Romance fans, it’s almost time.
We’re approaching Pink Halloween!
It’s chocolate candy-palooza, in tiny packages (hee) and heart-shaped boxes. It’s candy puns and red construction paper time, also known as…
Valentine’s Day.
You know, the time when mainstream media suddenly pays a LOT of attention to all things romance. Well, to a specific, marketable concept of romance.
Brace yourselves.
Romance and Valentine’s Day have a long, turbulent, and multi-storied (see what I did there?) history, and each year brings some familiar, some tiresome, and some unintentionally hilarious bits of coverage.
I’ve been thinking about it as I gather up the throw pillows for the Romance Bunker, and I think there are generally a few major flavors of V-Day Rom coverage.
The “Get A Load Of This Crap”
Snicker, snort, look at all these books with pectorals and nipples as far as the b-roll footage can see! Let’s make sweeping generalizations about the authors, the readers, the community, and the books themselves based on two cursory glances at maybe one cover.
This take on romance frequently mocks the part where there’s…
…often by reading a sex scene out of context.
All the eye roll. This is the point-and-snort take we’re so, so familiar with. This is the dreadfully tired perspective that upholds the mockery of romance fiction, undermines any nascent interest a reader might have in trying one, and reinforces sexist, patriarchal derision of anything having to do with emotions, fulfillment, satisfaction, relationships, and happiness.
It’s mean and damaging, ham-fisted and clumsy, and we can smell it from many kilometers away.
It can fuck off a pier and take Mr. Lanzoni with it.
The Semi-Insider (heh heh)
“Romance is great, I have recently learned! It surprises me that some of them are really good!”
Sometimes this take is tinged with a hefty dose of “not like other girls.” Other times it’s spun into “I don’t usually read those books but [insert pandemic reference here].”
These takes make me sad because the posture taken often reveals, possibly unintentionally, an unnecessary self-consciousness the writer may feel about liking or enjoying something that is so often looked down upon by so many.
It’s located precisely halfway between “Patriarchal Mockery/Get A Load of This Crap” and “The Familiar” (see below) with one foot in the derision, and one foot in the delight. It upholds the prescribed limitations and boundaries for “appropriate reading” while making some room for enjoyment, often with stipulations.
This is the book coverage equivalent of every time Prue on Bake Off says something is “worth the calories.”
Ironically, this type of coverage is actually about conflict, and the tension between obeying the traditional expectations of mocking romance, and realizing that reading romance can be a marvelous, cathartic, deeply enjoyable experience.
Yes.
Yes, you can, and honestly it’s 2022 and we’ve been pandemicking for two years now so let people love what gives them personal joy and let’s move on, please.
The Familiar
With this angle, the person writing may be more than casually fluent with the genre, and understands that romance fiction is complex and weird and entertaining and baffling, much like any other form of media entertainment (probably including the news outlet currently employing that writer, to be honest). You might recognize the name in the byline, or remember that writer as being particularly awesome.
Covering romance for Valentine’s Day is a complicated task for The Familiar. The coverage has to feature the genre in a small word count that satisfies their assigning editor, and maybe entices a newcomer to find a book that suits them, while simultaneously giving a nod and a genuine smile to the (many) readers and writers who are happily reading romances already.
This prospect is very daunting. We’ve been talking about romance for almost 17 years here using billions of words and we are still not done yet. The idea of writing a “hey, here’s *gestures widely* Romance!” article in less than 500 words?
Egads, that’s hard. (That’s what someone said.)
This year, as always, I’m preparing my metaphorical romance reader bunker, where there’s comfy places to sit and read, and we can ignore as much or as little of the more ignorant coverage as we like. You don’t have to engage with it if you don’t want to, or if you don’t have the energy right now. This coverage is perennial. So much of it has improved thanks to the writing and efforts of The Familiars with bylines and assigning editor powers, which causes folks to, you know, level up in their thinking about romance fiction (yay!).
There’s always a few that might cause enough eye rolling that every eye doctor in the vicinity winces involuntarily.
But please note that on February 15, a LOT of the candy will go on sale. (And, if you’re the parent of a school child or several who is working on classroom valentines right now, here’s a hot tip: the classroom valentine’s kits with candy that doesn’t spoil will absolutely keep until next year, so grab a few on sale on Feb 15 or 16, and leave a note for yourself in February 2023 where you stashed them.)
All that candy on sale will be perfect to go with the toasting of the lovely coverage (I know you’re out there right now working on that article! You got this!) and with the self-soothing after any potential condescending disaster pieces.
And, hey, if you are yourself part of the media conglomerates who have put Valentine’s Day and Romance together, Hi! Hayadoin? Need a hand with adding familiarity to your coverage? Feel free to email us!
I hope we have more of the former and hardly any of the latter, but, well, I’ve been doing this awhile and I know it’s coming.
Everyone into the bunker. I brought lots of wine.
I’m in my mid-sixties and this shit hasn’t changed much since SWEET SAVAGE LOVE showed up almost 50 years ago. My advice this and every other Valentine’s Day is to NEVER read anything about Romancelandia written by someone who is not part of Romancelandia. I don’t need an article to explain tropes to me or to assure me that, hey, a lot of these writers have college degrees and have had professional jobs and stuff; and I certainly don’t need to be given permission to read what I like to read. But, if you just have to take a peek at some “think piece” about romance novels, for the sake of all that is holy, do not read the comments!
I’m more interested in lists of favorite class Valentines and Valentine candy.
Snoopy, followed by Garfield for me.
I think it’s a toss-up between a dark chocolate caramel and a dark chocolate strawberry cream. Although those jelly-filled ones are also nice.
I’m like, the least basic bitch I swear (not a flex, just a statement of fact) but there’s something about the smell of a cute stuffed Valentine’s stuffed animal, one of those tiny cards, and a box of drugstore chocolate that takes me back.
I’m predicting this year we’re going to see a lot of Right-wingers connecting Romance to “feminists”, “gays”, “queers”, “Lesbians”, “Leftists”, “Communists”, “Liberals”, “Nymphos”, “Unauthorized Voters”, “Professional-women-working-outside-the-home” (AKA “Uppity Women”) and “Other People Promoting Chaos And Destroying the Moral Fabric of America”. Calling it now.
@EC Spurlock: not disagreeing with you but wondering how that differs from, oh, I don’t know, every other year since Reagan was elected.
You know, these days it seems like I see less ‘candy on sale on February 15th’ and more ‘by noon on the 14th they’re putting out the full-price Easter candy and squirreling the Valentine’s stuff away.’ Insert chronological holidays of choice, of course…the tradition of scoring half-price holiday candy seems to be a dying phenomenon. Or maybe I’m just shopping at the wrong dang stores.
Anyway, I despise Valentine’s Day for many, many reasons and I’m already ready for it to be over, definitely won’t be contributing to the inevitable rage clicks for the thinkpieces that emerge this year 🙂
@DiscoDollyDeb Probably only in that they’re more vocal, or at least louder. Thanks, Internet.
Yes! Media correspondents – please come sit by us. We will find you your Romancelandia gateway book, and you will never want – or need- to leave! We have cookies! (and candy, wine, whiteclaw… whatever you need)
Also bracing for at least one list of “romances” that includes books where there’s no HEA or HFN (I’m looking at YOU, Romeo and Juliet).
After Christmas this year, pick up some candy canes on sale. Two candy canes make a fine heart come Valentine’s Day!
One of the many annoying effects of my perimenopause is that too much sugar makes ALL my symptoms worse (especially hot flashes and anxiety). Thus candy of any kind is doled out in miserly doses. My best beloved, however, has already stocked us up with an array of dark-chocolate bars so I can administer doses as needed.
Meanwhile, my personal celebration is the launch of my February title BE MINE in which one of the main characters is named Valentine. 🙂
My family celebrates the day after Valentine’s Day, known as Cheap Chocolate Day due to the sales.
On a related, or not, note, I am reading a Maisey Yates from 2020, encouraged by the the fact that Disco Dolly Deb seems to like here. Here, in Chapter Two, is a reference to “binders of women.” Yes, I am laughing uncontrollably. Thanks, DDD, and thanks to Ms Yates, also.
We need a Valentine’s Day Romance “Hot Take” Bingo. One square should be Nicholas Sparks (he of the notorious disdain for romance and its readers). The sheer number of people who call his book romance novels is incredibly annoying. Fabio will, of course, be the Free square.
@Vicki: thank you. I’m slowly working my way through Yates’s immense backlist. She’s not quite as angsty as my Queen of Angsty Heartache, Caitlin Crews, but she brings a good balance of emotion and steam, and—like another of my angsty favorites, Jackie Ashenden—is particularly good when writing about characters with dysfunctional upbringings.
@HeatherS: some other squares might include: article written by someone who is “honestly surprised” by how much they enjoyed reading a romance, but still baffled as to why romances are so popular; the old, tired “men look at p0rn, women read it” explanation; shock that there are so many readers of [insert sub-genre here]; ongoing analyses of why women love to read m/m romance; and subtextural titillation about ménage/poly/pan/open romances.
Wow—this Bingo game practically creates itself!!
In 2019, I did an update to my older series of Romance Novel Workouts, specifically for Valentine’s Day. It’s kind of astonishing how perennial some elements are.