- cross-posted to:
- microblogmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- microblogmemes@lemmy.world
Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/48797836
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I fucking hate that Romantasy has become such a big thing. I go into the fantasy section of the bookstore and only find romance shit now. I swear the back-flap description of every single fantasy book at the last bookstore I went to talked about how the protagonist would have to come to terms with her feelings for some man she shouldn’t be with.
As someone who likes the genre I’m just really happy there’s so much content being made. Yea some of it is slop trying to recapture the fad of ACOTAR (the book pictured), but some of the stuff coming out of it is really good. Also, because of this, there’s more romance in a lot of genres that didn’t have much before (looking at you sci-fi).
Personally, I love love and reading romance brings me joy. Some of these books are cringy teen angst with unrealistic and toxic relationships (mainly the YA side), but I’ve found that most I’ve picked up have healthy relationships with interesting plots that don’t revolve around just the romance.
That said, pure romance books (the pastel section of the store) have burned me too many times for me to bother trying anymore. Almost everything that this post complains about but 1000%.
Ngl, this post reminds me of the backlash that seems to follow anything coded for women that becomes really popular.
100% all of this! I used to hate romance novels back in the day. To me it was all boring nonsense with beefy long haired men on the cover. When romantasy became popular, more genres started breaking into the romance sub-genre. I realized that the reason I hated romance novels was because I don’t like reading contemporary fiction and that’s what the vast majority of romance used to be. I’m a total scifi girlie. I’ve watched scifi shows and movies my whole life. I prefer scifi over all other genres, scifi is and always has been my jam.
I picked up Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik on a whim as a blind date book and fell completely in love with scifi romance. I read all of the Starlight’s Shadow and Consortium Rebellion by Kit Rocha trilogies, then I read the Mercenary Librarians trilogy (more dystopian). I’ve never stopped reading, but finding scifi romance reinvigorated my love of stories and books. I get all of my space opera scifi adventures and a good romance story to go with it. I’m extremely happy that the romance genre has broken out of just contemporary and historical fiction. I can walk into the local romance bookshop and find something that hits all the buttons and brings me joy to read. Scifi romance is my jam!
Ngl, this post reminds me of the backlash that seems to follow anything coded for women that becomes really popular
It does feel this way doesn’t it? I remember talking to a guy who said romance novels trashy and worthless with no storyline, therefore it’s a useless genre and women who read it are brainless. This came from a mid 40 year old man who hasn’t read a book since high school. Romance is the best selling genre and has helped keep authors and the publishing industry afloat, but women like it, so it has to be bad.
Ooh, thanks for the recommendations! I haven’t read any of those yet.
I love scifi but have always struggled as some, especially some of the classic scifi authors, seem to write women pretty strangely. Just takes me out of it. My favorite scifi book recently has been Moonbound (not romance, just a great book IMO).
My current scifi/romance read is The Veridian Priestess. A little explicit, but it gives dune/chronicles of riddick vibes with a heavy space religion plot. For me it’s also a local author which is always cool. I also have heard really good things about “Of Monsters and Mainframes”. But yea, kinda sucks how some people view it. As a guy I’ve gotten a few sideyes from other men, but I’ve also had the occasional guy who also likes it. Bit of a mixed bag.
Honestly I have more of a complex over not reading ‘proper literature’, but I decided a while back that it’s better to read for fun than to not read at all.
Edit: While we’re talking about shitty books, behold the worst book I’ve ever read 3/4’s of: He Who Fights With Monsters.
Had a friend swear up and down it was incredible, ended up sending him a mini dissertation on how unbelievably bad it was. Didn’t realize it started as a Wattpad story when I read it. 😬
I will say, mixing in some books with more depth outside the romance genre every few books can be good for you and very enjoyable. Just like something like a Hugo winner (A Memory Called Empire was great) or something widely acclaimed (I’ll always recommend Tamsyn Muir and Brandon Sanderson) or even a classic (LeGuinn is awesome).
Yeah the classic sci fi authors absolutely wrote women terribly, I’m dreading starting Dune despite knowing I’ll like it for that reason.
That said, yeah reading at all is better than not
Romance isn’t quite my jam (I prefer it to be the B plot to a good A plot, rather than the inverse), but sci fi and fantasy romance stories are much more to my tastes than the old school stuff because I too can’t stand contemporary fiction.
And yeah I’m of mixed feelings on it. The backlash is real and feels very misogynistic, but also real is the slop and ravenous fan bases. But I can’t judge, I prefer to read queer speculative fiction, and it’s absolutely no better. In general I’d really just like a lot of these authors to consume something not deeply entiwined with fanfic and to step outside fanfic tags. A heavy fanfic influence can go awesome, Tamsyn Muir is one of my favorite authors, but a lot of authors that came up in fanfic could really use ths range to move beyond it as well.
And beyond that, I’ve seen pulp readers judge romantasy and that’s funny. For all my criticisms of romantasy, pulp is worse. And even the so called golden age of sci fi had so much garbage. We remember the Dune and the Clarke and the Asimov and the LeGuinn, but a) for each one worth remembering there’s a lot that isn’t and b) (personal opinion) modern authors do a better job of making books easier to get into. Like I love LeGuinn, The Left Hand of Darkness is an all time classic, but it absolutely is throwing a lot at you without hooking you in until well into the book.
I worked at a library when I was a teen and I just remember all the romance novels looked the same, same storyline, same character types, just all the same stuff. Which is totally fine if that’s your thing, but it definitely is not my thing. When I first read Hunt the Stars, it showed me that romance isn’t all the same, that you can get good science fiction within a love story. I don’t read exclusively scifi romance, but it gets it my rotation fairly often now. I still do read primarily scifi though.
The backlash is real and feels misogynistic, but also real is the slop and ravenous fan bases
I totally get this. I’ve heard the Fourth Wing fan base gets crazy and the romantasy fan base in general is bad. I’ve heard of the drama in BookTok spaces and I want nothing to do with it. This is why I avoid pretty much all big fan bases of anything I truly enjoy, there’s always someone who will ruin it for me.
And beyond that, I’ve seen pulp readers judge romantasy and that’s funny. For all my criticisms of romantasy, pulp is worse
I never got why people get so judgy on what a person reads, criticism is ok, but some folks can get nasty. I’ve had people make snarky remarks on my love of scifi I’ve heard someone refer to superhero stuff as “stupid nerd shit”. I’ve even heard someone criticize people who don’t enjoy romance because “those people have no heart or soul”. Idgaf what someone reads as long as they read. It may not be for me, but just pick up a damn book!
i dunno. twilight was really bad
Now come on, if you stock to reading it out of principle it sorta turns into X-Men and that’s ok with me.
I worked at borders when the last book in the 4 part series came out. Manager told me to read it. So I speed read the first two
The only part I liked was the use of blank chapters to represent the passage of time during depression
The rest was so dullllll
I don’t know if xmen in the 4th book would have saved me
When I watched the movie, I turned every line spoken by a vampire into a pickup line and it became fun again, but you shouldn’t have to play games like that with your literature. Or cinema.
The whole “imprinting on a baby” thing I heard about, that really skeezed me out
But that baby is named with a portmanteau of the grandma names! It’s so carefully thought out! /s
it’s very illustrative of the culture the author comes from.
I honestly really liked the book series. It got popular to shit on the series for being fucked up, but the guys in my group changed their tune when I asked them to read the gender-swapped version of the first book. “Naw, I get it now” was basically a universal sentiment.
that’s fair. i’m not in the target demo. most of my making fun of it over the years has been because she had a bad editor, frankly. there’s a lot of stuff that slipped through that should not have.
Ngl, this post reminds me of the backlash that seems to follow anything coded for women that becomes really popular.
I don’t fucking hate that romantasy is being made, just that the percentage of fantasy that is centered on anything other than love is so low I have a hard time finding anything new I like. Just like I’m sure you were frustrated that your only option for romance was from the ripped bodice section and wanted more branching out. I’m upset that the fantasy genre has swung so hard. I’ve read fantasy books that were pretty decent that had romance as a large section, but most of the time it’s either men writing women badly or writing wish fulfillment porn, or women writing toxic and/or angsty shit.
If you want a recommendation of what NOT to read when choosing new romantasy, avoid the Clocktaur set of books. Not only is the romance both angsty AND toxic, but the author switches between first and third person while also switching who the first person character is mid-chapter. Also, all of the characters constantly pinch their noses in consternation. It was really promising world building ruined by bad writing. A much better romantasy set of books was the Shepherd King set (One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns). It isn’t great, but the romance part was better written, and the magic system was very unique and interesting.
it’s huge because real life romance is collapsing as people prefer imaginary romance.
the problem in real life is that if you are with someone you shouldn’t be with, there are usually real negative consequences in your life.
A lot of romance was like Pirates and shit. It’s not like it was ever really particularly grounded.
I mean… there was romantasy before (for example the Rhodry and Nevin books, something Spell) but not nearly as vapid.
Edi Daggerspell, that’s it. Katharine Kerr.
Multiple local bookshops by me had to resort their shelves just to create a new “romantasy” section because otherwise the fantasy section was inundated.
I also hate this trend. I’ve been reading a ton of SciFi the last few years because I fucking hate romantasy.
I don’t mind love being part of a storyline either. But there’s a huge difference between love as part of the story and fucking romantasy.
I have so many small book stores around me that all stock the exact same romantasy/fantasy/teen-fantasy catalog. I don’t mind that it’s there, but it bums me out that there isn’t any bookspace ever dedicated to the non-fiction stuff I’m actually interested in. If there is, it’s usually a single shelf of not very good over priced something or other off the New York Times best seller list.
Lol, I started this series based on it’s popularity and went in blind. I have never noped out of a book faster.
I had multiple people tell me how good it was. Couldn’t manage even the first book. Didn’t care about any of the characters. If they had all died, and the book started following a completely different group it wouldn’t have changed how engaged I was in the story at all.
Surely it would have then gotten better, or at least interesting, right? (For a moment anyway?)
It would have probably at least made me curious. Not many books will kill off their whole cast and just start telling a different story.
Which ones will?
Game of Thrones
GRRM didn’t kill off the whole cast, but he did make it clear pretty early on that nobody was safe, which made the books way more exciting imo
Spoiler Alert!
There was no doubt in my mind that this would be a pretty prompt response.
I dunno. I just figure it has probably been done at some point. Probably not a good book though.
The “only barely legally distinct from that one popular book series” nature of the titles and cover art put this one in the “maybe later” category for me.
I’m glad I grabbed it from the library and didn’t buy it. Definitely not my flavor. If it gets people to read, great, but I don’t recommend it.
Similar experience, but not necessarily noped out as much as a drop out of lack of interest. Had this recommended to me after I got done with Fourth Wing. Not a good recommendation in my opinion.
Actually just read these books last week. Back in my day, writing like this would have never made it off of xanga.
Yet you read more than one of them? Lol
An X of Y and Z.
Can we have a different pattern of book title?
I recommend the upcoming novel by Jason Pargin, There Are No Giant Crabs In This Novel: A Novel Of Giant Crabs, the fifth book in the John Dies At The End series. With titles such as What The Hell Did I Just Read?, and If This Book Exists, You’re In The Wrong Universe. Or his other series, which includes Zoey Punches The Future In The Dick, and Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia.
I am so excited for the new John Dies book. I’ve just started going through them from the beginning the other day
Same! Easily the most fun you can have reading a book is reading that series of books. I love me a useless, resentful, piece of shit protagonist getting dragged through cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension.
please give A Pleurisy of Ducks and Sannakji a chance first. just one chapter.
It’s only a shadow of A Gaggle Of Geese And Gander.
In the X besides Y because Z seduced ∆.
I didn’t mind the series much until book 5, where the author went full raunchy and used “cock” 30 separate times instead of anything creative to describe those scenes. She took my theatre of the mind from cinemax in the first four books straight to pornhub level gonzo shit. Bah.
I’ve seen more creative effort describing a penis in furry ERPs.
Yeah, but describing a penis is to furry authors what talking about small town Maine is to Stephen King. They do that shit for the love of the game.
To be fair, dicks from that demographic could be anything so they do have to be descriptive.
How do you pronounce that name? Fare? Fire? Fairy?
In the audio book, it’s pronounced Fey-rah
I refuse
Lindsey Ellis’ latest video is about fantasy/ romance and this book gets more than a couple mentions.
Nebula exclusive. Not on yt.
Going to plug shitty book club, good times! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNqaYVSwwL8&pp=0gcJCU4LAYcqIYzv
Everytime I am at a cafe there is a woman reading this book. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man with a copy of it.
Is it one of those romantasy novels?
It’s most certainly romantasy
It’s fairy sex romantasy.
One of these?
Are you saying that guys are not into furries?
No? I never said anything about guys or furries??
The same was said of Twilight. I’m male (AMAB/identify as male) and I read Twilight. It was okay. I stopped partway through New Moon. I did enjoy the movies. I liked what Meyer did with her vampires. I didn’t take it any more seriously than was warranted.
I’m currently reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. Are they fine literature? No, but they’re fun. I’ve read about a dozen of the Sword Art Online books, and DCC is better. Same thing though. Kind of. They’re both very lowbrow, and I thoroughly enjoy both.
No interest in the new romantasy stuff though. It just doesn’t appeal to me. I am curious… but not interested.
Thorns and roses??
Rhetorically, that would be a juxtaposition: the thorns are the unpleasant part that will hurt you if you’re careless, the roses are the desirable part that people risk getting stung by the thorns for, the symbol of romance and love.
This is a court of pain and pleasure; chance and courage; dangerous, reckless love.
Idk if that actually describes the book, but it’s how the title works.
The original title said Thorns and More Thorns but the editor changed it last minute.
Fairies fucking, fairies fucking, shadow daddy rocking her world
This, those LitRPGs like that Dungeon Crawler Dogshit… just awful fucking writing. I hate finding another adult who says they read and then it turns out to be this shit.
The subtle cultural fascism of women’s unhealthy dependency on fantasies.
Counterpoint: Let people enjoy things
Not agreeing with the other commenter, but PSA:
“Let people enjoy things” is a thought terminating clichee for invalidating any criticism. You could literally say that about MAGA.
And in the case of smut specifically, several (ex-?) booktockers have come forward how being abstinent from these books had a big positive impact on their love life. A parallel to “men with porn addiction being unable to perform in the bedroom”, with smut and love life in general instead. Overstimulation of the nervous system, it even seems kinda obvious in hindsight.
“Cultural facism” tho?
You’re going to have to elaborate on that one my dude. What?
“The fanbase for this series is the size of a larg-ish army and if you say anything bad [honest] about Cassian [and ruin their fantasy] they will hunt you down and ruin your life.”
Sounds pretty fascist to me. Maybe that’s the wrong term for the socially-violent authoritarian suppression of opinions that ruin the fantasy of these women. Perhaps barbaric is a better description? Tyrannical? Petulant tantrum?
Dude, that’s true of most fanbases though. Is the Taylor Swift fanbase fascist? Are the crazy people obsessed with barely legal actresses fascist?
When people like something a lot, they identify with that thing. Any attack on the thing they identify is an attack on them, and they feel like they have to defend it in proportion to how much they identify with that thing. Shame can come into play too; if they both identify heavily with the thing they like and are also ashamed of it, knowing it isn’t acceptable by society? Very intense reactions.
That’s just human psychology. These women have a fantasy they use to escape the reality they very much find unenriching. People do that with alchohol, drugs, and a whole list of other far more destructive habits.
I think its okay if a woman wants to read some smut, and understandable when they get upset when someone says something bad about their smut.
If having your perception of a fictional character from a fictional story, challenged with reality, prompts you to seek out and destroy someone’s life, you’re a problem. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, that’s your psychological responsibility to manage without hurting other people. If you can’t do that, then you need to give up that perception or accept being treated like the threat you are. Others have every right to have different opinions about fictional things without having their life destroyed. That’s tyrannical and deeply unhealthy and in this example, that’s women and smut.
Perhaps my interjection of a bit of reality into your perception of smut is making you want to commit some social-violence, yourself?
No one is arguing that such actions are not a problem, I’m arguing that you’re usage of fascism is extreme.
Perhaps my interjection of a bit of reality into your perception of smut is making you want to commit some social-violence, yourself?
No, but if you feel that anyone who argues that you’re wrong wants to hurt you, you might need to go to therapy. You’re literally provoking “social-violence” because someone disagreed with you on the internet.
Perhaps being challenged on a topic you feel strongly about has made you a hypocrite?
Which i explicitly stated may not be the accurate term, but you seem to have ignored that, in favour of whatever got you riled up. What then would you call it?
Allow me to translate from Incel to English: “I HATE WOMEN THEY’RE ALL BAD AND NEED TO BE SHOVED NAKED INTO A CAGE WITH A KITCHEN WHY WON’T ANYBODY FUCK ME!?!?!”
