I’m not trying to be funny–okay maybe just a bit–but my good gosh (modified that), I’ve been reading a lot of YA and New Adult romances lately and with some of them, I’m hard pressed not to want to down an entire bottle of sleeping pills and just end it all. Right, that’s a complete exaggeration, but you get my point, right. Except in Women’s Fiction or one of Oprah’s Book Club picks have I ever seen such heavy subject matters. I know for sure adult romances aren’t that heavy.
I read many different genres. I love mysteries because I’m a total sucker for a great whodunnit. When I do read a thriller (I’d rather go to the movies and watch them), I love the whole hand-t0-throat excitement on the chase and the suspense. But when I read romances I want a love story that can make me choke up with emotional, smile in pure happiness, clench my stomach in anticipation and fan myself with its sexual tension and love scenes. The minute I feel a wave of utter depression coming over me, you’ve completely lost me. Seriously, I’m so gone it’s not even funny. But that’s me, I read romances to escape. I’m sure heavy topics like rape, child molestation, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, physical abuse, murder and debilitating emotional issues don’t turn everyone off a romance. For me, I know if those issues are front and center, I’m out.
All of this YA reading and sampling had me asking this of my Facebook Friends: How much “real life experiences” do you want in your romance books? I’m personally wondering if many YA authors are writing more with the parents in mind than their children.
I recently read “Easy” and was surprised how much I actually loved the book because it was so real life – can’t get more real life than an attempted rape (a scene that was so well written!). I think it is important for YA books to be more ‘real’, and make teens ‘think’ without thinking that they are thinking.
I loved EASY. I mean it’s in my top 25 all time reads of all time. But I was going to put it down if she was raped. I really was. Thank goodness she wasn’t because I think that would have turned a lot of readers off. Too painful to read that happening to the heroine, which I’m sure is why the author made it an attempted rape and not a rape. If it happens to a tertiary character, that’s different but not to characters I care about and inside of their head.
Some people seem to need to justify what they are reading and or writing I guess. My daughter is in a book club and has been for over a year. One of them pretty much took over and bullies them into reading certain types of reads – nothing romantic for one. They finally rebelled but they are still agonizing over their picks because of her.
I prefer my fiction a little less real-life, to be honest. And my kids aren’t quite at the point where I want them inundated with too much reality, either… while I don’t want to be overly Pollyanna-ish, I don’t see the point of everything being grim and dark either.
I am with you, I read to escape so I don’t want to have the ugliness of the world in the books I read. I will take a dark scarry sorcerer any day.
I’m with you on this Bev. I also read to escape and I don’t like heavy topics in my books. I read to be happy, not sad.
Even though I don’t mind light suspense, like cozy mysteries.
I totally agree with you Bev! I read Easy and enjoyed it but if I had to constantly read books similar to that with allot of drama I would rather not. The whole point of reading a romance is that it takes you out of reality for a few hours and you get to enjoy a certain idea of love and attraction with the added bonus of a happy ending. I was just reading Deadly Vows by Brenda Joyce, although I think she is a wonderful writer all the elements of drama and frustration really ruined the book for me. The end conclusion with Rick Bragg and Leigh Ann was heartbreaking and when I actually finished the novel I felt depressed. All the conflicting emotions and repetitive drama makes me not want to pick up another one of Joyce’s novels in the Deadly series, As a reader I felt trepedatious about what I would have to wade through just to get to the end conclusion.
When it comes to YA books or YA romance, I actually like a little realism in them. If they can’t capture the feelings or the agony of being a teen, I don’t think they’re good YA books and won’t recommend them to my teen patrons. As for adult romances, I stay far away from the realism. I was reading a very good Harlequin romance by Donna Alward but the heroine was a breast cancer survivor. The hero and heroine was trying to reconcile themselves with her fragile post-cancer state and her masectomy. I had to stop reading the book. That topic was just too heavy. I use romance as escapism. Cancer is not escapism.