Listen. The season of life I have been living right now has not exactly been... relaxing. Thanks to family commitments, writing projects, charitable responsibilities, and more, my plate has been more full than not most days, which leaves very little time for kicking back and relaxing with a good book.
So when I actually have time to sit down and read, I want to make sure I'm investing my attention in something worthwhile. Not something difficult, not anything I have to ease your way into or take my time with... something I can jump right into with both feet, something that requires minimal brainpower and - ideally - a lack of hurdles keeping me away from the escape hatch I'm struggling to reach.
For me, that go-to genre has held a couple of different forms. For starters, Food Writing always makes for a good time, and usually serves as more than a little inspiration for what I get up to in the kitchen later. Memoirs are also a great choice, especially if they err on the shallower, celebrity-"written" side of the kiddie pool. My favorite, however, will always be Romance novels.
So tell me why, out of the books I've read in the past few months, Romance has been the genre most clearly disappointing me?
Needless to say, I originally thought this was my fault.
Obviously this Grumpy Gal isn't in the right headspace to enjoy the fluffy frippery of a Historical, or the hip and current snappiness of a Contemporary. It was only after consulting with my younger sister that I realized I wasn't the only one having this issue: for some reason, we all just seemed to be reading lackluster Romance this Spring.
sister sister : what's unlovable in Romance
Herself a woman in a committed, long-term relationship with another woman, it was one of her first forays into true Lesbian Romance, and she was utterly disheartened by how frustrated she was with the unlikable main character, and all of the easy breaks this person was managing to get, despite being a regulation pain towards every other person in the cast.
"I can put up with poor writing," she texted me after our phone chat, "but I will not tolerate unbelievable circumstances."
Oof. In her mind, what was supposed to be the lighthearted escapism of a Romance novel was getting a little too ridiculous to believe.
After finishing the whole thing, she admitted that she "enjoyed reading it as a whole and clearly blasted through it," but still, even on the other side of it, couldn't come to grips with the issues she had with the characters and plot. She gave it two stars.
Less than a week later, I'd be on the receiving end of a barrage of texts once more, about a new book she'd started: The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren.
"My new least fave genre," she wrote, are "romance novels that think enemies-to-lovers is just two detestable people that eventually" end up together. (And yes, that last bit is edited for decency standards.)
Eventually she just had to throw her hands in the air (despite finishing both novels). "This is my cross to bear: being the only person alive who didn't love Normal People, Delilah Green, and The Unhoneymooners."
Well, not quite the only one: I had also rated both Delilah Green and Unhoneymooners each as a three-star read, though Unhoneymooners had been slightly more of the disappointment, not even making it onto my Goodreads Challenge for 2021. Sally Rooney's Normal People I also couldn't stand, though I have to admit that has to do more with my significant feelings about improper formatting use as a pretentious artistic choice (I rated that three stars, as well, but have since had a wonderful conversation with a friend, who also didn't initially enjoy it, but was prompted to change her mind after listening to an excellent audiobook version).
Still, after all of this discussion about what we could appreciate and what made us furious about the Romance novels we'd been reading recently, it gave me more cause to reflect on what books had managed to make it off of my TBR, too.
what I've been reading recently
(Eagle-eyed readers might take notice of two of these titles as being a bit familiar: as you may recall, I did a round of "Speed-Dating My Kindle" specifically for Romance reads back in February, around Valentine's Day, which led to two of these taking up spots on the front page of my Kindle.)
Here's how my ill-fated exploits went:
Three stars.
Tessa Dare was the first-ever true-blue post-'00s-published Historical Romance I ever read, and the Castles Ever After series was the first I'd ever heard reviews about from friends. In fact, one of the reasons this particular book lived on my TBR for so long, was because an Internet friend of mine, who has since gone defunct, used to rave about how much she loved it.
I'm still a fan of Tessa Dare, but what I'm also saying, is that we have history. And maybe that's why, in some ways, this book just sort of stuck out as a little too... I don't know... young for me? I guess? Just, a little more juvenile or cutesy than generally what I enjoy reading right now.
Maybe that's also because the main character also feels super young. She's 26, or thereabouts, mind you... but also, severely sheltered, naïve, and regularly defined in the narrative as very small. It's one of the ways that the book almost reads as a kind of fanfiction: Dare's cramming ALL of the early-2010s tropes into this girl. And into our Romantic Hero, too! I mean, a MAN reading a BOOK? Be still my quaking knickers. It really did feel like the ideal audience was your average Goodreads user in 2013.
But for all the parts that did sound believable - historical background given to the Highlanders military group, chauvinistic attitudes towards women, a character's severe social anxiety - there was only more that felt spun as insubstantially as cotton candy, and it felt like Dare was more interested in writing a SWEET story than an interesting one.
I know this is going to sound absolutely terrible, but every time I read a Bridgerton novel, being a fan of the Netflix show first, I end up feeling... a little let down. In a stunning twist on typical book-lover feelings, I actually do not think these books are better.
Part of that, I think, is the absence of some of the things that the show does SO WELL: the aesthetic value, the diverse casting, the fantasy of it all. Instead, Quinn's novels feel almost old-fashioned and dowdy in comparison. Additionally, there's the element of sensuality that also feels a little tone-deaf in today's environment: every single couple, it seems, features an experienced Hero and a truly, woefully unprepared Heroine... which makes sex scenes feel tedious, if not problematic.
But those are just gripes in general... specifically, with this installment, the issue was more with inconsistent character choices. It felt like at every turn, a character felt a certain way until, boom, they didn't. Then they'd be in danger of changing their mind again the second the wind changed direction. Colin doesn't really see Penelope... until he does. Colin never loses his temper... until he does. Colin doesn't trust Penelope after something he sees as a betrayal... until he does. It's enough to give a girl whiplash, emotional carriage rides aside.
Also, this book made me DISLIKE several of the characters I have otherwise enjoyed from the books, including Eloise and Hyacinth.
Honestly, I'm considering just sticking to the TV show in the future.
Ok. So. The most positive thing I have to say about this book, is that it was short.
Which is absolutely not a bad thing. I could skim through it quickly, without losing out on plot. I was able to essentially read the whole thing in a total of less than three hours. It made me laugh out loud exactly one time... I just rolled my eyes substantially more often.
I think my primary aversion while reading this book is that it seemed to have only a tangential relationship with any kind of reality. While the major plot and characters could, perhaps, theoretically exist in some capacity, they were mashed together in such a breathlessly confusing fashion, and behaved in such nonsensical ways, as to render them completely disconnected from any kind of genuine or authentic emotion, and therefore, elicited very little emotional response from me beyond general frustration.
For instance, every single male character in this novel appears to have been concieved solely from the whole "fictional men written by women" trope. The most you got out of each of them, was when they'd suddenly veer off into a diatribe about how PSLs are unfairly mocked because of their ties to gender, or something else that sounds like it should have been a Thought Catalog piece, instead of a blockish piece of interruption.
The dialogue elsewhere was similarly rough. Most of the secondary characters were barely given any kind of life or color to make them feel more substantial than a cardboard cutout (including, in one notable instance, simply the general idea that they are 1. foreign and 2. have IBS). The romance of this Romance was strangely paced, the points of tension resolving without much major communication or commitment, the stakes involved being way too high to justify the lack of deliberate, purposeful action.
I mean, the conflict in the book is very much pitched with the idea that he and his wife are divorcing because he's never satisfied her in bed. The reality is much more bleak: after this unexpected, vulnerable admittance from her, he storms off, stops sleeping in their bedroom in favor of the guest room, and gives her the silent treatment, ignoring her completely for TWO WEEKS. And then is surprised when she tells him she wants a divorce!
Furthermore, they are the parents of two - extremely unlikely kinds of precocious - tiny girls. Our Heroine left college early in order to birth and take care of them, because our Hero's professional baseball schedule makes little room for a partner to serve as anything other than a professional WAG. And not only has our Hero never recognized that this leaves her feeling unfulfilled and lonely... but she's never even felt comfortable TELLING HIM this.
They didn't need romance novels at all; what they needed was couple's therapy and the chance to actually COMMUNICATE with their PARTNER.
It honestly feels like the Hero has very little agency of his own in trying to win back his wife. I mean, the book opens with him hungover off a booze bender in a hotel room. He's not the one to really opt into the Book Club, he's prompted by his friends; his decisions aren't led by his own judgement, as much as his friends' input, and his attempts at winning his wife over are even cribbed directly from the actual romance book itself. Like I said, highly unrealistic: he clearly cares, so why isn't he actually trying, beyond what all of these people are simply telling him to do? What's going to happen the next time they encounter a problem as a couple?
And... okay, so spoiler alert for this next section, too.
I think the thing that irks me the most about the plot resolution was this sudden, miraculous ability to resolve the issues in their sex life. She's been faking for their entire relationship, right? And she's been an interested, enthusiastically engaged party in their decision in a committed, married partnership to have sex, repeatedly, over the course of years.
But even when they're on the pathway to getting better and solving their problems, they have issues *getting there* as a couple... partially because she gives him zero prompting as to what makes her feel good. In fact, the dialogue kinds of suggests that she hasn't really considered it. And I mean, female sexuality is historically a cultural taboo, and women have been socially conditioned to place their pleasure second, sure, sure. But they clear up their misunderstandings and finally start to talk more about their relationship, and all of a sudden, they're having marathon rounds in a hotel room? How does that make sense?
Are we to believe her inability to have an orgasm is by sheer subconscious dissatisfaction with her overall life? For YEARS? It honestly would have been more impactful if their sex life had improved in a more gradual way, and I'm talking over the course of months... with time, persistence, and more and more open communication about, specifically, the physical side of their relationship. Or if there had been some kind of personal, medical component on her side that the two of them could have worked through together. Something that would have made what was established in the plot as a clear, present, persistent problem, as something that was more meaningful than just... talking it out a few times.
All told, I have watched Hallmark movies with more dimension. But again... at least it was short.
at least there's a happy ending for all of this
Thankfully, in the time since reading all of these books, both my sister and I have come out on the other end of this mini Romance-related slump.
She got snapped out of her cloudy skies with an entirely different, much-hyped Lesbian Romance, one I'd actually recommended for her girlfriend back in December (Count Your Lucky Stars, by Alexandria Bellefleur, which also happens to be set in the city where she and her girlfriend first met).
Meanwhile, this Historical lover was actually wooed by a Contemporary Sports Romance, of all things... one that was centered around Hockey, a sport about which all knowledge has been gained from Disney Channel Original Movies. However, thanks to commentaries on LGBT relationships and diversity in sports, and as much heart as there was heat - and there was a LOT of heat - Goalie Interference (Hat Trick #2) by Piper Vaughn and Avon Gale redeemed all thoughts of Romance for me over the course of 24 hours.
Am I going to be attempting another anytime soon? The answer is, unfortunately, yes. "Unfortunately," because this year's Big Box of Paranormal Romance Challenge hasn't exactly been off to the smoothest of starts, something you'll hopefully be learning about soon... once I finally get through my third installment in the challenge for this year.
Maybe I'll take a break before I get back into that one, though. Anyone got any SciFi recommendations I can pick up instead?
Have you read any really good Romances lately? When's the last time you were disappointed by one of your "escape" genres? Let me know, in the comments below!
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