Thought I'd spend a few paragraphs on this topic, since everyone seems to be talking about it, but it's interesting to me how prevalent romantasy has become on bookstore shelves and in online chat about books. Even I, who am not on TikTok or Snapchat and rarely spend time on Instagram, have seen enough to get a sense of what everyone's talking about when they discuss ACOTAR, riding leathers and spice levels.
I think the moment that crystalized it for me was this summer, when my dad asked me about an article he'd seen on the New York Times that talked about Alchemized, the dark romantasy novel by SenLinYu that started out as Dramione fan fiction online (Draco and Hermione, for the n00bs). The success of that book, both online and in stores, got me thinking about the genre/sub-genre and where it came from: specifically, it feels like a convergence of the long-standing urban fantasy subgenre that I've been reading for a while, plus a continuation of the furore caused by EL James's 50 Shades of Grey, which also started life as Twilight fan fiction. It also touches on strands of internet book fandom that has passed me by, mainly all the erotic fanfic on An Archive of Our Own and the headcanon/fanon stuff that's been percolating around Tumblr and other social media for decades at this point. Because I haven't been in this community, I'm probably missing 90% of the undercurrents that have coalesced to form this current craze, but let's take this as a useful Cliff's Notes for the moment.
I subsequently spent the last couple of months since getting back from Europe perusing the romantasy shelf at my local, Kepler's, looking at the kind of books they had and who was writing them. This is also partly because I've been turning over an idea for a story that could fall into that niche, and I wanted to do some research on how many dudes were represented (answer: one that I've seen at Kepler's). Incidentally, I love how Kepler's just went ahead and split romantasy off from the regular SF and fantasy books - I've always thought genre segmenting on bookstore shelves is better for discovering more of what you love, rather than ghettoizing genre books away from "serious" fiction.
Then, just this past week, a friend of mine asked me if I'd read A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J Maas, because she wanted someone to talk to about it, so I decided to take the plunge and check it out - I'd decided Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros was more my speed, but I ended up buying both on Kindle (I know, I know... but my physical TBR pile is a mess - of my own making - so I can prioritize them better on Kindle). Since I started, we've also been trading silly romantasy-related memes on Instagram, which has been fun too.
I'll leave the literary review for another post - I'm not far enough into ACOTAR to have much sense of how good Maas's plotting is, but at any rate the prose hasn't turned me off yet. What's more interesting to me is what the genre and subject matter is saying to women in this current cultural moment, as well as a recognition that women seem to be the only ones buying fiction at the moment, so what's on sale reflects that change in tastes.
The main thing that I see cited in talk about these books is female agency - Feyre in ACOTAR apparently makes a lot of questionable decisions, but at least they're her decisions. Moreover, if we look for ourselves in fiction, I suspect a lot of women appreciate seeing female characters getting into trouble and being at the center of things, rather than at the margins. Thinking about traditional big names in the regular fantasy genre, it's hard to point to women who drive the narrative in series like Game of Thrones or Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorne, even if they actually spend time giving dialogue and plot lines to female characters, unlike Lord of the Rings or other classic books.
This trend doesn't only apply to romantasy, by the way - looking at the SFF shelves right now, in any bookstore, it feels like the conventional fantasy and SF (at least the new books) is dominated by non-male authors. Which, again, is a reflection of the widening of book-buying patterns beyond just dudes who are looking for the next series that evokes the same sense of wonder as LotR did, way back.
My thinking is, when the momentum seems to be behind a certain book, or author, or genre, it's worth checking out, even if only to decide that something isn't for me. At the same time, when I have an idea that might fit into the genre, it makes it doubly important to see for myself how it works. And on that point, if my story ideas dovetail with what's selling - or more pertinently, has an audience - it's worthwhile to explore it. That's not intended to mean cashing in cynically - just that if you have an idea that seems to be gaining traction, it's worthwhile developing it to get the story out of your head and onto paper.
And even if nothing ever comes of it, then at least I can enjoy the memes.
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