Bookish Matters

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

—Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Romance Genre Comes to Jujubes and Aspirins

I said in a previous post that I'm doing a series of posts on the romance genre. Why am I doing this, you ask?
Because I find the romance genre fascinating.
Because chicklit is fun.
Because the romance genre is a great site in which to identify and analyze gender and sexual paradigms.
Because sex scenes in romance make me angry, get me all riled up, but I have trouble articulating what's so bad (read: sexist) about them, so I thought I should make a conscious effort to articulate it.
Because it's spring (or will be soon, if it ever stops snowing) and the world is twitterpated.
Because I traditionally read chicklit in spring.
Because I've long had the secret wish to write romance. (It began as a joke, that I'd make my living off saucy novels, and then as I figured out the formulas of chicklit I thought maybe since I know how to write romance I might as well write romance, and the idea has become more appealing the more I think about it. But don't tell my MFA people that, because their claws come out when you write genre rather than what a friend once called litwatwa.)
Because I want an excuse to read a lot of romance.

So in upcoming posts I will review various books in different subgenres of romance. Will be discussing the differences between romance and chicklit. Representations of sexualized beauty in creative writing. Cover designs. Hierarchies of literature and genre. Portrayals of sex and eroticism. Gender roles. Whatever else occurs to me.

Hope you're as excited as I am.

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