You're Reading What?!
Since discovering Harlequin paperbacks at the tender age of twelve or thirteen I have been a sucker for a good romance novel. Now, it's no secret that romances are considered trash by most anyone with even a smidgeon of intellectualism, and I learned early on not to tell just anyone about my guilty pleasure. And it is a guilty pleasure--every time I crack one open I hear a little voice whisper that I should be reading the classics or mind-enriching non-fiction or even some highbrow modern fiction, like Toni Morrison or John Irving, and I admit I hesitated a little before listing on the front page of my blog that my current read is a romance novel.
In my defense I'll say that I appreciate the classics as much as anyone. My B.A. is in history so it's a given that I like reading non-fiction. Some of the best books I've ever read were written by Toni Morrison and John Irving. On the other hand, sometimes I want just to get lost in a light read, something that doesn't make me think any deeper thoughts or challenge my perceptions of reality. On those days when I'm feeling stressed and harried and manage to grab a few moments for myself with a book and a cup of tea, I want the predictability of the boy always getting the girl. The requisite sex scenes don't come amiss, either, especially when I can't remember the last time my husband and I had our bed to ourselves.
By and large, romance novels aren't challenging reads but don't assume that means they're not worth reading. There are some very good writers out there writing romances, writers whose fluid way with words I only wish I had. Just now I'm reading Nora Roberts' Chesapeake Bay Saga (well, re-reading the first three books, actually, in preparation to read the final book), and I find myself stopping time and again to savor especially good lines. Any budding fiction writer, myself included, could learn from her character development and skillfully-written dialogue. Another favorite of mine is Jude Deveraux. The first book of hers I ever read was A Knight in Shining Armor, a time-travel romance that made the rounds at my high school some fifteen years ago. It was almost half my lifetime ago that I read that book and I still find myself thinking of it with surprising regularity. Since then I've read countless more of her books and each one is a treat, filled with engaging characters and storylines and rich with descriptive detail.
Of course, it would be disingenuous of me not to concede that the perception of romance novels as potboiler trash does have some basis in reality. For crying out loud, Danielle Steele is one of the best-selling writers of our time and she is truly--my apologies to her legions of fans--an astoundingly bad writer. The worst criticism I can give a writer is to say that his or her writing is so bad it's distracting, a thought that first came to my mind to describe Danielle Steele novels. I read a number of her books several years ago in the name of research (I wanted to make sure my disdain for her wasn't unfounded) and some of her abuses of the English language are permanently charred into my brain. Just writing this paragraph about her has given me a headache. I take comfort in the fact, though, that in all my years of romance reading, I've never encountered another writer whose prose is as bad as hers (okay, Robert James Waller came close with The Bridges of Madison County, but at least his grammar is passable).
The moral of this little story, then, is Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. If you've never given romance fiction a try, it makes a perfect read for long summer afternoons in your beach chair. Give it a shot--you just might find yourself pleasantly surprised!