kudos to you, KesterGayle!!
Thanks Elaine!
I read romance for pleasure—the positive experiences (healthy relationships, happy endings, and often humor) are harder to find in other genres. I started reading romance at a time when I needed to lighten up and the F&SF I had been reading for years was no longer mostly optimistic. (See http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/rdchoice.html for a slightly longer description.) I DO often learn from reading fiction, but any learning is a side-effect, not an objective.
Speaking of F&SF, there is actually a movement now toward upbeat and hopeful speculative fiction. Check out the “Solarpunk Movement” on World Weaver Press’s website as well as DreamForge Magazine.
The emotions induced!
Wow! Great comments everyone. It sounds like we have a lot of overlapping reasons as well as unique ones for embracing the romance genre. My turn!
At the risk of gaining a bunch of frowny faces, I am here to confess that I originally approached the romance genre from a place of disrespect. I was *that* person who would walk by the collection of romance paperbacks at the library with an upturned nose and rolling eyes.
So what made me change my mind? Well, here’s another confession that’s going to put me on some wall of shame. Originally, I smelled a money opportunity as in “Holy cow! People *read* this stuff and more importantly *sell* this stuff? How do I get in on this racket?” (Don’t worry, I promise this story has a redemptive arc!)
In the pursuit of what I thought was going to be a get rich quick scheme, I browsed through my library’s romance e-book collection to find a romance that wouldn’t make me gag. Again, I had never read one, so I had a lot of negative cultural baggage clouding my views. Then I found “Captured” by Beverly Jenkins, a tale of a slave woman who- in a twist of fate- gets rescued by a pirate. After reading the description, I thought “Eh. I’ll give it a try. Couldn’t hurt for research, anyway.” And to my surprise, it wasn’t just not gag-worthy, it was good. And that made me reexamine my view of romance novels, at least a little bit. Still in research mode, I checked out a few more Beverly Jenkins HRs and discovered that romance wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. The books were actually fun and addicting to read- as in I was actually staying up way too late at night to read them.
So fast forward to now. I came to realize that no, romance novels are not hack work by any means, and I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in you-know-where of writing them well- if at all. But I could enjoy reading them, particularly HR. Before I got bitten by the romance bug, my go-to genres were historical fiction and science fiction. (I guess you could say I have trouble with the way the world is.) So those are the kinds of romances I started reading. And as I learned more about the genre’s HEA requirement, that made my historical fiction reading a lot more pleasant. Too much “literary” historical fiction tends to end unhappily- often with a moralizing note- and why would I want to be unhappy?
I would say the reason I read romance now is to be swept away into a world filled with fascinating characters who are going to be okay by the end of the story. For me, the romance itself is typically a secondary consideration. I know that sounds odd for a genre that must contain a central romance, but when I read a description, I am most interested in the setting, set-up/premise, characters, and yes, sexy times. That’s why I read HR (it’s historical fiction with a guaranteed HEA!) And lately, I’ve also expanded into romance thrillers a la Harlequin Intrigue. (And a note to AAR, please consider reviewing more Harlequin Intrigue titles. Lately, I’ve been hooked!)
Romance often tells stories of redemption and forgiveness, of hurts that with time and effort were healed. I’ve been with Dr. Feelgood for over 30 years. In that time, I’d say we’ve had 15 fabulous years, five hard years, and ten pretty good years. When I look back at the five bad ones–only two of which were sequential, I’m grateful we believed we could find our way again to joy with each other. Romance has helped me do that. When I read a story like that of Cam and Gigi in Sherry Thomas’ Private Arrangements, it reminds me that true love can encompass distance and hurt that doesn’t eradicate the relationship.
Most modern literature is now about dysfunctional people, without plot, often ending unhappily or ambiguously. Reading these books is like biting into a vitamin tablet. Romances, in contrast, are held in derision, sneered at by people who have never read one, but know better than the millions of readers that they are not only worthless, but also somehow subversive–“they set the bar impossibly high for men,” in a culture that expects perfection from women in romantic and sexual relationships, employment, and motherhood.
I read romance books, like my friends above, for their happy endings and their optimistic view of couples who really love one another. I love romance books because through them, I experience what it’s like to fall in love, unlike in reality, with guaranteed happiness.
Lynda X., there is so much awesome stuff I want to unpack in your post that I agree with 100%.
“Most modern literature is now about dysfunctional people, without plot, often ending unhappily or ambiguously. Reading these books is like biting into a vitamin tablet.” That is SPOT ON. I really don’t get this kind of literary snobbery that goes on about happy endings being infantile or inferior to what SNL might have called “deep thoughts.”
“Romances, in contrast, are held in derision, sneered at by people who have never read one, but know better than the millions of readers that they are not only worthless, but also somehow subversive–“they set the bar impossibly high for men.” I highly recommend this short interview clip of Christopher Rice, son of Anne Rice, with Christina Lauren about how the things women and girls like are culturally derided as opposed to equally “unintellectual” male hobbies and pursuits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY7gfmwgZvU. They talk about the same things you mentioned in your post, really awesome.
I was an avid reader from an early age (thanks, Mum!) and the written word and reading has been the through-line of my life. I have a degree in English and, for decades, I thought I was keeping my reading on parallel tracks: romance here, other genre fiction next to that, literary fiction there, classic literature over there, non-fiction beyond that; but when I look back, I see I was weaving a huge piece of fabric—a reading quilt—where genres and ideas and themes and patterns are intertwined. And through it all, I see romance and how romance has evolved—from Anya Seton’s KATHERINE through gothics through bodice-rippers through HPs through m/m, bdsm, ménage, paranormal, shifter, steampunk, urban fantasy. I’m guessing that almost everyone here has their own “reading quilt.”
I love that phrase.
I need a good balance too and feel that I benefit from balancing literary books and genre books. For years when I was a student working on my English degrees, I only read literary works, but I realized over time how important romances with happy endings are for me. I can’t read only genre fiction or only literary works though because they both offer so many important qualities.
In the main I agree with what everyone has already said. But oceanjasper wrote:
“……..sometimes I find that rare book which absolutely makes me believe in the love depicted on the page.”
and I think that is an excellent reflection of how I feel. I learnt to read, taught by my lovely book-addicted mother, before I started kindergarten and I have shared her addiction all my life. And I continually ask myself whether I “live to read or read to live”. My own reading is pretty much in 2 parallel lines of fiction and non-fiction. The former is mainly RF, especially HR, and the latter often history, biography, politics, etc. Most so-called “literary fiction” bores me, and is too often predicated on unhappy situations and dysfunctional characters that I don’t need in my life, particularly when I am reading for relaxation and, as Dabney, said, reading for joy. The pursuit of the believable HEA is something that all humans wish for and in my busy life, it’s a relief when I find one.
I like to read about people falling in love, especially when this involves the meeting of minds as much as bodies. Ironically this is why the genre so often disappoints me; I get frustrated when the ‘falling in love’ part has already happened before the book begins, or when the author tells instead of showing or clutters the book up with too much sex and the characters never have meaningful conversations. Or when a historical author focusses too much on their enlightened exploration of some social issue at the expense of the romance.
But I keep persevering and sometimes I find that rare book which absolutely makes me believe in the love depicted on the page. I’m willing to wade into kindle unlimited and bail out of as many books as I finish. I’ll overlook writing flaws that would probably make me abandon a book of another genre. And that’s not me being patronising and setting the bar lower for the romance genre, it’s just a reflection of how much I want to read something that moves me. Reading a great romantic story gives my whole life a happy glow for a while. No other genre can do that for me.
There’s so many reasons I read romance (although, for the record, and like I’m guessing most readers, I do wander into other genres on occasion), but primarily I read it because it’s a genre that says it’s not wrong to trust your heart and to take a chance on loving someone (as opposed to, say, psychological suspense, where the genre’s entire raison d’etre often appears to be a polemic showing women what happens if they fall in love with the wrong person). I must admit, I also enjoy the angsty ups-and-downs of a romance plot (hence, my love of Harlequin Presents) and the joy of a well-written final reconciliation scene.
Romances are an important genre for me because they clarify how we as a culture talk about love and relationships. How do we relate to each other? In hetero relationships, how do women and men negotiate the sticky gender dynamics to find a partnership built on equality? Like most readers, I love the feeling of getting caught up in a wonderfully told story, but a big part of the pleasure for me is also in thinking through how a particular author conceptualizes relationships in our society today and how authors are intervening into these important discussions in our culture. I’ve been reading romances since I was approx. 12 and still have some of those earlier books, and it truly is fascinating to track the changes in the genre over time.
I read romance because it makes me happy.
I also read romance because I love to read about relationships. It’s the same reason why many of my favorite TV shows have been one hour dramas such as Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, Gilmore Girls and Everwood, to name a few.
I have actually learned a lot from romance novels over the years – about history, various professions, clothing and food from different eras, and just a whole bunch of random factoids.
But the bottom line is that for me, reading is what I do in my free time for pleasure and romance always satisfies.
I read romance because it is the one (adult) genre where a happy ending is guaranteed.
I work in a trauma hospital. When I come home after a rough shift and pick up a book, I want to know that at least here, things will work out. In romance, the people I have come to care about end up safe and happy. It may be escapism, and it may be unrealistic, but sometimes I am not in the mood for gritty, depressing realism. Sometimes I just want to feel better. And romance delivers that in spades.
Sometimes I just want to feel better. And romance delivers that in spades.
I think trauma trumps teaching, but I feel exactly the same way.
ALL READING is good for us – I tell my students that all the time. Regardless of the genre.
I prefer romance because I love a happy ending – and a little bit of sexy titillation at my age can only be a good thing.
Romance and love and kisses bring me joy. I wish more people would give it a chance.
“I read romance because it is the one (adult) genre where a happy ending is guaranteed.” Yeah, I don’t get what the larger cultural aversion is to happy endings. That seems to be true in television now in addition to movies. One of the reasons why I love “Star Trek: The Original Series” is because no matter what happens to the leads throughout the course of the story, you KNOW they are going to be okay. (I can’t say the same for the dead redshirts…) And look at a fun show like “Seinfeld.” Yeah, the characters are selfish and petty, just like a lot of real people, but there are no “very special episodes.” Everything stays fun, funny, and upbeat. Nowadays, if you watch a miniseries, you have no idea which principal character is going to get bumped off next.
I think it’s because men tell most of our revered stories and they’ve gravitated to stories of war, the mob, murder, corruption. Look at the nominees for Best Picture and Best Director this year.
Ain’t that the truth? It’s like men are afraid of feelings of something!
“Yeah, I don’t get what the larger cultural aversion is to happy endings.”
I post on a writers’ discussion board that has a romance sub-forum, and every now and then, we get someone who seems genuinely baffled as to why readers want happy endings. Usually this happens because a writer has completed a tragic love story and is trying to sell it, but discovers that the heroine dying in the end locks the story out of the massive romance market. So we get a thread asking why this can’t work for romance readers.
My favorite such argument was, “Are you saying that if the hero and heroine have a great relationship for 399 pages, but then he’s run over by a truck on page 400, it’s not a romance?” Well, yeah. Romance readers are not looking for a gut-punch on the last page, any more than mystery readers want an ending where the detective says the murder will remain unsolved.
Another time someone posted to say she was a therapist whose clients often had unrealistic expectations of relationships, and she felt romance novels contributed to these problems because of the novels’ endings. She said that *real* romance was the often unglamorous day-to-day work of maintaining relationships beyond the declaration of love. Which may well be the case in real life, but when I pick up a romance novel, I don’t want to read about an established and already-in-love couple. And it’s not as though other genres always offer readers documentary-style realism.
IMO, the most vocal complaints about happy endings come from people who don’t read romance.
“the most vocal complaints about happy endings come from people who don’t read romance.” I was into happy endings before I read my first romance novel. Actually, the only thing that annoyed me about happy endings, particularly in movies, is how the HEA had to mean man + woman = traditional marriage. The end. So I thought, where are the happy endings that were different from the conventional narrative? Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I avoided the romance genre for so long. At least nowadays, HFNs are acceptable and HEAs don’t have to be an engagement ring, wedding, or lots of babies epilogue. It’s not that I have a problem with those kinds of endings per se, but let’s hear it for variety!
That note about the therapist… Sheesh. Maybe it’s true she has some clients who have trouble separating fact from fiction. But what would her fiction reading recommendations be? Depressing literary fiction where someone who opens herself to love dies at the end? Is that any more realistic? And like you said, fiction isn’t supposed to be a documentary. It’s fiction. I wonder if this therapist makes a connection between violent movies/video games and clients’ aggression problems too…