Was anyone forcing me to read all 20 in one year? Of course not. But did I pretty much immediately decide I was going to do it anyways? Oh yeah. I researched each on Goodreads, compiled a preliminary ranking of which titles I thought were going to come out on top, and strapped in for a year of attempting to cram as many of these questionable titles into my regular reading schedule as possible.
While I didn't make it through all 20, I did try my hand at 17, and came back with results that were... mixed. Things that had compelling plot summaries and high ratings turned out to be flops, while those that came jam-packed with bananas narrative twists and head-scratching character choices ended up as my personal favorites. But even bad Romance makes for more than just an incredible Lady Gaga song. It also results in some of the funniest reviews I think I've ever written.
But now the year is over (and we're already a month and a half into the next one). So let's wrap this challenge up for good, shall we?
For starters, make sure you've read the previous posts first:
"My Brother Bought Me $25 Worth of Paranormal Romance" : Preliminary research and ranking
"Racist Vampires, Alien Drama, and Psychic Crystal House Explosions" : Midnight Lover, Dream Eyes, and How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days
"Celtic Rockstars, Vampiric Chosen-Ones, and Deeply Un-sexy Succubi" : Immortals: The Crossing, Touch the Dark, and My Fair Succubi
"A Summer Fling with Psychics, Werewolves, and Lots of Uncomfortable Staring" : Out of Mind, Dangerous Tides, Master of Wolves, Nico, and The Portal
Back in January 2021, I went into this challenge with a couple of different perspectives as to how things could possibly go. On one hand, I was very aware that these were backlist titles, the furthest of which reached all the way back into the '90s and early '00s. On the other hand, you never know where your next favorite read is going to come from. I went in with tepid amounts of hope, and an overabundance of enthusiasm.
Here's what I expected:
- A lot of vampires. Maybe a few werewolves and ghost boyfriends thrown in for good measure, but primarily, my lens was skewing heavily in the creatures-of-the-night direction. I kind of figured it based on the impulses generated from my middle school years of desperately seeking out Amelia Atwater Rhodes and R. L. Stine novels in the teens section, not even counting the rocket success of the Twilight saga in my teenage years. In my mind, Paranormal fiction will always come wearing a cape and fangs... or at least it did, at the beginning of this adventure.
- Kind of stereotypical or trope-heavy portrayals, things that relied heavily on conventional monster depictions and romance-novel favorites. Listen: I've only been reading hardcore romance for a couple of years now, and those kinds of preconceptions about the genre are really hard to shake... especially because, in some ways, a lot of them are true. So my expectations of the Box were that I'd find a lot of softball writers in here, kind of like trawling the boundaries of Fan Fiction, with reading expectations being met as to genre and characters off the gate, so that they could focus more on developing the Romance elements of it. Obviously, I could not have been more wrong.
By the end of February 2021, I had finished my first couple of titles, and man was I... confused. To be fair, one of the three ended up not only being a generally positive experience, but a full-out five-star read, as well as the resulting favorite book out of the entire mix! The other two, however, were a one-star for reasons that genuinely left me angry, and a DNF, based on the sheer general inability to balance extremely heavy subject matter with increasingly frustrating lighthearted Romance content.
As the reads went on and I started to get more of a hang for the process of completing them, I still managed to be surprised by what I was picking up:
- For starters, the foibles I was experiencing that kept tripping me up when reading had more to do with being older Romance novels in general, rather than being bad Paranormal Romance novels in particular. Sure, racism, sexism, violence, lack of diversity and representation... all of the heavy hitters were present. But these aren't specific to the genre, but instead, things that are more in keeping with books that were published before seemingly obvious designations of "how people like to be treated" had been established in the public mindset. On the flip side, the more recently published content was much more diligent about that sort of thing, which is something very in keeping with today's Romance market.
- That being said, there were more recent books included in the box than I would have expected... to a point. Like I said, '90s and '00s Romance abounded, but there were also plenty from the later half of the '00s, too, as well as into even the late '10s. I really was able to appreciate the scope of the content, especially when connected to the variety I was experiencing in subgenre and plot contrivances, too.
FINAL STATS
Books Read Cover-to-Cover: 8!
Star Count:
1 star: 3
2 star: 3
3 star: none
4 star: 1 - Dangerous Tides
5 star: 1 - Dream Eyes
Books DNF'd: 9
Shortest DNF:10.75% - Pg 40 of 372 (The Summoning)
Longest DNF: 45.57% - Pg 194 out of 294 (Master of Wolves)
Books Not Attempted: 3
After a while, reading so many similarly-shaped and somewhat interchangeable books made for some surprising trend recognition, and notable questions answered about the genre itself. Remember, I'm new-ish to Romance, so stepping full-out into the Paranormal category was a pretty significant experience for me.
As a new entry into the field, here's some of what I noticed, within this particularly narrow sample size:
- There were a LOT more psychics than I would have anticipated! Remember when I said I was banking on vampires? As it turns out, from this limited pool, I found a lot less than I had originally planned for, which was both good and bad... on one hand, it kept me from getting burnt out on one kind of read too hard, but on the other, by the end of the year, I was actually really wishing I could have sunk my teeth into a more recognizable story format.
- And also aliens?? If there was anything else I should have anticipated, it was for things to venture a little beyond the lines of what my typical designations of "Paranormal" are. For instance, in any other form of fiction, I would have assumed Aliens automatically meant SciFi. However, within the Romance genre, Paranormal seems to kind of serve as a general catch-all for other forms of Genre fiction, like SF and Fantasy, too.
- Plenty of stories featured inter-dimensional travel, and were not restricted to the earthly plane... in fact, a lot of these books had some form of tie to another plane of existence, be it distant planets, or depictions of Heaven and Hell. Occasionally, it was pretty fun: I can gladly get on board with a Fae realm, or a Demonic plane. It was just went things went a little too far around the bend - with multiple interactive groups occupying different dimensions of existence, or versions of religious levels strained past credulity - that I started to lose the plot.
- In terms of relationship dynamics, it was pretty much exclusively alpha male heroes, with varying degrees of self-motivation from the heroines... and involving very strange relationship dynamics that I cannot imagine being suffered with much patience here on Earth. Again, maybe this is owed more to the time periods being published, but man. Get a grip on yourselves, heroes, instead of maintaining such a hard grip on the arms of your heroines.
But this isn't even just about the questionable content, but also, the writing direction. SO many books with over-exposition, or an overabundance of plot detail attempting to cover up threadbare and inconsequential characterizations. Powers that were quickly learned and abandoned, depending on the necessity of the scene, and dialogue that barely followed any form of coherent sense. Can you really blame me for wishing for something greater?
This also helped really cement the perspectives I had on things I did like. I DID like a few of these books, after all... and the reasons I appreciated them ended up having quite a few elements in common. Here's what I wish I saw from more of the books I read:
- I mean, besides less racism, sexism, and violence, and more diversity and representation? Because honestly, that was a real big one. Thankfully, the current trends in Romance publishing seem to veer more in this direction, but it certainly makes me more nervous to try out backlist titles.
- Larger casts of characters, with separate and recognizable personalities: in truth, three of the books I ended up mostly enjoying, Dangerous Tides, Dream Eyes, and Out of Mind, all fit this bill! Big ol' magical families, with every kid possessing new and exciting powers, all coming complete with their own matching romantic counterpart... I mean, it makes more sense, from a publishing perspective, to handle it this way, so why not try harder to build a cohesive, fascinating cast?
- Leaning into exploring previously-known powers, rather than focusing on a novice learning a new skill set. At the beginning of this challenge, I remember actually being pretty stoked that so many of the titles were among the first in their series, because I thought that would help me identify more of a feel for what kinds of story they were. But all told, that didn't necessarily make for compelling content: I could have just as easily jumped into the ride while the engine was already running, and not missed much.
- Less religion, honestly. I wonder if this is more of a time-period-of-publishing thing, or if its more of a genre issue, but there was A LOT of angels-and-demons content, in some ways that were slightly more sacrilegious than others. Don't get me wrong, I can handle, but honestly? My Fair Succubi was definitely pushing it past my limit... and Servant: the Acceptance was a little too Old Testament in its depictions of violence for my tastes. Neither of these - nor Minion, either, which faces off God-blessed vamp hunters against two different levels of bloodsuckers - are reads I would have ever picked out on my own dime.
THE FINAL RANKING
(Minor point of clarification: switch The Portal and The Empath... no idea how I mixed those two covers up, but they should be flip-flopped, so that the relatively boring and unoffensive werewolfy Empath is in the topmost row, while the high-key racist-towards-Native-Americans Portal is in the second row, next to uses-the-n-word-with-so-little-rationalization Midnight Lover. There's also some debate raging in my head as to whether bad-cop-portraying Master of Wolves belongs so high in this list in comparison to weirdly-religious Servant and high-key homophobic Minion, but I'm keeping it where it stands for now.)
But now this is finally a chapter I can close! Believe it or not, but beyond one single Sarah MacLean book, these were the only Romances I read in the entirety of 2021, and by the end of things, I was really missing out on my Historical and Contemporary faves. Still, I was glad to have partaken in the self-inflicted challenge.
Here's what I took away from the experience:
- Again, I read two books I really, really liked! Dangerous Tides is one that I now actively search for on Romance shelves, in the hopes of finding out more about these incredibly gifted sisters and their unique counterparts, while Dream Eyes is definitely going to maintain a home among my shelves, for any future date when I might need to turn my brain back to a slightly-more-willing-to-participate-in-shenanigans mode.
- I deep-read a genre I haven't ever had cause to interact with before. Like I said, still new-ish to Romance, and haven't had much luck with Paranormal since high school. Diving back into the deep end, with both feet first, made for an interesting reacclimation, real fast.
- I had a project... and I LOVE a good project. Truly, I am nothing if I don't have something fun - like an embroidery project, or a cookbook deep dive - to focus on in those quiet moments between actual daily tasks. This not only made for plenty of self-motivated fun, but also made me into a truly formidable point of conversation at parties (After a few meetings with friends began with a "You'll never guess what I'm reading right now," the tide started to turn towards them asking me "So what's going on in the latest novel?").
- I posted a good handful of blogposts that I wouldn't have written otherwise. And I know for a fact, based on the reactions of my friends who follow me on Goodreads, that the reviews were appreciated, too! I maintain that negative reviews are more fun to read - and honestly, write - and this entire process was an experience in that arena alone.
- Now my brother has to read the Dealer's Choice. At the very top of the Challenge, my brother actually even floated the idea that whatever ended up being my favorite of the whole messy bunch, he'd voluntarily pick up, too. As of two days ago, he's deep into the middle of Dream Eyes, and from what I can tell, loving every second of it. Maybe I can convince him to write a review, too?
What do you think... should my kid brother write his own Romance review, too? Are you going to miss this Challenge? Let me know, in the comments below!
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