To be totally addicted to romantasy books?

[yourethemoon]

I know I know, they’re not exactly literary greats.

But I can’t get enough of them. I’m on my fifth romantasy series back to back, I’ve read 19 books in the last 6 weeks! I just eat them up. My partner thinks I should broaden my horizons a bit because, in his words, it’s “fairy porn” without much value.

AIBU?

What really pisses me off is that a lot of books that are called 'romantasy' would simply be called 'fantasy' if they were written by men. There are fantasy series with strong romantic subplots and a ton of smut in them that don't get called 'romantasy' simply because they have male authors. Jay Kristoff, who writes very dark, gritty, violent fantasy novels, pointed this out himself at a talk I went to by him.

Essentially, people who judge and sneer at others for their reading habits are snobs who don't know half as much about books as they think they do. And sneering at romance/romantasy comes with a side order of misogyny (internalised or otherwise) too. Popular culture that's created or consumed by men rarely comes in for anything like the snobbish critique that women's popular culture interests do.

I read pretty much all genres. I read literary fiction and classics, certainly, but I also read crime, psychological thrillers, horror, fantasy, romantasy, spy thrillers, dystopian sci-fi, you name it. Reading is something that's meant to be enjoyable. Books aren't medicine that you have to force down to improve yourself. Whatever you enjoy reading is perfectly fine.

Your partner sounds awful. He's looking down his nose at you and probably an insecure baby who knows he doesn't measure up (either literally or figuratively) to the men in your books and is scared you'll demand something better from him.

Cassian never once looked down at Nesta's reading habits!

I refer to them as'my trashy novels'.

Why?

Some of the books I like are definitely trash. I dont care though. They are light reads in between my deeper stuff.
I can both enjoy them and recognise that they are trash.

Someone has taken weeks/months to write that ‘trash’ 😔

We have a different opinion on that and that’s fine. You can call them trash if you want. I’m just saying for me, that’s not how I choose to refer to books that I love and that have given me lots of enjoyment. I find it dismissive to call them ‘trash’, particularly as somebody has spent time writing them and will be talented enough to do so. It’s up to each one of us to decide what language we want to use to describe what we read.

All of this!!

Game of thrones is a prime example of a fantasy book being judged simply as ‘fantasy’ because it’s written by a man.
Throne of Glass is an incredible series of fantasy books but gets judged as ‘fairy porn’ when there’s very little sex especially compared to GoT!

Maybe trashy is a better word than trash. But the easy read, you know what will happen because its the same as every other book in the genre. Just light hearted "fluff"
I dont "love" every book I read. Most are good. Solid 4 star reads. But I don't love them.

I guess I don't see calling a book an easy read trashy novel as a bad thing necessarily.

Yeah, I think calling something an ‘easy read’ is a better description for me. It doesn’t have the negative connotations of trash / trashy. In the last few years I’ve needed easier to read books and frankly they’ve kept me going through tough times. The formulaic nature of them (such as the happy ever after guaranteed in a romance novel) has been exactly what I’m looking for.

I’m not sure I’d call the SJM easy reads! Crescent city in particular is quite complex!

Yes, agreed. ‘Easy read’ isn’t a perfect term either. I don’t think we need to sort of minimise or apologise for whatever we like to read!

As are the later Throne of Glass books. And then when you start to consider how the whole Massverse interconnects it’s quite something!

Then you have to reread 16 books in 6 weeks for the latest release 🤣

As a Gen X-er I grew up reading Flowers in the Attic, Lace, Riders etc. I'm in my 50s and romantasy is just an extension. If you're in your late 30s I imagine some people started with the Twilight series yonks ago and now like the sex aspect of these newer books.

I've got all sorts on my bookcase, if anyone wants to judge me they can bog off.

*As an aside, my autocarrot doesn't recognise 'romantasy 'and wants to change it to 'Roman tasting' 🤣 perhaps that could be another series of books ....

Just to clarify, I wasn't referring to SJM as easy reads. I haven't read them so have no idea if they are easy or not.

My point was that it's ok to read books that others think are trashy. Its ok to read books that you think are trashy. If you enjoy them then thats what matters.

I read a lot. I've had people tell me that my "easy read/trashy" novels (the kind set in the war about a group of women who become land Girls/barrage balloon handlers and so on) dont "count". They do. They are easy read fiction. I can almost guarantee some plot points. But I still like them.

Likewise, if you read 1000 Romantasy books a year then you read 1000 books. It doesn't matter that your DP think they are boring/derivative/smutty/ whatever. You read them and enjoyed them.

😂😂 a tough but enjoyable task. I always love revisiting the Night Court 😉

It's not a genre I know, but agree with others about ignoring the judgement and snobbery.

A dear friend kept me supplied while in hospital with sepsis with the Dr Ruth Galloway crime series, I literally read my way through the whole thing, obsessively. The Wesley Peterson novels got me through the sleepless, painful aftermath and the Phil Rickman Merrily Watkins the incipient heart issues that followed.

If anyone had handed me Doestoevsky, I wouldn't have been grateful!

ETA have discovered I really like historical/crime crossover!

Me too OP but I listen to audiobooks instead of reading them. I’ve been through all the well known ones! Can’t wait for ACOTAR 6. I try other books but keep going back to Romantasy. Which amuses anyone who knows me as I don’t have a romantic bone in my body!

Because I see them as a subgenre in their own right - treats for the brain. There's research that suggests watching soaps is good for mental health. The same applies to pacy, well-written enjoyable books which do not have literary pretences. Like a pp I read widely - crime, horror, fantasy, science fiction, historicals, steampunk and so on. I actually agree with Jay Kristoff (and read his books) that there's an inherent sexism in how smut is judged depending on the sex of who writes it (he does pretty good smut). When I use the word 'trashy' that doesn't imply a negative judgment - it's my way of confronting people with their own judgement.

Have you read any J.D. Robb? Her Eve Dallas books are among my favourites, I have them all. If we're going to throw portmanteaus at them I suppose they're scicrimance novels. No, on second thoughts let's not.

If you like whimsy, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is fun. Ditto Villains and Virtues. Also any of TJ Kingfisher’s books, the Paladin series and Swordheart, are very light and funny, and often with female characters in their 30s and with average sort of bodies and builds. I like Clarissa Broadbent’s various series too.

I have, yes. I read a lot of JD Robb / Nora Roberts books until I just kind of had enough. I’m very impressed by how prolific she is.

I used to devour the Merry Gentry books!

I am utterly obsessed since a friend recommended ACOTAR at the start of the year. Previously, I had always read crime fiction.

Well either their such light reading you can tear through a book in a handful of hours, or you're spending hours reading. If it's the latter, what's getting neglected in the meanwhile? If he spent the same amount of time playing phone games do you think he was fully committed to making your marriage work?

How often does your DP read? I read romance of one kind of another basically every day. I wouldn't take advice on what to read from people who read less! Reading is primarily for fun. Making it have to be worthy is exactly how people end up with kids who don't read.