I read my first romance novel for a pop lit grad class 30 years ago. I read my second one maybe five years ago. I’ve now read hundreds and written a solid number myself! It’s never too late to start reading romance. 💞 - ThreadSky

danifinnwrites.bsky.social • 20 days ago

I read my first romance novel for a pop lit grad class 30 years ago. I read my second one maybe five years ago. I’ve now read hundreds and written a solid number myself!

It’s never too late to start reading romance. 💞

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skippythekangaroo.bsky.social•20 days ago

There’s a stigma to these stories and it needs to stop. One of my undergrad classes had a whole book on how bad it was and it’s one my regrets that I swallowed it for a number of years.

smokestack.mom•20 days ago

i remember working at a library thirty years ago, wondering what kind of people read these stories. and now i am one of them.

danifinnwrites.bsky.social•20 days ago

runafjord.bsky.social•20 days ago

I read my first romance novel when I was deployed to Iraq. That's where I first learned about paranormal romance.

danifinnwrites.bsky.social•20 days ago

I bet that was much needed

runafjord.bsky.social•20 days ago

It was! Story time. XD
The US had a program where civilians could send care packages to soldiers. One of the benefits of this program was that the items sent in these care packages were tax deductible. Which meant that one of the categories of care package we got was 'Sending Soldiers Junk'

runafjord.bsky.social•20 days ago

This meant that a lot of the books we got were the trash that people didn't want anymore, regardless of how appropriate they were to send to deployed soldiers in a warzone. Which led to a LOT of trash romance books being sent to us. So we created a free library in our area.

danifinnwrites.bsky.social•20 days ago

I love that so much

runafjord.bsky.social•20 days ago

Not ALL the books sent to us were terrible. But the GOOD books rarely made it to this library. And those that did got taken pretty quickly. So we had several shelves full of romance books and little else. Because most soldiers aren't interested in romance for a variety of reasons.

runafjord.bsky.social•20 days ago

But I was a ravenous bookworm (and trans but didn't know it), so I went through a lot of books. When I exhausted the books I wanted to read, I started grabbing books outside my usual comfort zone. In this case romances. Trashy romances. Extremely trashy romances.

dmeyerauthor.bsky.social•20 days ago

Believe it or not, Bernard Cornwell cowrote a romance novel once upon a time, just to prove he could do it, and since he's my favorite author, I've always thought that should be the first romance novel I read... may have to get around to that before long...

danifinnwrites.bsky.social•20 days ago

I’m sure that would be fun! Also fun: reading romance by people who’ve been doing it for a long time and really know how to play you like a fiddle

sollizyy.bsky.social•20 days ago

Used to read them as a teenager. I always assumed the stigma was just misogyny as they're typically written to appeal to women. But that's what I get for having "teenage girl" experiences.

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