How Fucking Romantic
I once had a conversation with a man, of course it was a man, who said that all romance novels were shallow and poorly written and only existed for the sex scenes, and when I asked him if he had actually explored the genre, he said he hadn't. That level of confident ignorance is staggering, though not surprising. His reference points were Twilight and Fifty Shades and little beyond that. This is similar to a different man equally confidently telling me that women don't write good horror and basing that opinion solely on Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton. Men sit down and stop speaking with your whole chests on things you don't understand and clearly don't respect challenge.
It's possible that I feel so strongly about this because I, too, used to think romance novels were throwaway garbage. As though an entire genre can just be dismissed as irrelevant. As though there aren't social and cultural reasons to belittle art that's primarily consumed by girls and women. As though the most popular examples of anything are automatically the best ones. As though everything has to be deep and profound and existing only for the sex scenes is a bad thing.
I wanted so badly to love romance, that was the problem. I wanted to get swept up, to sink into the skins of the protagonists and feel their feelings and be consumed by their journey, to pine and yearn and swoon right along with them. I wanted to see myself mirrored in fiction, as we all deserve to, and I especially wanted to see that in romance novels because I felt the lack of romance so piercingly in my own life. Even when I was in relationships, I never felt what I wanted to feel, never gave my heart to anyone in a real way. I went through the motions and sometimes even managed to convince myself that I was in love. I thought I had to because someone was in love with me and really, how likely was it that that would ever happen again? Not very, I decided every time. I had to take what I could get. Don't do this, it's a recipe for trauma and, on a smaller scale, just some very lackluster experiences that left me believing I was probably somewhere on the asexual spectrum because it was all so off-putting and uninteresting to me.
For most of my life, I genuinely believed everyone was overhyping kissing and exaggerating about how much they enjoyed it. It was just a thing I did because it was expected and it wasn't repulsive to me, but also never something I enjoyed. Again, this is why I believed myself to be asexual. I have only very recently learned that I'm not at all and actually, kissing is the best, if you're doing it with someone you're actually attracted to and feel safe with. Which is what people have tried to tell me for years, but I had no reference point for that. It's a relatively small thing, but it's an example of a larger thing, which is that I deserved to have a higher bar for the people I allowed to occupy intimate spaces with me. I'm sad for my past self and what she forced herself to accept, but I can't go back and undo those experiences. At least I know what it should feel like going forward, and that I am capable of feeling it.
It's been a real journey of self-discovery over here lately, and part of it has been facilitated by romance novels. That's what I'm trying to talk about. I have always learned how to understand myself and work through my feelings through fiction, ever since I was very small, and so that's what I did with this latest thing too. It started with Book Lovers by Emily Henry, which was the first romance novel in years to make me feel something real. I know there's criticism of the whiteness and richness of her characters, and sure, I guess, but I loved this particular book so, so much. Nora is so funny in a sharp and mean way I really love, a way where I could see her being called an unlikable character. I live for unlikable female characters. And Charlie is that uptight, repressed kind of man where you know there's so much simmering beneath the surface and eventually it's going to explode, probably in a very sexy way, which is what happens in Book Lovers. And the ending, which I won't spoil here, is surprising if you're used to the tropes. It all worked for me.
So then, because I want to read fictionalized versions of my real life struggles so I can externalize and process them, I asked Facebook for recommendations of friends to lovers romance novels. It's a unique kind of agony, realizing that you're in love with one of your best friends and you didn't even know it until suddenly you did, and I guess I wanted to rub salt in the wound by reading about people who manage to get from that point to the happily ever after with that best friend. A kind of wish fulfillment where it's not happening to me, but for a while I can play the game of what if it did and see how that feels. That's where Next to You by Hannah Bonam-Young was recommended to me, a book which has since gone on to ruin my life. I'll be chasing the experience of reading it for the first time forever, probably, because I don't know what could equal it. I might be overselling it, but I need you to understand that it was exactly, exactly what I wanted from the friends to lovers trope. I would die for Matt and Lane, and I was changed by the sex scenes between them, because look, while it's not the whole point, it is a vital component of many romances and it's so easy to get it wrong. Hannah Bonam-Young looked directly into my brain and read me so personally that I felt uncomfortable reading this book.
No one talks the way romance heroes talk, though, is what I'll say. That's my main beef with romance writers. Men do not give these impassioned, poetic, romantic speeches that are so beautiful and stirring that they act as a kind of verbal foreplay. It's just not how humans typically speak. But then again, I also thought no one actually liked kissing, so what do I know? If you're a man and you're reading this and you've made romance novel declarations to a woman in real life, I would love to hear about it. Because my firm belief, as someone who values words above all else, is that people should speak like this. Specifically, people should speak like this to me, but only if we've known each other for years and I've had plenty of time to figure out that I'm attracted to them. A very reasonable way to approach romance.
I've already written about Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis, the only other friends to lovers that did what I wanted it to do. I've also read Words In Deep Blue by Cath Crowley, which I couldn't stand because the characters were quirky to the point of being unbearable and obnoxious, and I tried and failed to read Lease on Love by Falon Ballard and Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren for the same reason but even worse. There's a fine line, apparently, between characters who are endearingly weird and just quirky enough to make them feel real and characters who make me want to scream every time they do or say anything. Give me more friends to lovers romances that are well-written and sexy and poignant and allow me to fully live in that what-if world for the duration of reading them.
Or, failing that, give me more romances with a little bite, like You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle which was unhinged and absurd and which I rated 3 stars, but which I still enjoyed in its own way. It's not friends to lovers, but those pickings are slim so I take what I can get. I also read Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle and liked it better than You Deserve Each Other, even though the romance develops far too quickly for my liking and it's as fluffy and sweet as cotton candy and has the same amount of substance to it. Not everything needs to have substance. Sometimes it's enough for something to make you feel good, or to provide necessary escapism from the weight of the world, or to make you believe, however fleetingly, that a reality exists in which you can have the things you want.
I have become an insatiable romance-consuming beast and I'm not mad about it. There are also plenty of sapphic romance novels that are beautiful and resonant and so many other good things, but this latest obsession has been about m/f ones, so that's what this post is about. There may be a part 2 eventually to talk about f/f romance, a genre that stirs up entirely different feelings for me. For now, I'm ending this so I can return to People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, which is either the best or worst friends to lovers romance depending on who you ask. I haven't gotten far enough to have an opinion yet, but you can be sure I will, and I'll put it on Goodreads.