It’s a stupid question. But if you’re a romance reader you’ve probably been asked it a minimum of once: Why do you read romance novels?
Maybe it absolutely was phrased differently:
“Why do you even like them?”
“How are you ready to read those books?”
“Wouldn’t you rather read a real book?”
Sometimes they bespeak of honest curiosity. or maybe it’s suddenly thrown at you by some disdainful stranger on the bus who thinks they have the correct to critique your reading choices although you don’t know them from a hole within the bottom. Plus it’s 5 pm on a chunk day, so you’re trying to settle on if scalding their face along with your tea is worth both losing your tea and getting arrested for assault.
Honestly, some people make that decision so difficult.
Well, you will tell that nosy question asker that life is squashing your dreams and you'd sort of a bit you time during a fictional world where good people are actually rewarded with good lives. Then burst into tears (real or fake, your choice) until they scooch awkwardly down the bench and refuse to form eye contact.
Or you could refer them to the current handy-dandy list of responses, complete with visual aids. Simply point them to the relevant examples (which range from honest to honestly-a-little-salty), and acquire back to your book!
So I asked few women in Quora about their reason why they love to read romance novels.
Shreya Pandey, a Literature student and Creative Editor answered: "To experience romance, love, heartbreak, and everything in between. To escape the bleak realities of their own life and ascend to a state of heightened emotions.
Now I’m not saying only single people read romance novels. I am in a relationship and I do read romance (have even written one, for that matter! You can check it out here: A Flirtationship). But my boyfriend is not a vampire or a fallen angel and I can’t go on a crazy supernatural adventure with him. In fact, we can’t have frequent adventures of even the normal kind. Life comes in the way.
But with my book boyfriend…I can.
Oh we’re saving the world! Nope, now we’re bringing down the government. Wait, we’re fighting an army of demons. Shit, we’re marooned on an island and trying to escape! Yikes, he’s my teacher and our love is forbidden! Oh, now he’s a rockstar and it’s just so tough dating a celebrity. Woah, he’s a gangster and our lives are in danger. Shit, we’re best friends and he’s in love with someone else but I know we have this connection…(yeah, this one’s from my book.) Damn it, he’s this gorgeous rake and we’re stuck together as the American Civil War breaks out…
You get it.
I can enjoy a lifetime worth of relationships in a few weeks without performing even 5% of the emotional labour required. You can enjoy your fair share of drama or life-and-death situations and come out relatively unscathed. You’re a lot less vulnerable and the chances of being scarred for life and ending up with trust issues is minimal. (Unlike Fantasy, damn you Game of Thrones!) There are next to no constraints, you can fall in love with anyone anywhere.anyway. That sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me!
Now you might be wondering why through my anwer I’ve not addressed women, but people in general. It’s because men read and enjoy romance too.
The majority of romance readers are women, true. But it’s false to say men don’t read romance. It’s just that society has set up men and women in a way that emotions have always been treated as women’s domain because men are tough. (That was sarcastic. I don’t believe it.)
So most of the novels parading as explicit romances are targeting women readers (because god forbid a man would want a book that makes him feel.) A lot of these romance novels have female protagonists and are written by women so it’s easier for women to find romance novels they can immerse themselves in. Relatability is very important here.
But a lot of men also enjoy romance; it’s just often ensconced in-between other genres/themes that are considered more gender-neutral, if not manly. Case in point, we often have romantic sub-plots in thrillers, adventures, etc. There are stunning literary fictions that are romantic.
Audri Nichols, who works at Lagley’s Lovelies Publications, also said: “In our love-starved culture, both men and women are desperately looking for a connection with someone. At our innermost core of self, we are relational creatures. We crave a deep and lasting bond with another human beings. Someone we can trust, with our deepest secrets, and our scariest moments and our darkest, most wicked fantasies. Someone we can rely on to never betray us and to love us as we have always secretly desired to be loved. And if we can't have that in real life, we at least want our beloved fictional characters to have it.
Women in particular read romance because they are almost always romance starved. Women crave romance the same way men crave sex. For a woman, the two are very different, and reading a romance novel gives them a satisfying taste of what they are missing from their own life. Maybe they aren’t so good at relationships in real life. Maybe the man they are with is a romantic dud. Maybe they just haven’t been on a date in a while. Maybe their sex life isn’t as exciting as they wish it were. What they are really looking for is a little romance. Women read romance fiction in hopes that one day, their very own dashing prince/ rogue pirate/multi-billionaire/alpha male extraordinaire will come bounding in to sweep them off their feet, declare their eternal love and ravish them like they have always fantasized about. But every woman knows it’s more than that.
What they are really looking for is someone who will want them, the good, the bad and the ugly, like the hero in the books always wants the heroine. Someone who will look deep inside their soul to their darkest parts of themselves, the most secret rooms of her heart, and love her anyway. Women want a man who is honest and real with them, who sees past the messy hair or no makeup, and sees her as the most stunning, captivating woman he has ever had the privilege to know. What women want, is a man who sees the real them, in real life, and wants to romance them better than any fiction character ever could. What women really want, is the same thing that she wanted when she was a little girl: the fairy tale ending of a great love story.
Men aren’t any different. Not really. They want to go on a grand adventure and fight to win the princesses heart. They want to “rescue” the beauty and be her “conqueror”. They want to be the “Prince.” We are all desperately seeking the same thing.
What everyone really wants is happily ever after. And until that happens for our dear readers in real life, it’s the romance authors job to create moving characters that will seduce the masses to fall in love right along with them, again and again.
But as a romance writer, I write romance novels to make my readers experience or feel the ideal love story that they wanted to. But we all know just like a blue moon, only few of us will have that perfect love story.
Women love to read romance novels just to escape of the reality temporarily. Others want to live it here but we all know that I can never be happen.
On the side of Psychology, it says that it reflects women’s desires as I read an article written by Maryanne Fisher of psychology.com.
Whatever our reasons, there is one thing in common that we have, we all love and enjoy reading them.
Maybe it absolutely was phrased differently:
“Why do you even like them?”
“How are you ready to read those books?”
“Wouldn’t you rather read a real book?”
Sometimes they bespeak of honest curiosity. or maybe it’s suddenly thrown at you by some disdainful stranger on the bus who thinks they have the correct to critique your reading choices although you don’t know them from a hole within the bottom. Plus it’s 5 pm on a chunk day, so you’re trying to settle on if scalding their face along with your tea is worth both losing your tea and getting arrested for assault.
Honestly, some people make that decision so difficult.
Well, you will tell that nosy question asker that life is squashing your dreams and you'd sort of a bit you time during a fictional world where good people are actually rewarded with good lives. Then burst into tears (real or fake, your choice) until they scooch awkwardly down the bench and refuse to form eye contact.
Or you could refer them to the current handy-dandy list of responses, complete with visual aids. Simply point them to the relevant examples (which range from honest to honestly-a-little-salty), and acquire back to your book!
So I asked few women in Quora about their reason why they love to read romance novels.
Shreya Pandey, a Literature student and Creative Editor answered: "To experience romance, love, heartbreak, and everything in between. To escape the bleak realities of their own life and ascend to a state of heightened emotions.
Now I’m not saying only single people read romance novels. I am in a relationship and I do read romance (have even written one, for that matter! You can check it out here: A Flirtationship). But my boyfriend is not a vampire or a fallen angel and I can’t go on a crazy supernatural adventure with him. In fact, we can’t have frequent adventures of even the normal kind. Life comes in the way.
But with my book boyfriend…I can.
Oh we’re saving the world! Nope, now we’re bringing down the government. Wait, we’re fighting an army of demons. Shit, we’re marooned on an island and trying to escape! Yikes, he’s my teacher and our love is forbidden! Oh, now he’s a rockstar and it’s just so tough dating a celebrity. Woah, he’s a gangster and our lives are in danger. Shit, we’re best friends and he’s in love with someone else but I know we have this connection…(yeah, this one’s from my book.) Damn it, he’s this gorgeous rake and we’re stuck together as the American Civil War breaks out…
You get it.
I can enjoy a lifetime worth of relationships in a few weeks without performing even 5% of the emotional labour required. You can enjoy your fair share of drama or life-and-death situations and come out relatively unscathed. You’re a lot less vulnerable and the chances of being scarred for life and ending up with trust issues is minimal. (Unlike Fantasy, damn you Game of Thrones!) There are next to no constraints, you can fall in love with anyone anywhere.anyway. That sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me!
Now you might be wondering why through my anwer I’ve not addressed women, but people in general. It’s because men read and enjoy romance too.
The majority of romance readers are women, true. But it’s false to say men don’t read romance. It’s just that society has set up men and women in a way that emotions have always been treated as women’s domain because men are tough. (That was sarcastic. I don’t believe it.)
So most of the novels parading as explicit romances are targeting women readers (because god forbid a man would want a book that makes him feel.) A lot of these romance novels have female protagonists and are written by women so it’s easier for women to find romance novels they can immerse themselves in. Relatability is very important here.
But a lot of men also enjoy romance; it’s just often ensconced in-between other genres/themes that are considered more gender-neutral, if not manly. Case in point, we often have romantic sub-plots in thrillers, adventures, etc. There are stunning literary fictions that are romantic.
Audri Nichols, who works at Lagley’s Lovelies Publications, also said: “In our love-starved culture, both men and women are desperately looking for a connection with someone. At our innermost core of self, we are relational creatures. We crave a deep and lasting bond with another human beings. Someone we can trust, with our deepest secrets, and our scariest moments and our darkest, most wicked fantasies. Someone we can rely on to never betray us and to love us as we have always secretly desired to be loved. And if we can't have that in real life, we at least want our beloved fictional characters to have it.
Women in particular read romance because they are almost always romance starved. Women crave romance the same way men crave sex. For a woman, the two are very different, and reading a romance novel gives them a satisfying taste of what they are missing from their own life. Maybe they aren’t so good at relationships in real life. Maybe the man they are with is a romantic dud. Maybe they just haven’t been on a date in a while. Maybe their sex life isn’t as exciting as they wish it were. What they are really looking for is a little romance. Women read romance fiction in hopes that one day, their very own dashing prince/ rogue pirate/multi-billionaire/alpha male extraordinaire will come bounding in to sweep them off their feet, declare their eternal love and ravish them like they have always fantasized about. But every woman knows it’s more than that.
What they are really looking for is someone who will want them, the good, the bad and the ugly, like the hero in the books always wants the heroine. Someone who will look deep inside their soul to their darkest parts of themselves, the most secret rooms of her heart, and love her anyway. Women want a man who is honest and real with them, who sees past the messy hair or no makeup, and sees her as the most stunning, captivating woman he has ever had the privilege to know. What women want, is a man who sees the real them, in real life, and wants to romance them better than any fiction character ever could. What women really want, is the same thing that she wanted when she was a little girl: the fairy tale ending of a great love story.
Men aren’t any different. Not really. They want to go on a grand adventure and fight to win the princesses heart. They want to “rescue” the beauty and be her “conqueror”. They want to be the “Prince.” We are all desperately seeking the same thing.
What everyone really wants is happily ever after. And until that happens for our dear readers in real life, it’s the romance authors job to create moving characters that will seduce the masses to fall in love right along with them, again and again.
But as a romance writer, I write romance novels to make my readers experience or feel the ideal love story that they wanted to. But we all know just like a blue moon, only few of us will have that perfect love story.
Women love to read romance novels just to escape of the reality temporarily. Others want to live it here but we all know that I can never be happen.
On the side of Psychology, it says that it reflects women’s desires as I read an article written by Maryanne Fisher of psychology.com.
Whatever our reasons, there is one thing in common that we have, we all love and enjoy reading them.
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