Our Literary Inheritance Part II: Reading Romance Despite Other People’s Efforts

old book on the bench in autumn parkLast week, we talked about the people who introduced us to the romance genre, the people – often women – who gave us our first romance, or who shared a book that turned us into romance readers.

I mentioned in that entry that some of us are “people who discover the genre in spite of the efforts of a relative to keep us away from it. We hide books under beds, we sneak them in and out of our homes and bags, and we track down books to read while evading notice of a person who would try to stop us, or remove said book from our possession.”

In this HaBO from Scarlett, whose mother threw away a collection of romances that she’s been finding and restoring to her library one by one, many people in the comments said that they’d had similar experiences from parents and relatives who disapproved of their reading romances. Vicki wrote in the comments:

We obviously need a discussion group about moms because I had also a similar experience. I always hid my books, starting at age eight when I learned they looked like school books if you put a cover on them.

All my old diaries are in code, btw. When I went to college, she threw out a bunch of biographies because they looked like romances. When I first married, my husband would laugh at me after finding romances under the bathroom sink or behind the flour in the kitchen cupboard. Finally, I am getting to the point where I can read what I want without looking over my shoulder. I even read a romance at my mom’s house over Thanksgiving. Though I was careful to keep it in my suitcase when I wasn’t reading it.

While some of us inherit the love of romance reading directly, through the encouragement of another romance fan, others have had to hide and evade discovery to keep reading what they enjoy. So many readers have joined our community through maneuvers that may be spy-movie worthy, determined to read romance despite the efforts of other people to stop them.

 

Is this you? Did you have to evade the discouragement and interference of people who disapproved of your reading? What kept you going? (And also: I’m so glad you did so you could be part of the community here – welcome and well done.)

Comments are Closed

  1. Amy says:

    I remember being in 6th grade and reading the Sweet Valley High books, and lending them to my friends. One of my friend’s mothers got a hold of her copy and had a meltdown-she was really strict, and freaked out to the extent that we were no longer allowed to bring the books to school. I of course had to explain to my Southern Baptist mother what I was reading, and she read one to see what the other mother got so upset over. I believe there was a scene where a boy untied a girl’s swimsuit top in the water-no one saw anything though. My mom read, said she didn’t see what the big deal was, but told me not to lend them out anymore, and started paying more attention to what I was reading. As I got older, in high school we started reading the Zebra historicals and passing them around, but much better hidden! I kept those out of Mom’s sight- I wasn’t prepared to be told I couldn’t read romance novels. Now of course I read them everywhere-out in public, waiting at the doctors office, on my lunch break at work, etc. I love this site-I look every day to see what I can add to my TBR pile!

  2. Lammie says:

    My mother and I had issues, but she was a librarian – the thought of throwing out a book would have horrified her. She did not read romance (straight science fiction and fantasy were more her style), but I guess no matter what our difficulties were, she never discouraged me from reading, no matter what the subject. When I went to high school in the late 1970s there was a move to restrict our school reading, to eliminate things like Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye from our curriculum. She was seriously ticked that anyone would want to prevent us from reading a book. I don’t think she ever saw me reading The Flame and the Flower (mostly because I am shy and would not have wanted to discuss the subject matter with her), but she would definitely not have had a problem with me reading it. I think this one of the more positive memories I have had in a long time about my mother. Thanks, it is nice to think we had something positive between us.

  3. blodeuedd says:

    My grandma read Harlequins and such, and my cousin, so no one ever cared when I read them..at 10 😉

    But now, a co-worker always says something about nekkid men on covers if we talk books. First, that is not all I read. Second, nekkid men on cover books rock!

  4. Amanda says:

    I will admit to sneaking my first romance novel. Me and my sister always shared a room and during one summer she went to stay with an aunt in Ga. I was around 11 and very scared to sleep alone (the Freddy Kruger movie didn’t help). My way of coping was to read until I fell asleep or it was morning. I read Sweet Valley books and Archie comics until I new them by heart and got bored. Anyway my parents had picked up this huge box of books at a yard sale for a different aunt. One night I went to look and see if there was anything I could read in that box. There was a ton of historical romance novels and a Charlie Brown book. I picked up the Charlie Brown book and got one of the romances too. I adored that romance book, which sadly I don’t remember the name of and seriously need to submit for a HABO (I only recall one plot point though). After I read the book I put it back in the box for my aunt. I wanted to keep it but my mom had already went ballistic when she found out my older sister read a similar book. Plus as I shared a room with my sister there was no way to really hide it. It would be a year or more before I would read another romance book (my introduction to VC Andrews happened along the way)but the seed was sown.

  5. Cyndy Aleo says:

    Not a person in my family. We had a swap: my mom, my zia, my grandmother, my Aunt Nan… bags of category romance (often waterlogged from Aunt Nan dropping them in the tub accidentally during her baths) that we traded and devoured. I learned to love romance at the knees of the women I loved best.

    Until college. When we were expected to read only “classics” that were deemed worthy of study. Even women’s fiction classes stuck to the idea that only lit fic deserved our attention. It took years of guilt where my only romance novels were rereads of Julie Garwood and Lindsey McKenna favorites still at my mother’s to undo all that conditioning.

  6. Ellen says:

    My Mum only tried to stop me reading her (borrowsed) Mills & Boon books when I was thirteen or so. Then I discovered them again and now we swap the books we buy.

  7. Lizabeth S. Tucker says:

    My mother had no issues with any genre I might want to read, but others at bookstores and libraries were very dismissive of romances. “You don’t want to read that, you read ‘good books’.” By that I presume they meant that because I read classical literature (Beowulf, Homer, Shakespeare, The Art of War, etc.) and histories from the age of 8 that I was better than a romance reader.

    I did have a tough teacher who gave me Gone With the Wind to read one summer, but I found myself constantly wanting to slap Scarlet O’Hara. That and one badly written, very early Harlequin kinda supported the “romance is crap” idea.

    But despite that, I found myself reading what was on the periphery of romance. Fantasy novels with romance as a strong part of the story, mysteries with the same. It wasn’t long before I moved closer to the real deal. Glenna Finley, Essie Summers, Anne McCaffrey, Emilie Loring, they all showed me an entire new world of reading. A world that I took to like the proverbial pig in mud.

    To this day I hear otherwise wonderful booksellers who look down on romance. And, with that attitude, down on many of their customers. I’ve learned after working at new and used bookstores that romance sells, that if you treat the genre and the reader with respect (even if you don’t read it, like it, yourself), you will gain loyal customers. Because I took the time to speak to them about what they liked, because I tried the books myself, I gained regulars who trusted me to point them in a new author’s direction, to a book that wasn’t shelved in romance, but met all the requirements for that particular reader.

    What is even worse, to my mind, is when readers turn on each other because some of them love to read romances. It is the only genre that seems to be hated by such a large portion of non-readers. Science fiction isn’t always understood, but the presumption is that the readers are geeks, nerds, intelligent. Mysteries are escapism, therapeutic, read by puzzle solvers. Westerns, struggling to survive, are for readers with a taste for American history. Fantasy is probably the one genre that has also struggled for respect, but I don’t believe they’ve ever been the recipient of as much abuse as romance.

    I honestly don’t know if romance will ever gain the respect it deserves. Romance isn’t just Harlequin or Mills & Boon romances. And, for that matter, they aren’t what they were back in the 1930s/40s/50s. Romance is about characters, it is about emotion, it is about people and how they connect. It is up to the readers, to the booksellers, to the librarians, to refuse to allow disparaging of romances.

  8. ohhellsyeah says:

    Shame. It wasn’t really one person, nor did I come from a religious family. But while my mother raised me to be a reader, there was a lot of hiding books under the covers because I should have been reading better books. Apparently.

    Despite being an honors English student, my teachers were hardly more encouraging. And it’s still my deep, dark secret.

    I remember my father being proud of me for reading a book about the break up the USSR/Gorbachev but being horrified that I was reading Sweet Valley High. This was when I was in the 5th grade. Perhaps he was the one pushing my Mom to monitor my reading habits? I don’t know.

    Despite everything, I’m the biggest reader in my family and I still love romance novels and Shakespeare because you can like more than one thing.

  9. Gee says:

    Yup, I had to hide romances. Started reading them in 6th grade. Was told they were porn for women. I got in trouble for just about everything I read, because I also liked horror and paranormal novels. No surprise, I was from a super-religious family.

  10. DonnaMarie says:

    Happily, no shaming on the home front growing up, and had friends who shared the love. I’ve mentioned before my friend, Alan, who maybe started it as a way of shaming, but would have me read aloud whatever I happened to be reading, but it became so much fun for us. Also, no more crazysauce than his Edgar Rice Burroughs collection.

    However, I have noticed that one friend actually sounds surprised when she and I like the same non-romance book. As though my preference for romance makes my judgement questionable. And my sister-in-law looked at the Gail Carriger books I gave my niece for Christmas and said, “They aren’t romances are they?”. No, they’re not, but I know a gateway drug when I see it. I do have hope for my niece though, as on one occasion, I’d asked what she was reading and she replied that if she wouldn’t share that information with her mom, shy would she share with me. Sound familiar?

  11. Francesca says:

    I mentioned in the earlier discussion that my mother disapproved of romance novels. Looking back, I have to wonder how much of this was due to the fact that I was a very advanced reader and I read a great deal that I was not emotionally mature enough to understand yet. Early exposure to Old Skool bodice rippers has probably made me a great deal more tolerant of rapey heroes than I should be.

    I took a lot of teasing in high school about my reading choices, but refused to hide the books. When I first met my husband he made some very snarky comments about my books. I basically told him to shut up – I didn’t poke fun at his science fiction – or hit the road. We’ve been married 32 years now. Secret to a successful marriage: know when to keep your mouth shut!

  12. Heather says:

    I came to romance very late, in my twenties. No one had actively decouraged me before, but it seems that all my life, the only thing I’ve ever heard about romance is that it was crap. No other word. I come from a very high-brow background where books are worshipped, and while some kinds of popular literature like SFF or detective novels were tolerated, romance was beyond the pale.

    I also suspect my parents had some leftover discomfort about romantic elements in general. When I was 11 or so, they told me that reading Jane Eyre was a rather ‘outlandish’ idea. Seriously. Jane Eyre, aka The Best Book Of All Times (In My Completely Unbiased Opinion ^^). I suppose they simply were not comfortable with the idea of their 11-year-old daughter swooning over Mr Rochester (which I did not, for the record–Jane is the one I worship forever). So, while they didn’t actively try to prevent me from reading romance, I can only imagine the look on their faces if I had come home with a Harlequin novel. I wouldn’t have anyway, I was too convinced that those books were worthless drivel. You don’t escape the expectations and frameworks of your social background that easily 😉

    I eventually did come to romance because of this ritual I’ve had since childhood: every now and then, I like to try one thing that I’m convinced I despise, just to see if it’s really that bad. Turned out I got hooked 🙂 So much for years of high-brow anti-romance prejudice!

  13. Malissa says:

    I was reading “inappropriate” books since before I can remember. I don’t remember my first romance but I was in junior high at least. I come from a house of readers so seeing a book in someone’s hand was common. My sister and I were reading Steven King and VC Andrews at 10 and 11. I was checking out the teenage romances from the school library in HS. Although we all read, I was the only one who read the romances. My friend’s mother had an impressive collection and I read every one. I did take some teasing and hid the books when others were around. Now, being 37 and married with 3 kids, I read what I want and don’t hide anything. I’ll read my “smut” books all I want.

  14. Lara says:

    I read my first romance (Harlequin Presents) at age 11, simply because I was at my grandmother’s over the weekend and there was nothing else to read at her house. When my mom came to pick me up and found me reading a second one, she very carefully suggested that these were *grown-up* books, and she would rather I not read them. Being a child conversant with the letter of the law and loopholes, I agreed–then spent the next four years reading them voraciously every time I spent a weekend with my grandparents. My grandmother had four bookshelves laden with all the Harlequins she’d ever received; I never ran out.

    My mother tried her best not to censor what I read. The issue with her was that I was reading *everything*–romances (and I moved along from Harlequins to Johanna Lindsey and Linda Lael Miller very quickly), fantasy, science fiction, not to mention all the YA fiction allegedly geared towards me–and she was worried I’d get more of an education than my rather naive teenaged self could handle. The one and only time she put her foot down was King’s “The Stand”, and rather than have that become a fight, I returned it to the library, made a mental note, and a couple years later, read it while at college.

    People have tried to shame me over what I read, but I’ve never had any shame to suffer. I read. They’re missing out by not reading. If they read what I’m reading and didn’t like it, I’m happy to engage in a discussion of what didn’t work for them, and make my own decisions. If they didn’t read it at all and are just making fun or being judgey, then they don’t know what they’re talking about and are imminently ignorable.

  15. Deborah says:

    My grandmother (from whom I inherited my love of reading) was actually the one to hide romances. Whether from my mother (who did not like to read) or me (for other reasons entirely), I will never know. I remember finding one of her treasures behind the home-canned vegetables in the basement (still haven’t figured THAT one out) and drooling over the delicious, muscle bound man on the cover. I flipped it open to a random page and started reading. Whoa, Grandma! I saw my conservative grandmother in a different light after that. Thanks, Grandma, for sharing your books with me…whether you knew it or not.

  16. When I first started reading romance as a teen, I would hide them in my backpack and under my bed, my parents are very strict when it comes to things like this. But now I display them in my bookcase and on my desk, it still is hard when I am reading in a cafe or coffee shop, and a stranger asks me what I am reading and I self consciously hide the cover…but I am working on getting better and not hiding what I read…I love romance and proud of it…but its a work in progress.

  17. Sheila Moore says:

    My niece, who is an editor, senior vp, and publisher of a major publishing company, recommended a couple of her authors a few years ago. At first I was one who hid the fact that I was reading them from friends and family. Reading ebooks has certainly solved that problem.

  18. Trippinoutmysoul says:

    Looking back, I realize that a lot of the science fiction and fantasy I started out with had romantic elements, but I hadn’t read a ‘real’ romance until I was 11. I was home from school for a week with a bad sinus infection and living on the couch where I could easily ask passing family members to get me water and tissues. I’d burned through my own books I’d camped out with and grabbed a book my mom had gotten from the library- Dark Paradise by Tami Hoag. I was halfway through it when my mom realized what I was reading and winced, saying “I don’t think you should be reading that.” I told her I’d already read the part that would make her feel that way and now I needed to know who the killer was. She hesitated for a second, then said “Ok” and left it at that. I definitely get my love of reading from my parents, and my mom didn’t say a word when, at our next trip to the library, I picked up the rest of Tami Hoag’s backlist. I’m sure she was still wincing inwardly at her 11 year old devouring explicit content, but I guess she decided there was no point in closing the barn door after that particular horse had gotten out.

  19. Kate says:

    I also came to romances late, in my 20’s, so I had never been actively discouraged from reading them, though nowadays, I do get a scoff and/or a chuckle from my mom if I mention a romance I’m reading.

    Which is odd, really, because growing up, I openly read all of my mom’s, what I called at the time her “divorced at the beach books”; Anne River Siddons, etc. She was also the one to lend me “The Horse Whisperer” and then warn me not to bring it to school because of all the sexytimes. I did, of course, and read all the juicest bits together with my friends (we were 11).

    Also, my mom never monitored my reading, but I was white-lying about my choices (“The Valley of the Horses?? Oh, it’s about a girl in a cave by herself… You know, like “Island of the Blue Dolphins!”) just in case. It’s come back to bite me, however, as my mom recently tried to read Jean M. Auel and other authors I read as a teen and told me, “There’s certainly a lot of sex in this… You never said…”

    So, I guess the policing never existed, but the judgement of Romance did, and still does. It’s alright though, I giggle at her beloved Stephen King shelf whenever I visit.

  20. Vicki says:

    Touched and amazed that I was quoted. My family were very religious so that fiction was a no-no but especially romantic fiction. Devil Water by Seton was a huge issue when my mom found it under my mattress at 11. The thing that did help me at that age was my piano teacher in Port of Spain, Miss Millicent Roberts, who loved to read romance and let me read all her Victoria Holts during my piano lessons. That worked very well until my mom decided she wanted piano lessons, too.

  21. roserita says:

    I was an early reader and would-be voracious bookworm. I read compulsively (loved those Shredded Wheat boxes!), and would have done nothing else if I could have. Looking back, I think my parents were mostly concerned about getting some balance in my life. I heard a lot of “it’s a beautiful day. Go outside and play! or “go out and get some fresh air!” Never mind that outside was hot, muggy, buggy, and pollen-laden. I learned to drop a book out my bedroom window, go out to collect it, and then find a place to read in peace.
    The question I keep having is what exactly WAS the first romance I read? How do you define it? I am at the upper end of the Bitchery demographic. I was in college when The Flame and the Flower came out. The library I haunted until they broke down and hired me didn’t buy paperbacks AT ALL until the early seventies, and didn’t buy categories until the nineties. I grew up reading mostly mysteries and historical fiction. Looking back, many of them had romantic elements. I remember one where the heroine was spending the summer with relatives in the woods somewhere Northeast-ish, meets a cute boy, finds an orphan fawn, and finds out cute boy’s family orphaned the fawn because they’re jacking deer. Boy outs his family, is going to be sent to reform school, girl says she’ll wait for him. Seems like romance to me. Gladys Malvern wrote historicals-with-romance; I still have the one about Queen Esther. Some authors like Phyllis Whitney wrote shelves of juvenile mysteries, and it was easy to move from them right into her adult mysteries/gothics. But again, these all had romantic elements. Some, like some of Evelyn Anthony or Margaret Widdemer, could be republished right now with romance covers and no one would know the difference.
    This got kind of wordy, but I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Back to being encouraged/discouraged with regards to romance reading, it was easier back then because most of the books I read were hardbacks without the lurid covers that made the paperback rack in the drugstore so…striking. Although my mother did ask why I insisted on reading Emilie Loring (because I ran out of Mignon G. Eberhart and Mary Roberts Rinehart, or course), my parents and early on the librarians were more uneasy because I was reading adult books when I was eight or so. Mrs. Koeppe had no qualms about asking if “my parents knew I was reading that.” I didn’t get hold of any Harlequins until the library put out of spinner of donated books. There was some fascinating reading there–it was the first time I’d read contemporary fiction set in places like Australia or New Zealand.

  22. Kayli says:

    Meg Cabot was my gateway author to romance in middle/early high school. Once I got older and started reading more…steamier books occasionally, I was smart enough to keep my trap shut about it. My reading wasn’t monitored very much. The only trouble I can remember is at fourteen leaving out a book. My grandmother has a habit of reading the books I leave out. I’d pretended that I hadn’t gotten to that book yet, because I would check out dozens of book at a time from the library, so it wasn’t much of a stretch. I remember being all, “That book has WHAT in it? Thank you for telling me grandma!”

    Now I tell her about most of the books I read. She likes romances too, but finds sex-scenes unnecessary.

  23. I never hid my romance novels, but had them hidden on me. My brother (younger, btw) didn’t like my reading habits and would hide my books on me whenever I left them sitting around. Once he stuck my Nora Roberts book in the ceiling.

    I also had a guy cousin who would make all these disparaging comments about the books I read. He would come over and ask me what I was reading. It didn’t take long for me to stop answering him because I didn’t feel like dealing with his attitude. I remember playing a game with the family and I was tasked with revealing the last book I read, which ironically was not a romance, and he turned to me and told me that I shouldn’t dirty my younger cousins’ minds with my smutty novels. I told him not to worry and shocked the hell ou5 of him when I revealed that the last book I read was “Zodiac” by Robert Greysmith. He didn’t approve of that, either because it was a serial killer book. It is a good thing that I didn’t live my life for his approval.

  24. Caitlin says:

    My mom rarely actively censored my reading, but the few times she did it was because she felt the book was too “adult”for me, so I knew romance novels weren’t going to fly (although I had read the blurbs on some of my babysitter’s historical and they looked good!). My mom wasn’t a genre reader, though, so I picked up science fiction and especially fantasy–some of those books had great romantic storylines, and a lot of them had some pretty steamy scenes, but I don’t think she had any idea!
    My dad, though, as a dedicated science fiction fan, I’m sure knew damn well that there was sex in those books (although he might not have known how explicit fantasy, in particular, could get), but the only time I remember him mentioning it wAs when I picked up 1984 in about 6th grade. That convo went:
    Dad: “That book can get pretty…adult, right?”
    Me: “Ummm….”
    Dad: “Eh, that’s cool, I think I read it when I was your age, too.”

  25. Joan Leacott says:

    My mom used to bring home stripped Harlequin category romances. Mom, my sister, and I read all of them and then she took them back to the drugstore where she worked. Back then, they all stopped at the bedroom door, so I learned nothing about sex until I read those “other” books Mom had stored in the basement–the things you can find in the basement. 😉

  26. Coco says:

    My mother has always been a really strange mix of progressive and prudish.

    Before I started 2nd grade she had a homeschool sex ed class with my brother and I. She covered pretty much everything, I think in an effort to be sure that we were ready to faced predators. I think she feared that, and more so than she feared us having too much knowledge. She even went so far as to draw us pictures (I remember my mother being quite the artist, though I’ve never seen her draw anything else, I don’t think she enjoys art).

    By the time sex ed came around on the public school curriculum, I could have taught it with fewer blushes (and more accurately) than did my teacher.

    We were a very religious family, but my mother was divorced and had very little input, none really, from my father. I think because she was a single parent, she felt more pressure to do things just so, in the view of others. She really did teach me to think for myself, but she often didn’t. She bowed to other people’s ideas of how things should be. And when she didn’t actually bow to them, she hid it.

    So being that I had a more accurate knowledge of how sex worked than did any of my peers, and rather too many adults, and because I was a very precocious child (I felt no shame), she was often embarrassed by me. She still is quite often.

    So when I started reading romance, she was really put out. I don’t believe she was worried about what I was reading, so much as she was worried about what people would think about it. And of course, she always judged books by their cover, both literally and figuratively.

    So everything I read, from Victoria Holt, to Lavyrle Spencer, and Julia Garwood, to Jayne Ann Krentz, had to be defended, I had to explain that whatever she was seeing on the covers had very little to do with the plot, the characters, the heat level.

    And yeah, I totally lied.

    Not out of shame or because I wanted to get away with something that was wrong, but because I knew that my mother would absolutely lose her mind if she knew that I was reading something other people would not approve of. So long as I told her that it was all good, there was nothing in this book that she needed to worry about, she could then go and tell anybody who asked it’s all good, there’s nothing in that book that she (I) shouldn’t be reading.

    Purely for the sake of peace, I still do this today.

    From the time I was very young I remember hearing that romance novels were inappropriate reading material for Christians, full from my religion and my mother. And I still feel this need to hide, not to make excuses, because I don’t feel the need to, but to hide because I don’t need to waste my time defending something that there is nothing wrong with. I’ve got books to read.

    Interestingly enough, in recent years there’s been less of a push against specific reading material. There’s still absolutely the idea that there is inappropriate reading material, but they’ve figured out that that’s a personal decision. My mother hasn’t caught up yet.

  27. LauraL says:

    The romance blocker in my life is my sister-in-law, who is a professor of obscure literature at a good-size college. Until the Professor joined the family, my mother read a lot of popular fiction, like Anne Rice, John Balducci, Maeve Binchy, Anne Rivers Siddons, etc. As my mother was easily swayed by anything her favorite son or his wife said or did, the Professor provided her with perfectly dreary books to read. Mom would pass them on to me, telling me how wonderful the books were since the Professor recommended them. I would give the books back after a suitable time or donate them to the library. I avoid horror stories or stories that end badly or are too angsty. (I am not big on NA.) After my mother passed away, we were going through her books and clothes. The Professor tried to unload several boxes of sad books on me and I told her no thanks, I prefer stories with a happily ever after.

    At one family event, I tried to talk to her about Eloisa James since she is also a literature professor and that got her out of my face. Before her, no one really had much to say about what I read, although my husband is wondering about my current obsession with cowboy romances.

  28. I will never understand the desire to censor what kids read. People should be delighted that kids are reading–full stop.

    My husband was a reluctant reader throughout school, so when he discovered “Choose your own adventure” books and started devouring them, his mom was thrilled–because he was reading.

    We’re both voracious readers (well, I’m a little more voracious than he is) and all the small people in our lives get books for their birthdays–comics, fantasy, old favorites I remember from childhood, I don’t care what kids read, I’m just thrilled that they do read. (I actually have a complicated spreadsheet to keep track of what books went to what family, so I don’t repeat, because I give a LOT of books.)

    I will, admit, however, that I tend to give books with strong and active female characters, because that’s the kind of girls I want them to be and/or respect.

  29. Maite says:

    When I was eight, I had a book literally stripped out of my hands and hidden away so well I have never found it**. I self-censored what people saw me reading after that.

    Until I realized that people don’t have the least idea what you’re reading based on titles, and non-readers assume that if you read a lot, you’re reading Literature like “Crime and Punishment” and “Oliver Twist” (Two of the handful of books I DNF’d because Boring!).

    And then my English teacher saw I was reading Pride and Prejudice in class and offered to loan me the rest of Austen’s books. (A cheer for her!).

    But I never had anyone to share my love of romance with until one Wiki Walk landed me at the Bitchery.

    The only thing as bad as having a book stripped from you is not having anyone to squee with.

    **I eventually had to read that book for Spanish class. And still don’t know if “Dónde Vuelan los Cóndores” was taken away because protagonist had been unfaithful to her boyfriend during a wild vacation fling and had gotten pregnant (which was as far as I’d gotten), or because she’d gotten AIDS from said fling. [Again, I was eight in the early ’90s: This was my first inkling into how babies were really made.]

  30. Anne says:

    I was introduced to romance by reading everything in the library, starting with the ‘A’ of the children’s section and working my way up to the adult books. I came across Jane Eyre that way, some Jude Deveraux and a lot of other ‘interesting’ stuff. I hid the covers if I thought my parents wouldn’t approve. However I plan to monitor the books my daughter reads for age appropriateness, because I remember being scared witless by a young adult book about a girl being date raped and infected with HIV on purpose. I actually talked with my mom about that one and although she was pretty wonderful about it, I was really too young to deal with those issues. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with some good escapism now and then and most romance falls in the latter category for me.

  31. Anne Westcarr says:

    I was never banned from romances specifically, just ALL books. My father decided that I was no longer allowed to read. As a kid reading was one of my few comforts. I read constantly. The whys of my father’s behavior are too long to go into, so I’ll just say that this was typical of my father, and he was not a very nice man.

    In 7th grade didn’t get the grades he wanted so he banned me from reading anything that wasn’t a text book. He said this would stop distracting me from my school work, but I have always believed if it was something I enjoyed, my father would find a way to put a stop to it. The grades were simply an excuse. I pretended to comply.

    I read at school since he couldn’t catch me there, I’d lock myself in the bathroom and read, I read after everyone else went to bed. Nothing was doing to stop me from reading.

    I didn’t start reading romances until I was an adult, but he would not have approved since he thought everything else I read was nonsense. Now, I don’t even care about supposedly embarrassing covers. Reading is kind of an act of defiance for me, so part of me welcomes the disapproval 😀

  32. Kim Wyant says:

    My mother read romance and I very sneakily read her books starting around the age of 12 or thirteen. I had no idea what was happening in certain parts but they fascinated me! I openly read romances starting when I was in high school after my mother and I had a chat and she told me she’d known all along I was reading her books! The first one I remember reading was Shanna. I did hide them in high school but once I graduated, I stopped doing that. I could care less what people think about my choices in reading material!

  33. ReneeG says:

    All of my family were/are readers and I never had any brakes on what I wanted to read. My folks actively directed my attention to “any book other than a romance” and my old-skools were rarely sneer-free, but they weren’t forbidden.

    My entry to Romancelandia was Barbara Cartland, who I “borrowed” from my great-grandma during summer vacations. My great grandma, her sisters and my grandma, got me hooked on the original Harlequins, and Dorothy Eden, Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney and the other romantic suspense writers of that generation.

    As I go thru my collection these days and come across the very few books I saved when we cleaned out my grandma’s house, I can see her name in the books, as she traded her books among her friends like I did with mine (allowances go just so far in a bookstore). I love my e-reader, but it is hard to share books on it. There just isn’t the visceral thrill of holding a new-to-you book and knowing that your friends are waiting for you to finish it so the debate of certain plot points or characters could begin over bologna sandwiches on the grass in our spot.

  34. Linastew says:

    I became addicted to the Girls of Canby Hall series in fifth grade after finding one of the books in my classroom’s library. My dad fed my addiction by buying me used copies for 1 cent on Amazon, and I eventually read nearly the entire series. When I started reading romance a year and a half ago, I was amused to find that Julie Garwood was a Canby Hall writer. (It kind of felt like a sign!) Also when I was in seventh grade, my father required I read a literary classic, and strongly suggested Pride and Prejudice. I soon devoured all Austen and eventually worked my way through many Victorian classics, sticking to the stories with happy endings for the hero and heroine. (No to Wuthering Heights, yes to North and South.) When I couldn’t find any more happy endings I eventually seeked out English translations of George Sand just to get my fix of couples. The ridiculous thing is that the romance genre would’ve been a natural continuation of my tastes, but I honestly never even considered dipping into the genre. I went to such great lengths to find novels with romantic elements that ended happily, but my mother hates reading and I was raised by a father who, despite his appreciation of Austen and a good romance subplot, I feared would judge me for my tastes if I were to start picking up “bodice rippers”. It was only after a friend encouraged me to read Devil in Winter that I got addicted. I feel lucky to finally have found all these awesome books, but it kind of sucks that I took such a detour getting here.

  35. Crystal F. says:

    My parents have never had a problem with my reading romances. The only warning my mom gave me was not to bring Stephen King novels home because she didn’t want me to get into horror. (I never really had the urge to. I’ll occasionally watch a cheesy horror film. My birthmother, however, loves Stephen King. I’ve even been starting a collection for her. But horror’s really not the genre for me so that was fine.)

    I did have one gym teacher who would monitor the cafeteria at lunchtime. One day he passed my table while I was reading a romance, stopped, said, “You know how those get written don’t you?”, and proceeded to inform me how they were all written by little old ladies on a computer, who all followed the same basic formula and just inserted sex scenes willy-nilly. One, I knew even then that wasn’t the case for the majority of them. Two, I honestly didn’t care. I just shrugged and continued to read whatever I wanted. It was more surprising that was the one thing I WASN’T bullied in school over.

    Aside from that, I still get grief from this one acquaintance of mine for liking any of V.C. Andrews’ books. (Or anything that I like, she always has to knock it.) I usually just look back at her while we’re in the car and give her an eye roll. I ‘could’ give her the same treatment over Twilight, but unlike her, I don’t believe in being a book snob just because someone likes something different. I know a couple of Twilight fans who are very sweet people and that wouldn’t be fair to them. Fortunately, we don’t get to see each other that much.

  36. SB Sarah says:

    @Anne W.

    That story made me so sad for younger you. Good God! Good for you for not stopping – I hope you’re in a caring, happy and healthy place now.

  37. Isidore says:

    This website got me hooked! Nothing kept me away from romances for the first 25 years of my life except my own dumb prejudices. In college and for a few years after I most read really important. sounding. stuff. But after a few years of putting up with a lot of depressing misogynistic crap at work I didn’t want to come home and read things that made me more depressed. I started thinking about a book I read as a tween that made me really happy and was googling around trying to find it and stumbled upon this website. Turns out it was basically a romance novel for teens!

    I do have a funny story about people taking my books away, though. In 3rd grade I discovered a section of the library that was apparently meant just for the teachers and started going through Stephen King and John Grisham books like crazy. One day I was returning “A Time to Kill” and the librarian flipped out. (I guess I can understand her point… books beginning with graphic gang rapes should probably not be read by 8 year olds.) She put up a sign behind the check-out counter that was basically a wanted poster of me saying not to check out adult books to this girl. I started, er, just taking the books and returning them when I was done. The school was for K-3 and the book shelves were about waist height, so I would crawl on my hands and knees over to the grown up book area and crawl back out. Reading feels really cool when you have to go to mission impossible lengths to get your hands on a good book!

  38. @SB Sarah

    Sorry for the late reply!

    Thank you for the kind wishes. I’m in a great place now – haven’t seen my father in almost 15 years and of course I read every day 🙂

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