dkppunk comments on A review on A Court of Thorns and Roses

[–] dkppunk@piefed.social 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

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.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

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.

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[–] dkppunk@piefed.social 3 points 4 months ago

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!

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[–] morgenman@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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. 😬

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

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

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[–] dkppunk@piefed.social 1 point 4 months ago

You’re welcome for the recs! Jessie Mihalik is one of my favorite authors now, I loved the Consortium Rebellion trilogy. I picked up Of Monsters and Mayhem at the last local book crawl, I may have to read it sooner now!

Classic scifi can be hit or miss. I actually haven’t read much of the classic authors, although I have some in my collection to get through eventually. I read Stowaway to Mars by John Wyndham as a blind book date and it wasn’t a bad book, but man the woman was very very poorly written.

It sucks you get a side eye for reading books you enjoy. I don’t think anyone should be shamed for reading anything. Even if it’s a genre I don’t like, I still ask questions when someone does enjoy something. One of my colleagues is a big biography reader, which I am most certainly not, but I still enjoy chatting about who she is reading about and she likes hearing about my dorky scifi books lol

I’m going to add all your books to my library list! Thanks again!

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