Fable & The Verbivore

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Episode 173: Why read romance novels?

Bethany Stedman

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Ep 173: Why read romance novels? Fable & The Verbivore

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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re continuing our discussion of romance stories by diving into why we read them and why we feel others might enjoy reading them too.

We open this conversation by talking about how knowing that there’s a happy ending at the end of these stories allows us to just enjoy the unfolding of the story. It’s stress relief and allows for a relaxing and cozy reading experience. That doesn’t mean there’s no tension in these books, but we know that if it breaks our hearts it will put them back together by the end.

Both of us have gone through some difficult seasons these past several years and we’ve both turned to these types of books during those times. The stories tend to be character and growth driven, and we feel they allow for the exploration of fears and difficulties within a relatively safe environment - which can also help encourage us to do the same. There are also romance stories where the situations help us feel like we have our lives together by comparison.

In this episode we:

  • Dive into what we love about these stories - how they make us feel, the benefits we feel they serve, and how they lean in and embrace emotion (laughter, sadness, joy)

  • Interrogate some of criticisms of the genre - things like that it’s escapism, that romance books with sex are basically porn, and that these stories set unrealistic expectations

  • Discuss how these books that are often written for women by women have the potential to center that experience and empower and encourage conversations around things that aren’t often discussed - things like sex, challenging societal stereotypes, and what healthy relationships can look like

  • Talk about what the large range of romance books can teach through getting us thinking about the characters in the books and how they are treated in their relationships - whether it’s behavior we feel should be modeled or potentially challenged

Towards the end of this conversation, we talk about some of the negativity towards the romance genre and how it often comes from those that don’t read it and make assumptions about it. Fable also brings up the Bromance Book Club series which centers on male characters learning love lessons from reading romance novels. We talk about how people of all sorts could benefit from picking up a romance novel and that the wide reaching genre really does have something for everyone.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Here are a few articles we referenced for this conversation:

Books and Films Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)