Opinion: In Defense of Romance Novels

By Rain Kemper, 19

My first semester in college, I arrived to my first class and pulled out my copy of "Love Hypothesis". Yes, I was taking Chemistry 101, but that didn't mean I expected the love of my life to pop out during cell dissections or titrations. A boy came and sat next to me ten minutes later, and tapped me on the shoulder, asking me what I was reading. When I saw that he was reading the Pickwick Papers, I felt somewhat embarrassed to tell him what I had chosen.

That day wasn't a lesson in anything. He simply nodded and went back to reading his book, while I went back to reading mine. But I felt as if I had just been caught reading a Fancy Nancy picture book, and felt somewhat inferior. It was hard to place this feeling. Was it just me who felt this way? But when I joined my campus' feminine literature book club, I realized that literature inferiority does exist, just as it does in any other field.

Our first book was "Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men ", which explored how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It was an analysis into the gender data gap, and a gap in knowledge that is the root of gender discrimination. Our second book, however, was the 'Hating Game'.

Here was a few things people said to me when I told them this.

"Aren't book clubs, you know, intellectual?"

"Huh, I didn't know that would classify as feminine fiction, or literature."

"Of course it's fun, but definitely not serious fiction!"

But the truth is, just as Kim, who is the leader of the club said, people deserve to read what makes them happy. There's good art, and skill in making your readers feel true romance, true connection. As a society, we value pain, we value anger and heartbreak and loss are literary masterpieces. No one is less because they prefer romance books over your latest classic. Romance does not mean it is not "serious" fiction. And god forbid if there is any mentions of sex - that's what humans do! It's natural, and enjoying reading books with such scenes does not make it any more unnatural.

So here's everything laid out. You can read the Pickwick papers and love Charles Dickens, but that doesn't make it right to look down upon others who enjoy mainstream, modern romance or less "difficult" novels. Reading is an experience, a lesson, and no matter what book it is, or what it contains, there is a lesson. There is experience in simplicity, drawing connection and love and character out of a random girl working the bookstore in Times Square and the tourist (who just happens to be a secret heir to a foreign country). Diversity within romance, within fiction is evolving with the day.

Macbeth is one type of a literary masterpiece. But there are others out there too, hidden behind titles and covers you will never know about if you don't open up your mind.