Hopeless Romantics

Reading romance novels can make the reader feel like they’re in a magical, perfect world, but could it also make us feel “trapped” with no way of escaping these fictional worlds? I think we can all recall the first time reading a romance novel, or at least one of the first times. For myself, it was the novel The Fault in our Stars by John Green. That novel just rewrote my whole perception of what love was and what it was meant to be. I read an article lately that described this feeling as “a whole new world” opening (Zickafoose, 2014). In a way, we can say we live our “very own romantic story” within the romance novels we read (Zickafoose, 2014). My question about this is if we are relying on romance novels too much to live our romantic fantasies? If we are wanting to escape the real world by diving into these stories, is it “killing the romance” in our everyday lives (Zickafoose, 2014). I see both sides, but for today, we will focus on the negatives of romance novels.

To start off, escaping to the world of fiction can make the lines start to blue from fiction to reality, and what is realistic in everyday lives. In reference to romance in our lives, we start to set unrealistic expectations of our partners, and who it is we chose to engage with romantically. The most common traits of men in romance novels are masculine, dark aura, quiet, dominant, angry towards the world, and involves some sort of trauma tied to them. To add on, they also show care and nurture towards the main female protagonist who is often the opposite: weak, bubbly, cheerful, feminine, submissive, etc. On both ends, we can say we have tried to find someone in this world that matches up to the characters we have read about, to possibly live out the fantasy in real life. This is where I’d say the line blurs from fantasy to reality. We start to think we can find that same love in real life and mold it into something that works for us. What I think happens is we end up being met with disappointment because we are human, we are not perfect, and we make mistakes. Because of this, we fail in anticipating our partner’s needs like how they are met in the fantasy world of our books. We start to think our relationships are “not good enough” and delve right back to more romance books that can fill the emotional void (Zickafoose, 2014).

I recently watched a YouTube video created by the user “The Book Leo” in which she explained the love/hate relationship some readers have with romance novels. She points out how woman will swoon over what ultimately is considered abuse, however, since it is fiction, we don’t see it this way as readers. Men in romance novels swoon and chase after the women, and no matter what wrong they seem to commit, it is overseen with a kind gesture. With this said, romance novels end up being the largest book genre as of 2022, in terms of sales.

BookTok is a large contribution to this number. Young female readers seem to lead in these sales, making up 82% of the sales. This could be because the majority of the book’s storylines consist of stereotypes constructed by society that apparently seem to catch the attention of the female readers. Take the novel It Ends with Us for example. The main male character is abusive (physically and verbally), controlling, dark aura, and yet, this man had its readers falling to their knees. The female character was not different, falling into the stereotypes of damsel in distress. She fell whole heartly for this man and ignored all the warning signs. Yet, we not only paid the money to read the novel, but later paid money to go see the movie in theaters. What is scary is that this storyline is very much realistic and effects women and men every day. Some argue that as readers we cling to these romance novels for their unrealistic storylines, but what about books like these that have a real-life storyline? I think it maybe the safe space of validating our feelings as women to think this could never happen to us. That such stories could never take place in our lives. At the end of the day, we are prepared, right? I mean we read the book and read the consequences of such actions. What are your thoughts? Do we really seek romance novels as an escape from reality?

Please feel free to watch or read the videos or articles I reference above and share your thoughts below!