Random: A Letter to My Sister Who Makes Fun of the Romance Genre

During a phone call just now, my youngest sister asked what I was doing. I explained I was struggling to make sense of the romance genre tree. As usual, she made fun of the genre, my reading taste, etc. Since I was already tired and cranky, I got snotty and asked what she knew about the genre. These peppered her answer:

Mills & Boon. Jilly Cooper. Rape. Submissive women. The Arabic version of Roark Howard in a sultan gown. Macho men. Skittish in dealing with certain social taboos. Barbara Cartland. Fabio. Bad writing. More rape.

After we debated for some time, the phone call was getting expensive so I promised to send her an email to explain what the Romance genre was. Well, at least what I thought it was. So I did.

I thought it’d be fun to reproduce it here.

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Demystifying the Romance Genre in One Minute. (Or Two.)

A) Five things you need to realise about the Romance genre:

1. It’s not all Mills & Boon.
2. It’s not all sex, marriage and babies.
3. It’s not all down-trodden housewives who dream of being carried away, in Fabio’s arms, to an island called Paradise.
4. It’s not all “Why, you feisty wench! I’ll rip yer bodice and shag you blind! *rape*”
5. It’s not all romance.

B) Five things you need to know about the Romance genre, readers and authors:

1. It’s divided into at least eight major sub-genres: Contemporary, Historical, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Paranormal, Suspense, Mainstream, YA, Inspirational and Erotic Romance. Of course, there are some that can fit in more than one sub-genre, too.
2. It contains different types and tones to cater the widest range possible of readers’ tastes and preferences, ranging from dark psychological to comedy, from literary to plain; from social realism to Disneyfied reality and from a tale that spans a century to a tale that chronicles events within one day, and from highly explicit to kisses-only.
3. Not all readers are alike, nor do they inhale every romance novel like there’s no tomorrow. Not all readers are female, nor do they love all romance novels blindly. Each reader has own collection of likes and dislikes, and own aversion and gravitation towards certain elements of everything that defines the Romance genre.
4. Not all authors view romance the way like Dame Barbara did, nor do they look and dress like she did. Well, a couple might in one or both cases, but there’s nowt wrong with it anyhow.
5. It hasn’t met a social taboo it wouldn’t break.

C) Five things you need to remember when you talk to your sister about the Romance genre:

1. Next time you say I’ll morph into Dame Barbara if I read any more romance novels, I tell Dad it was you who broke his wing mirror.
2. Next time you describe romance readers as “sex-starved housewives”, I upload a photo of the six-year-old you in a black-and-yellow striped swimsuit, to help your 702 Facebook friends to understand why we call you Bumble Jin.
3. Next time you say romance authors write to become beautiful, young and thin heroines they will never be, I upload those stories you wrote when you were thirteen and in love with Chad Michael Murray from One Tree Hill.
4. Next time you make fun of what I do, I troll your blog every day. Thrice per day, maybe.
5. Next time you make fun of the Romance genre, you can kiss your future birthday, new year, summer birthday, and anniversary presents good bye.

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She should be finishing her breakfast any time now, but knowing her, she’ll ignore it and move on. On the other hand, she might scoff and write a response that might tear my response apart. Should be interesting as neither of us – especially her – likes to lose or admit defeat.