Read Your Romance with Pride!

by Sharon Kayne

Romance readers—and by extension, romance authors—don’t get much respect. Even though romance novels are selling better than they ever have, we’re still relegated to the lowest social status of all literary genres. We’re lower than sports bios, for heaven’s sake, even though there’s probably a lot more truth in the average romance than in a ghost-written sports bio.

How do I know romance is relegated to the bottom? It’s subtle, but I catch it in the things people say. Someone once told me romance readers are missing something from their real lives. This person spoke about it sadly, as though all romance readers are lonely, possibly bitter women who read romance novels and drink wine until they pass out each night. Alone.

Romance readers, this person seemed to imply, are missing love from their lives. I didn’t say anything in defense of my readers. Not because I don’t think they deserve defending (I do), but because nothing came to me. I’m often much better at a conversation when I have a chance to replay it in my head several days later. I’m a bit slow that way. Maybe that’s why I’m a writer; there’s lots of room for rehearsal.

But once I’d given it a bit of thought, I came to this conclusion: If romance readers are missing love from their lives, what does that say about murder-mystery readers? That they’re missing mayhem? Death? Do people who read true crime need more larceny in their lives? I think not.

We all read for the same reasons: to be entertained; taken on a journey; experience the gamut of human emotions; find redemption; learn something; gain something; lose something. Literature, along with all of the other forms of artistic expression, is ultimately about the human condition. I believe that connection to the human condition is what we really seek when we read.

Of course, people have varied interests, desires, and talents. Some people like to solve puzzles, so they read books in which a mystery must be unraveled. Some people are fascinated by psychology, so they read about the strange (and very distressing) things the criminally insane have done. Some people love sitting on the sofa watching sporting events, so they read about how much hard work it took the athletes to get on their TV.

No matter our preferred genres, we all want human emotions. I posit that love is the pinnacle of all human emotions. It’s the best one. It’s the one we all long for. After all, what most of us value above all else in our lives is the people we love. We especially value the people we choose to love (as opposed to those we have to love by default because we’re related). Love, itself, has a range, and romantic love is the pinnacle of that range. The best part about romantic love is falling into it. Sadly, despite it being the best part of the pinnacle emotion, falling in love is something many of us are fortunate enough to do only once or twice in our lives. (Okay, some of us—myself included—have fallen in love several times, but those first loves were really only practice rounds.) To be brutally honest, if we all made a habit of falling in love at the drop of a hat, our lives would be extremely complicated. We’d probably have to move more often. And that would cut into our reading time.

Instead, the romance genre gives us a dose of that wonderful falling-in-love emotion that we crave without the pesky real-life complications. And, yes, even those of us who have great love in our lives still crave it. (I mean, you don’t stop craving chocolate or sex or pizza just because you recently had some, right?) In addition to the great falling-in-love emotion, many modern romance novels also deliver some pretty steamy sex, so there’s even more to love about them.

So, if you read romance, do so with pride. You love love! So do I! Nothing wrong with that. Go out and get another fix!

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