I realize I don’t have to defend romance novels to this crowd. You’re either at Smart Bitches because you already enjoy the genre or you got here by mistake and are deeply confused (welcome to the Hot Pink Palace of Bitchery, we have mantitty. And also cookies). I am feeling all the rage though, and need to vent.
Every now and again there are some super shitastic articles posted about why adults should be ashamed to read YA or romance or magazines or what have you. Every time it brings back all my romance novel put-down PTSD.
I can’t tell you the number of times people have questioned my taste in reading. For some reason people think it’s totally okay to be super crappy about my choice in books — “Oh my God, why are you reading that?” — but would consider making a similar comment about my choice in clothes too rude to say to my face.
These are the things people have said to me about reading romance novels:
“But you're too smart for books like that.”
“Why would you want to waste your time reading trash when there are so many good books out there.”
“Romance novels are just smut/trash/girl porn”
“You're wasting your degree by not reading serious fiction.”
So here we go.
My name is Elyse. I have a BA in literature. I am a feminist. I have achieved professional success in a male-dominated industry. I am married. I sometimes eat cookies for breakfast. I read romance novels almost to the exclusion of all other books.
I am an adult and I do not need anyone to tell me what I should or should not be reading.
That should end the argument right there. I don’t need anyone’s opinion or judgment on my reading tastes (other than “Oh, I really like that author, too” or “I didn’t care for that book in particular”). But since I will continue to get comments on airplanes and trains and sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, here are some of my responses.
1. “But you’re a feminist!”
You bet I am. People who believe there is something anti-feminist about romance novels clearly have never read one or lack some serious reasoning skills. This is a genre primarily written for women by women. And, yes, romance novels are a fantasy, an escape (some of the time). So why the ever loving shit would a bunch of women write a fantasy about being oppressed/ mistreated/ unempowered for other women? That makes about as much sense as writing children’s books titled Fluffy the Bunny Gets Run Over by the Lawn Mower or How Many Kitties Did the Shelter Euthanize This Year?
Romance novels, even the Old Skool rapey ones (although more problematic), were about women exercising choice. At their heart they are about women finding emotional and sexual fulfillment with a partner of their choice. For how much of human history has this actually been denied to women? In how many places is it still denied?
When my great-grandmother wanted to marry my great-grandfather she actually had to wait for him to be able to afford to buy her from the people who owned her “contract” (i.e. her person) as a domestic servant. This was in the United States, by the way. Three generations ago.
We are re-writing history with romance novels. Historicals create a narrative where a woman is empowered to choose her spouse or partner, where she consents to and enjoys sex. We are exploring history from the female viewpoint and creating fiction that is inclusive to women. In romance novels women are not silent; they are celebrated.
2. “Why don’t you read good/serious literature?”
What does that even mean?
I have a BA in literature. I’ve been a reader my entire life. I can tell you that a book being widely accepted as ‘intellectually challenging’ doesn’t make it so. It also doesn’t make it good. Wanna know a secret? I hate every book by Virginia Woolf, and I’ve read them all. Yup, she’s a smart, female author who had significant influence. She says some interesting things. I hated it. I hated Mrs. Dalloway and I really, really hated The Waves. I was okay with A Room of One’s Own, but only because it was less awful than everything else I read.
I’m sure I’ll get some responses to this like “Well, you just didn’t understand her.” Nope, I actually did understand her just fine. I passed that course with flying colors. I just couldn’t enjoy her writing style even a little bit.
Other supposedly great authors I hate: James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller and Charles Dickens. I can read them. I can understand them. I’m not going to enjoy them.
Why? Because reading, like everything else, is subjective and a matter of taste. People may widely agree that these are great authors and they write great books, but there is actually nothing inherently good about them.
People who hate Charles Dickens are not wrong. People who love Twilight are not wrong. YOU CAN’T BE FUCKNIG WRONG WHEN YOU READ. Unless you completely miss the text and say something like “Great Expectations was about a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating a bi-plane,” but even then, if you can support your thesis, you can probably get away with it.
I wrote an honor’s thesis on Moby Dick. I spent an entire semester on The Dick, and really enjoyed it. I read classic Southern American literature for enjoyment. I don’t think any of those books are more valuable than my romance novels. I am not smarter for having read Moby Dick. It didn’t bump my IQ or make me a more thoughtful person. I would argue that reading in general—of any genre—did that.
Also a lot of “serious” literature is primarily written by and about men. That’s changing if you look at contemporary literary fiction (I hate using that label, but I’m not sure what else to call it). Just like pretty much everyone else, I like it when my fiction is representative of me and my experience. I like reading about women who aren’t being treated like total shit.
I remember finishing Tess D’Ubervilles and the fucking RAGE, man. Or Madame Bovary. Or basically 75% of what I had to read in high school. College was a little better because we delved more into contemporary literature, but in my experience, romance novels and mysteries offer the most empowered, engaged women in contemporary fiction.
Also “serious” fiction tends to be depressing. I don’t want to be depressed. Fuck that.
People who worry about only reading serious literature, in my opinion, are just afraid of the world thinking they are dumb. If you love Faulkner, get down with your bad self. If you read it because of judgment, well, then that’s pretty dumb, isn’t it? I’m only going to get to read so many books in my lifetime. I’d rather they be something I enjoy.
3. “But romance novels are trashy!”
This really means “romance novels depict women enjoying sex.” The fact that women enjoying sex is perceived as being “trashy” is THE WHOLE FUCKING PROBLEM.
It is 2014 and if a book contains graphic depictions of women enjoying sex, then it is scandalous. Let’s all just think about that for a minute.
I need another fucking cookie.
In the end, it doesn’t matter what I read. It doesn’t even matter that I do read, quite frankly. What matters is that we live in a world where fiction aimed directly at women is perceived as garbage. That doesn’t say anything at all about me, it says a lot about what needs to change.
So, what put-downs have you received? Have you had to defend your love of romances? (And would you like a cookie? We have plenty.)
My family doesn’t know I write romance because they called it “those cheap books” one too many times (except mom. Mom is awesome and loves everything i write, particularly the romances bc they don’t depress her like my SFF does. Heh.). So they can miss out on that part of my life, instead. I am sometimes ashamed of myself for not being a better advocate for a genre i’ve been loving for 20 years now, but It took me a lot of years to get out from under the shadow of the life they wanted me to live, and I don’t feel like spending the energy making them embrace what I choose. My husband might smirk at it, but he depracates his starship and laser books in the same breath and will listen when i want to theorize about romance as a genre being an extension of the Enlightenment movement or an awesome way to learn about history or just the best way for me to unwind after a crappy day.
In college i got movked by a feminist in my capstone writing course for loving Jane Austen and not “serious” writers…you know, like Dickens and Thackeray. The men. From a feminist! Patriarchy and all that, yet she didnt see her own hypocrisy in dismissing JA as non-literary writing and me as “one of THOSE girls.” The guys in that class thought it was great that I wanted to write romance.
Sometimes I wonder how much of the judgment is from women who are jealous they arent secure enough to read something “fun” or entirely “feminine”?
Love all y’all for this thread.
@Maree: you’ve raised two fantastic teenagers and written 16 books?! Holy smokes, woman, you rock!
(BTW, if it’s still a dream of yours, why not look into university for yourself?)
@Suzie, I believe the reason you see people listing degrees and accomplishments is because the responses they get to their reading preferences infer that they are some how lacking in intelligence and professional drive. Their value as a coworker, teacher or friend has be reduced. That romance novels are the purview of people who lack sophistication and IQ points.
We all know that romance is for everyone.
We’re better people for standing up for what we love. I have never hidden my reading choices. I’ve never been ashamed of them. I never call them stupid, or silly, or porn. I think I’ve mentioned before my very brilliant friend from high school who would pick a page from my latest bodice ripper (cause I’m THAT old) for me to read out loud in study hall. I know the first time he was trying to embarrass me, but he got it immediately that that wasn’t happening. And as I was a of speech forensics competitor, they were applause worthy readings.
And Christopher Marlowe being stabbed in the eye seemed like poetic justice to me since reading Doctor Faustus made me wish someone would stab me in the eye. Since we’re dissing the “real” literature and all.
PREACH
Yes yes yes!!!! This is AWESOME!!!!!!!! Thank you!!!!!
@Rei Scar—THIS! The reason this is my favorite romance blog is because if I read something that makes me say “Ugh, that’s supposed to be romantic? More like patronizing and infantilizing” (or whatever) I can come here and kvetch and find a dozen people agreeing with me. Hurrah for calling out poisonous worldviews even when they show up in a favorite genre. I do think there are some widespread tropes peculiar to romance which are manifestations of wider problems; but it’s just because of engaged readers that that gets questioned. So yeah I am an engaged reader! I don’t switch off my wish to criticize when I read romance any more than any other kind of book. And really the tools used to think about it are the same as with more accepted literature.
OMG YES. AMEN AMEN AMEN. HALLELUJAH AMEN.
I have a BA in Spanish Literature (and completed the coursework for a MA). And a Master of Library Science (I’m a librarian).
I am a FEMINIST.
I read Dickens. And Faulkner. And Garcia Marquez (IN BOTH LANGUAGES). And Cervantes (so help me god if you ask me to analyze that windmill scene one more time I will NOT be responsible for what I do). I don’t like any of them. But I read them. I understood them I analyzed them.
I read plenty of authors I loved too (Jorge Luis Borges is a fcuking genius).
But romance novels are my brain candy. And I am not ashamed. Regency? Victorian? Yes please. Contemporaries are not my cup of tea, but paranormal? Send it my way.
And I do criticize when warranted. But I also read to escape. Because I need to NOT think sometimes and that’s OK too. READ WHAT YOU WANT.
I have a BA in history. I did take some literature classes and discovered a lot about myself: 19th century writers and I don’t get along at all. I did read all of Jane Austen novels (5 of them twice) and realized I didn’t like her. I also tried to read two of Charles Dickens’ books and didn’t like him either. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is also not likable for me, (ironically too because I was able to understand Russian history a lot more the second time I read it…) I did like Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
To be honest, from time to time I do read some sort of romance novels (my favorites being Jade Lee Tigress series) but most of the books I read happens to be historical fiction and Asian classics. I guess I’m a cynical person maybe. If it helps, I do enjoy when a story or a book has very strong romantic elements.
Elyse, thank you so much! You are so on here. I will read anything but horror books. Romance and erotica are my favorite getaways after being a mom of two, wife, coworker, PTA officer and Sunday School teacher. Seriously, if I didn’t have some Lauren Dane, Larisa Ione, Courtney Millan, Laura Kaye, etc. to read at night, I would go fuckin’ ape shit.
What I don’t find right is when tastes get put down. I am often confused as to why, for example, its okay to call romance genre names or to put people down for it, but when it comes to science fiction, for example, I don’t hear anything negative about it and instead science fiction stuff has been embraced by community?
Gotta say…while I agree with the larger message of reading is universal, don’t apologize for your choices…I am feeling a little marginalized by the preponderance of the responses highlighting educational background. Yeah, I read romance, UF, SFF, thrillers, you name it, and I do NOT have a degree, and yet still get comments about my reading choices.
Others comments aren’t any less bothersome or annoying with no personal bona fides. Really. And they even use the big words when they talk to us (OK, a little passive-aggressive, I admit).
OH, I agree, so very very much! I HATED every Hemingway and Dickens that I was required to read and only slogged through them because I had to. And, at the risk of alienating a lot of people, if I never have to read another Margaret Atwood book again, it will be too soon.
Me, too.
I have a BA in Art History, with a minor in Art Studio – a degree where you’re looked down on by some of your fellow classmates for preferring blues over “real music” (ie, jazz), let alone for preferring urban fantasy and romantic-suspense to “real books”, like the depressing “everybody is a sucky human being and/or dies so it must be Important” literary tome that they read.
Yeah, whatever.
For most of my life, there was always some person who couldn’t just let me enjoy my book in peace and had to comment on my choice of reading material – or the fact that I was reading at all. I got shit from my step-mother because I “always had my nose in a book and needed to put the books down and go outside into the “real world”“. And did you know that laughing out loud because your book is funny while simultaneously riding a school bus causes deep rage in some no-reading-idiots. And then there’s my ex-husband who complained when I read because, “it was like he wasn’t even in the room” and I was “ignoring him” and “why are you reading that trash anyway??”.
I was 29 before I started college. By that point, given my past experiences, I didn’t really give a crap what anyone thought of what I was reading. I don’t necessarily want to talk about it when someone says something, though, because 1) can’t they see I’m reading? Why are they interrupting me?; and 2) just because I don’t care what they think, it doesn’t mean that I want to hear about how trashy my book is or how I could read something “better” or whatever their ridiculous opinion is. Seriously – am I supposed to be edified and awed at their attempt to steer me in the right direction and I will, like some convert, suddenly see the light and except the literature of Virginia Wolfe in my life? Or do they think I just didn’t realize that I have other, more “literary” choices, until they brought it to my attention? Do they think I tripped and fell into the latest Ilona Andrews while reaching for George Eliot and just didn’t notice until they pointed it out? Really? Like I said – whatever. They can all fuck off while I keep enjoying my Ann Aguirre.
Oh, the woe of hitting post too soon!! I hate not being able to edit! That should be “accept”, of course, not “except” in
am I supposed to be edified and awed at their attempt to steer me in the right direction and I will, like some convert, suddenly see the light and except the literature of Virginia Wolfe in my life?
From Lois Bujold’s GoH speech:
…if romances are fantasies of love, and mysteries are fantasies of justice, I would now describe much SF as fantasies of political agency. All three genres also may embody themes of personal psychological empowerment, of course, though often very different in the details, as contrasted by the way the heroines “win” in romances, the way detectives “win” in mysteries, and the way, say, young male characters “win” in adventure tales.
This made me think that “contemporary literature” is also a fantasy—a fantasy of relevance, I suppose, or significance. That this little contemporary story is deep and meaningful, rather than, as that last shot in Working Girl, just one office/one story in a building full of stories.
I always come to these discussions late! Thank you, Elyse, for a great post and I am kind of in awe of the amazing responses. I went “public” with my love of romance novels in 2007 when I preached a sermon that included references to romances—it was well received by the congregation that day, with both women and men telling me it was meaningful to them. The sermon still exists in the blogosphere (unfortunately, I seldom preach these days because my work as a hospice chaplain is so demanding, so my sermon-posting days are pretty well in the past). Here’s the URL: http://tworevs.blogspot.com/2007/06/do-you-love-me.html
I’ve been an ordained minister for almost 25 years, and yes, like many others here I have a degree in English literature (I also majored in Latin), as well as an advanced degree in theology from Harvard. I’ve loved romances my whole life and have read them in adulthood almost exclusively (with detours into mystery and sci-fi), and for a long time I felt like I had to hide it (being a minister and all). The romance novel sermon was kind of a watershed moment for me, and I’ve been open about my reading preferences ever since. I’ve never seen any inherent contradiction between being a woman of faith and being a romance reader—believing as I do that love in all its dimensions, including the physical, is a sacred blessing and delight—and it’s been a relief in these years since “the sermon” not to take on the worry about what other people might think, but just to acknowledge what I love reading and to share that openly with people. Mostly these days, their response is positive—because the world is changing? because they respect my grey hairs? because I’m not ashamed?—whatever the reason, I’ll take it. And if my openness helps another churchgoer or woman of faith celebrate her love of romance novels instead of feeling guilty about reading them?—I’m delighted.
I am so grateful for the community here at Smart Bitches, and for the fabulous readers and writers who make it so meaningful on a daily basis. May we all love whom we wish, and read (and write!) what we wish, and may we all be blessed in both the loving and the reading.
I would like this on a t-shirt. And a coffee mug. And a bumper sticker. And, and, and…because I’m an editor for my day job, I’d probably correct the spelling. But other than that…omg yes, all the yes. And I say that as somebody who loves Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf, because STILL YES. One of the great private-victory-type joys of my life was when I realized, instead of attempting to hide or defend my love of romance, I could simply take the approach of assuming that anyone who expressed skepticism was somebody who had set themselves up to hear my many cogent arguments about why reading is reading, and fiction is fiction, and I could probably talk them from their current position into reading a romance novel of my recommendation given enough time. And now…they’re also going to hear, “You can’t be fucking wrong when you read.” <3
Thanks to Elyse for the posts and all the commenters for sharing their stories. I too am an introvert and life-long reader and have had similar experiences when talking about books and reading.
Years ago, when I was in my late 20’s, I worked in a male dominated office, where there were few women in management positions. One of the female managers (who was about 15 years older than me and had a reputation for being quite a stickler), mentioned that she had seen the movie Con-Air over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I was surprised (and it must have showed) because I thought that she was more of a subtitled, foreign film kind of person. She said something that I’ve never forgotten: “I go to the movies to be entertained.”
I’ve since applied that philosophy to my reading and other leisure activities. I do get a kick out of book snobs, however, especially the ones who tell me that they only read “non-fiction” or “business books”—when I tell them what I’ve read lately. My response, is always the same: I read to be entertained.
Sing it, Sistah!
I have two stories about this sort of thing.
Me, My Father & the Museum
My dad used to tease me a little about my reading choices. Not too much, and lightheartedly because he loved I was reading, but still. Until I was 19. We were in Chicago while he was filming Backdraft and we went to my favorite museum. The Museum of Science & Industry. It was just the two of us, and we were walking around and I kept coming up with all these random facts about these things. Tidbits and facts which weren’t on any of the cards at the exhibits. He kept asking me where I’d learn that, and I’d say, “Dad, I READ. A LOT.”
Then the next day we go to the picnic put on by the producers, and dad’s telling mom and I this story, and he says something about all the stuff the firemen wear.
Me: “You mean their turnout gear.” (I had just read a romance with a fireman)
Dad, a little flabbergasted: “How did you know that?”
Me: *stares*
Honest to god, he has never said another word about my reading material. LOL That was *cough* Many years ago.
The next story is a little more recent. I was working at this small law firm as a legal secretary and they all knew I read romance. I got a few women there hooked on romance, so I wasn’t given too much grief about it, but there were a few. Then one day I’m sitting and talking to one of the senior partners and wen start talking books. And I’m RAVING over Team of Rivals and how great it was and how much I learned. Then he starts talking about another non-fic book about the influenza epidemic, and I had read that one, too. From there it was Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and what about Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Hurricane about Galveston in 1900? And OMG how boring was that new Andrew Jackson bio?! SNOOZER.
He and I sat there talking about all sorts of books (fiction and non) and I scored MAJOR points with him and left the attorneys in our dust. LOL He said to me “Wow. You really ARE a reader.” Me: “Yup. I read mostly romance, but there’s still value in that, too, and if I find a topic I want to know more about, I always reach for books.”
That pretty much stopped the rest of the firm from mocking ever again. LOL.
My mom used to roll her eyes at all the romance, but since I started reading them by sneaking them out of her closet, she couldn’t really say much.
Not to derail, but I also feel a lot of the guilt applied towards the “classics” in books is also heaped on people for art. I was talking with a friend about how much I loved the Getty and how often I go, and she said she didn’t like museums because they took too long to walk through.
???
When I go to a museum, I enter a room and look around. Anything interesting? No? Moving on. I don’t feel the need to sit and stare at every single painting because OMG THAT MUST Be IMPORTANT BECAUSE ITS IN A MUSEUM. *yawn* No. It’s how I walked through most of the Louvre in a day.
Art, like books, is subjective. If you don’t like it, THAT’S OKAY. That doesn’t mean you can’t recognize the value in it, it just means it wasn’t your cup of tea. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in person. And you know what? I still don’t like it. It’s a boring painting to me. But when I was 6 I got away from my mom at the Norton-Simon in Pasadena and when she finally tracked me down, the guard said I had been sitting on the floor, unmoving, staring at Van Gogh’s Starry Night (on loan). In fact, I wouldn’t leave. While the rest of our group toured the museum I made mom sit there with me while I got lost in it. It’s still one of my favorite paintings, and he’s my favorite artist. But that’s ME. Others can’t stand his work, AND THAT’S OKAY, TOO.
Just because something’s hanging on a wall in a museum…or has a “Classics” banner across the book cover…doesn’t mean you have to like it or there’s something wrong with you. It just means society has deemed it “important.”
And really…who cares.
*goes back to my Tessa Bailey book*
Wow,nice post thank you so much for sharing these post.Really i like this post this is so loving and romantic post.sexywin
I read Romance, and have done for 60 years 🙂 My grandmother used to ‘slip’ me her Mills&Boon; books when I was 8 or 9; I’d read the “Children’s” section of our public library by the age of 11 and was lucky enough to have a sensitive librarian who allowed me access to the “Adult” section. My parents only gave cursory glances to the books I picked up – otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pass off ” Angelique Marquise of the Angels” as just a ‘French historical adventure’ – at the age of 13.
I DEVOURED any and all Romance books I could lay my hands on, in whatever genre: Historical; Contemporary; Science Fiction (not many of those, sadly, at that time); Fantasy (well before Vampires became famous) – just anything. And I kept everything quiet, because to outward appearances I was a Mathematician (and yes, my degree is Maths) and a Scientist.
I read (and still do) Dictionaries and Encyclopaedia for fun. I read academic History books (Greek & Roman classics; histories of Britain & Europe; Military histories; etc) for fun. I read books on Architecture; Astronomy; Archaeology; Mythology & Folklore; all for fun.
And over the last 20 years or so, when Romance became more prevalent, I have read them all! OK I have favourite authors, and I love a good Bodice Ripper; but the advent of Erotic Romance as a genre has thrilled me to bits 🙂 BUT, I can’t let anyone know I read soft/hard porn, or the more explicit MM or Poly books.
We Brits have condescension down pat, and although I now run my own second-hand bookstore (with all the books I’ve amassed over the years), my current reading matter is still taboo – so it’s ‘Thank Goodness’ for my laptop which contain 4,000 plus naughty stories and for my Kindle which has 600 or so.
I still get odd looks from people who realise Romance is my favourite; but I’m of an age where peeps just regard me as eccentric and weird. And Thank Goodness for THAT!
I just wanted to comment briefly on the posts from several readers who feel excluded or uncomfortable by the number of people who have listed multiple high-powered degrees and other qualifications in commenting here. (I am one of them).
I honestly don’t think anyone does this to make anyone else who doesn’t have those qualifications feel bad. I think it would be too bad to come away from a thread that is really about solidarity for all romance readers feeling excluded or somehow demeaned. I also don’t think anyone should feel like they have to hold back in describing their own personal background.
I do think (maybe incorrectly) that my educational qualifications seem to make me particularly vulnerable to comments that I should be reading something more serious or edifying. Don’t get me wrong—I think all of us are vulnerable to these comments. And maybe, as is the case with all of us, we can only speak from our own experience. To me, coming from a family of academics in which we didn’t watch TV, weren’t allowed to listen to popular music, etc and in which higher education seemed to be used as a tool to justify shaming me for my book choices, it is really comforting and affirming to find that there are lots of women from similar backgrounds who are romance readers.
So I appreciate hearing about other people’s educational backgrounds because it makes me feel like I’m not crazy. Also, I am proud of my accomplishments. I worked freaking hard to achieve them. It is galling to have people comment that because I have these accomplishments and qualifications, there is some unwritten rule that I can’t read romance or shouldn’t be reading it. That’s just my experience, and I’m not expressing it to make other people feel excluded and I don’t think anyone else is either.
I will shut up now! This is an awesome thread and I think it should be a platform for us all to support each other and recognize each other’s differences at the same time that we are acknowledging the main fact we all have in common—a love for romance and a hate for those who would tell us we shouldn’t be reading it.
I wanna make out with this post behind the bleachers! Thank you for writing it!
I’m so glad my parents always said, “we don’t care what you’re reading…as long as you’re reading!” As a result, I’ve never been ashamed of any of my reading material. But, it does still irk me when people get judgey about this stuff.
A million times yes to all of this. I have a law degree and I go to work at a big firm every day and I always, always have a romance novel in my bag and barely read anything else.
I also have a BA in English and absolutely love reading romance novels. Sometimes, the trashier the better. Yeah, I said it! Viva la romance!
OMG—so am tired of people putting down romance novels. I also have a BA in English—have read every type of book basically and still come back to romance novels as my fave. The “classics” may have all this symbolism, etc, but some of them are BORING!!
I have to add a couple things to this amazing conversation! First, I have never ever looked down upon anyone, no matter what their educational background has been. I have literally learned something valuable from everyone I come into contact with, regardless of their educational background. What I meant in my previous post is that just because I read and write romance novels does not mean that my IQ is three levels below plant life.
The second thing is that this type of snobbery also has the potential to hold someone back from the opportunity of a lifetime.
Case in point: I saw Catherine Lanigan at a high tea in Indiana earlier this year for a local library. She said that when she was an undergraduate, she took a creative class with a Harvard professor who told her to stop writing, so she did. Fourteen years went by. She was living in Texas, but still had the desire to write. She went to a nearby hotel where journalists from out of town were staying because of an unfolding news story. She talked with one of them saying, “I really admire the fact that you are writing.” This journalist asked her why she wasn’t. She recounted her undergraduate experience.
He said, “You didn’t even give yourself a chance? Here. Take this business card. And call when you get serious.” She went home, wrote her first novel, a spy thriller, sold it and never looked back.
Eventually, she moved on to write Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, which became Hollywood blockbuster movies. If you are curious, this story is recounted at length in the book Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul.
But what is the essential moral of the story? In addition to the enjoyment that comes with reading what we want, we can’t let other people’s snobbery about our literary choices altar our destinies.
I’ve always been an optimistic, upbeat person, and my feeling is that real life gives me more than enough angst and sadness. I don’t need to pile on in my leisure time too. I read what interests me, which sometimes includes “serious” books (often nonfiction) but mostly means romance. I like happy endings, and I refuse to feel guilty about it. 🙂
When people find out that I write erotica and romance, they look at my husband to see what he thinks of this career of mine.
I now read mostly romance and cozy mysteries. I want easy and cheerful reads because in my life I have had enough angst to last me if I live to be 200. Happily ever after, true love and a humorous sharing of life with another person all seem so very lovely to me. I have had nasty comments about the “silly” romances I read. I have been reading since I was 4, and my first book was about a sad kitten caught in the rain. Now when I read, there may be rain but there is also sunshine and smiles and happiness and that is precisely what I want.
I’m late to the party but thank you so much for this post. IRL I am outspoken and enthusiastic about most of my interests, including “genre” reads like SF but for years and years I did not disclose my love of romance. In fact, I looked down on myself for reading it -it was a guilty pleasure. Finally, a few years ago, I realized that I had nothing to hide, and a lot to celebrate. This blog is a part of the reason why. I started recommending romances I loved to friends at work, and pretty soon we were having impromptu romance bookclubs during lunch. I proudly told my neighborhood bookclub that I love romance, and no one shunned me. A fellow attorney with whom I discuss books whenever we are on opposite sides of a case may have been surprised when I told him he should read Kushiel’s Dart and Lord of Scoundrels, but he did not stop talking books with me. Ya’ll have helped make me a proud romance reader. Many thanks!
I will always be grateful to the librarian who told me, at 13, that she thought I was ready for Georgette Heyer. And I was. Her writing was a bulwark against the miseries of an unhappy adolescence.
Yes, that librarian also made other recommendations, guiding me to more academic literature, to poetry and short stories (which I still love and collect) and to works that made my brain hurt as I tried to understand it.
Life went on – undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, marriage, feminism, mothering, family and friends, professional life – and thirty years of not going near a romance novel. I was the friend who everyone turned to when they wanted to know the greatest “serious” or crime novel recently published.
And then I became seriously ill. Survived. Then another part of my life went into a downward spiral. And a number of people very close to me died – slowly, needing my daily support.
And I stopped being a news junkie, stopped wanting to read about cruelty and misery. Even good writers when they wrote about cruelty and misery and conflicted endings. I was in the pits, despite therapy and exercise and a loving family.
Then I picked up an old Heyer and, as they say, the rest is history.
Three years later, I’m still an insomniac, I no longer go to literary festivals and I haven’t read even one of the Booker or Pulitzer Prize nominations since that time.
But a steady dose of HR and HEA (thank you Sherry Thomas, Loretta Chase, Barbara Metzger, Courtney Milan, Joan Smith, Laura Kinsale, early Mary Balogh, Carla Kelly and so, so many more) has restored me. They are my anti-depressants.
Can I see the failings of the genre? Of course, especially the ridiculous covers. Do I care? Sometimes. Will I stop reading it? No.
I still read and collect poetry and may expand to more diverse fiction, but I don’t care if it doesn’t happen. My reading friends are horrified, but such is life.
Thanks for this discussion.
It’s been a while now, but I got into a Facebook fight with a “friend” over Twilight. My “friend” has a master’s degree in literature (I can’t think of what it’s called) and teaches as an adjunct at a local community college. She had never read twilight, but went on a LONG rant about how it could not be considered literature. I was outraged. Is it going to win an award for best novel of all the days? No. But it’s a book, and it has inspired so many to read and others to write. The response I got was basically, I have an advanced degree, so what I consider literature is different from what ordinary people call literature. Needless to say, we aren’t friends on FB any longer, LOL. I have no time for that.
As a teen, I would read everything. However, romance novels were the ones I devoured in secret, hiding the covers from everyone. Those 1980’s fuschia covers did no one any favours. Those few times I was caught with Fabio, I received much harsh judgement. Alas, I didn’t know how to defend myself, and hid my reading away.
But I never stopped reading.
As I teen, I was a feminist, even though I didn’t realise it, or even knew what the term “feminist” meant. All I knew is that I had a rage against unfairness and no real way of expressing myself. (I’m much better now, thank you, because I know for sure I’m a feminist and have empowered myself to do what I need to do in the world.)
I suffered extreme grief from my fellow post-grad students in an MFA course because they thought I was a total hack. I wrote genre fiction. I hadn’t read the “greats”. I was stealing the plots from my D&D games. (What the—? I’d never played D&D at that time, but after my fellow students derision, you can bet I sought out the nearest DM and had a fabulous time.) Didn’t do a good time defending myself that time as well, but I refused to let them put me off reading and writing what I truly loved.
Now, we’ve got the power of the Internet, and we can tell the younger readers to be proud of the powerful and emotionally uplifting feministic wonderfulness of a good romance novel.
Fuck that shit indeed! World is too damn depressing without me having to read depressing books about how depressing it is, was or will be! Also, Master’s Degree and a librarian right here. I read romance novels and YA novels almost exclusively, and I will not be ashamed. Only reason I have 80 romance novels on an ereader is because I won the ereader and the books are cheap and my 9 year old daughter is super nosey. Wait, that was three reasons. 😉
I have gotten a lot of flack for my preferred reading choice, and every time someone starts to give me the side-eye, I throw tons of shade back their way with a dose of “don’t be a dick you elitist douche!”
(GIFs accurate representation of me:to them.)
I count myself very lucky, though, that I’m married to a man who actually reads romance novels, too! He’s read several Sherrilyn Kenyon novels, which started him down the path of science fiction and paranormal romance novels, but recently I got him to read A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant, over which he absolutely fanboyed and couldn’t stop gushing about! (Then I had him read a few Courtney Milan novels, and he’s hooked.) I say all that because it’s funny since anytime someone starts giving me shit for reading romance novels, he’s almost always the one to pipe up…that is, if I don’t start going off, first. I think the reality is there will ALWAYS be misogynistic assholes who throw criticism at women for reading romance, but if you’re lucky enough to have a “screw you” mentality, and are surrounded by friends and loved ones (either online or offline) who don’t ridicule you and maybe even share in your passion, then the world can go suck it in my opinion.
I was the lucky 14 year old who received the best Christmas present ever—the monthly delivery of 6 Harlequin Presents books (thanks, Mom). Spend the night parties with my best friend meant we were in the closet of her room reading all night (her mom couldn’t see the lights were still on if we were in the closet!) Growing up in an extremely small town back in the day of only 3 tv channels, those books were my lifeline. I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if I’d never been introduced to romance novels. Our history teacher used to be amazed at the plethora of random information that my friend I knew and he’d always say “goodness, you two sound like world travelers”…..in a sense we were. We proudly gave credit to what he called “those silly little romance novels” and were the only two people in our class who went on to college. She has a high powered career in IT and travels all over the country with her kindle and, like me, still reads those silly little romance novels almost exclusively.
My brother, who loved comic books with a passion that equaled my love of romance, grew up to become a journalist and now works in academia. He said recently that he only reads nonfiction. I was so sad for him. There’s so much in this world that is miserable, I just don’t have it in me to walk away from something that makes me so incredibly happy because the general public has the idea it’s not serious.
I suppose I’m fortunate in never having my reading choices denigrated. The simple act of reading was encouraged by my single mother, who was a big reader herself and knew its power and benefits for children raised in difficult and sometimes dangerous environments. Because of this, I’ve never been comfortable with Romland’s narrative vis-a-vis education, classic literature, and modern literature. In my world, access to any kind of reading was a privilege and I devoured—and still do—anything that looks interesting. Yes, the academic system from K through College does set up a culture of non-reading, they promote dead white men over all, yadda yadda yadda. And yeah, college educated persons are socialized to equate intelligence with what one reads. Nevertheless, the blanket statement about romance versus Literature is a false dichotomy. Especially when you think about historical romance—it’s been a personal joy to discover callbacks between literature and the characters in historicals (Eloisa James’ use of Shakespeare comes to mind). During research for my own historical romances, it’s fun to build my characters by using allusions real life people would have had at their fingertips (all those Eton bred heroes ought to have literary allusions in their subconscious lol)—and I even love finding the books from which movies have been adaptated. So for me at least, Literature enhances my romance reading, and vice versa. I don’t see them as “competing” forces in reading, but branches that sometimes come together.
I guess that’s my defense of reading romance 😉
@Elyse @Maria F
Thank you both so much! You’re absolutely right: raising my kids IS an achievement, and I should be proud as hell knowing I’ve had something to do with them turning out to be pretty darned amazing. Ditto with holding my head up high when people query me about what I write and what I read. And I can’t believe I am actually mulling the idea of going to university one day. Wow. Scary but exciting. Will have to wait until I’ve gotten both my kids through uni, but there’s no reason I couldn’t tick that box sometime in the future is there? (Nope, Maree, there is No Reason!)
Evangelise Holland is right. Good writing is good writing. Romance land is as prone as any other genre to provide lousy writing, but the good, even excellent and inspiring works are there as well. And they don’t just provide the HEAs. Like any good writing, romantic tales can send readers down subsequent paths of enlightenment. So Judith James’ Restoration books prompted me to search for poets of the era (and, despite studying some of them at University, to be amazed by what I discovered) and, even more, to go on to read some non-fiction about that period. Ditto Regencies, which have led to me reading a load of fabulous blogs on social history, medicine and food in the 18th and 19th centuries. And Eloisa James sent me back to Shakespeare’ s sonnets. Etc etc. I agree, it begs the question of “what is serious?” Although, in the end, I don’t care.
Evangeline – NOT the auto-corrected Evangelise. Lovely name. Apologies.