During the past year and a half, there’s been not-so-subtle shift in my reading tastes. Before, if somebody asked me what I was reading, it was always some incredible young adult fantasy adventure. Now, the answer comes with a slow, proud smile while I say An adult romance book. Here, I’ll show the cover with my newest shirtless crush on it.
I’ve come a long way since I read my first romance book from my mom’s stash. It’s different, reading a fantasy book with romance, than a romance with fantasy elements.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with either of them, but they appeal to different moods, and I’m a total mood reader.
Before. Or: Oh my god, let nobody see me reading this
I used to be of the mind that a romance novels were boring (oh honey). I’ve always loved the romantic element in books, it’s just that they’d always been that: Elements. Books that focused more than a 70% on the romance seemed like maybe they had no plot.
Pure curiosity had me reading a couple of my mom’s historical novels. I was 13 or 14 I think. They were interesting, but there wasn’t anything unforgettable about them, except for their covers. I didn’t know how on earth did my mom buy those without batting an eye.
YA everywhere
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I kept to my YA contemporaries with the high school crushes and drama that I could relate more to. I devoured YA fantasy too, with the epic adventures and forbidden loves. It seemed no matter the story, romance always made it better for me. Give me the enemies to lovers, the friends to lovers, the love triangles and everything in between. They made my heart soar and maybe I kinda wanted the characters to survive their adventures just so they could be together in the end.
A happy ending.
With YA contemporaries the happy endings usually were happy for now, because deep down, I knew there was no way to tell. Unless a well-placed epilogue gave me a glimpse into the future… Nobody could assure me these characters would stick and grow old together.
I seemed to always crave more. More interactions, more romance!
Reading all the YA books I could get my hands on, there were many that were pretty clean, and others that made me blush and check no one was watching over my shoulder -still quite clean compared to books I’ve read since. But the pacing was always a problem.
It must be really hard to try to balance those things in a story, moving the main conflict forward while also developing meaningful relationships between the characters.
Discovering college romances
From time to time, a story would sneak in that wasn’t precisely like all the others. The first one that comes to my mind is Crash, by Nicole Williams. Notorious characters Jude and Lucy begin in high school, so it can be considered a YA book. But then in the sequels there’s nothing remotely YA about them. Those two are intense as hell.
So, like this, I was slowly introduced to the world of New Adult books, or college romances, as we affectionately call them. There’s been much discussion about this, I don’t want to get into it. These NA books have a lot of gems that have made my heart soar. But back then, it did seem like there was a lot of emphasis on the explicit scenes. Still, they were fun and sometimes were kinda like the YA contemporaries, only with more romance and angst. And I was there for it.
Going back in time with historical romances
Would I have gotten any of these at a bookstore? Nope, not at all. I had a tendency to want to show off my books at school and at university too. I liked having something to read when I was bored. Imagine taking out those risqué book covers in your Economics class…
Now, reading them in an ebook format was a whole other story. I could read to my heart’s content on my phone’s Kindle App without fearing judgement.
Now. Or: This descriptive sex scene was better than the one from her previous book
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I don’t think there’s necessarily a clear moment in time when I stopped feeling so embarrassed about reading romance books. It’s complex because I’ve never really been embarrassed perse, but it was the little things. For example, I didn’t really talk about those romance books in my bookstagram or here on the blog. I didn’t actively engage with romance book bloggers… It just felt very isolating.
As opposed to now, where I even joined a romance book club. I regularly talk about the romance books I’m reading, and for the most part I share the covers. There are some covers maybe I’m not ready to share. My mom does follow my Instagram after all. That can be awkward.
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So there you go!
I definitely have a more positive relationship with those romance books I love, and I feel way better now that I have found people I can talk to about them, and reguarly can get recommendations from!
This was such a fun post to read! I’m not really huge into the romance genre, but that’s more because I just haven’t read many of them, not because I don’t enjoy them. I think you’ve inspired me to give the genre more of a go!
Holly @ Nut Free Nerd recently posted this awesome thing…Dear MY OXFORD YEAR by Julia Whelan: SO MUCH NOSTALGIA
This makes me so happy! It’s been a looong journey. Some authors truly have a gift for writing romance ♥. For historical romances I’d recommend Tessa Dare books (they’re hilarious and swoony), for contemporaries Ella Maise and Kristen Callihan, and for fantasy romance C.L. Wilson’s Winter King is AMAAAZING.