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I think my difficulty with this thread is that in part it's difficult for me to think of books I love, in part that I don’t care if people disparage a book I’ve liked and in part that this ultimately seems to be about a genre in general and not titles in particular. Bingo! Because I think the last is the crux of the issue.
It boils down to the romance genre being met with mockery, even sneering, in a way that other genre fiction isn’t. Why are cheesy romance covers, signaled by bare-chested men, objectively more absurd than cheesy sci-fi covers or cheesy thriller covers? Especially when the last frequently figure the objectification, even abuse of women? And yet somehow, they’re considered art of a sort and at worst fun kitsch, and not trash.
Humph, I say. I admit I have issues with romance, mostly because it’s constantly marketed to me even by entities that have tons of data showing I have no interest at all. But that I’m inundated with these promotions on various feeds shows the problem; I obviously fit the demographic and somehow that trumps solid information about my tastes. There’s a double whammy there, also, in that the writers (obviously mostly women) who are paying to be promoted are being cheated in a way that I suspect sci-fi writers are not, where promotions are more effectively targeted. This last is guesswork on my part, as I never see promos for sci-fi.
I don’t think the OP in this thread was defensive in tone, but I get why romance fans can feel defensive and perhaps are secretive about their preference. Romance is viewed differently and it’s not about quality, it’s about who reads it.
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