Guilty Pleasures Edition

As far as Guilty Pleasures go, of course there’s

-milk chocolate frosting (I could eat that shit with a spoon)

-white hot chocolate

-Really Soft throw blankets

-offensive bookmarks

…but those are part of the whole Reading Experience (except the frosting). And I don’t feel guilty about them (except the frosting).

Some folks would call reading Romance a Guilty Pleasure. Not me. I’m pretty open about reading romance. Hell, I have a website that’s 90% devoted to it. But the stigma is real. Romance has been called Trash or “not real literature”. And the ubiquity of Tropes is derided as “predictable” or “stereotypical” (not to say there aren’t unhealthy stereotypes in Romance, more on that below).

What exactly is wrong with reading for entertainment? What is wrong with escapism in reading? I seriously want to know. I like being entertained, and I like to read about other settings, worlds, people, and traditions and I like to picture life in different milieus. I read mostly Romance because of all the reviewing I do, but I do read other genres. And I read most of those genres for entertainment. Even the nonfiction I read is mainly for entertainment. Lots of Biography and Memoirs. And I am so curious by nature that reading to learn is fun. Thank you, I will wear the label “Geek” with pride.

In the Romance genre, my Guilty Pleasure is something I love to hate and hate to love: romance from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Yes, I know I spend a lot of time complaining about certain phrases (like “manhood” or “member”- see my blog post about Zexytime) or certain plot devices or tropes by saying “I thought we stopped using/saying that in 1986”.  This is because I think that a lot of old school Romance can be problematic.

The main characters of 1980s Romance published by major publishers are most often white people. Other cultures are represented as stereotypes, like the “Noble Savage” Native Americans that appear in old school Historical Romance. The Forced Seduction (God forbid that I use the R word on the Internet) trope was a thing until, well, around 1986. The Flame and the Flower is one of the most notorious examples of this trope. The MMC forces himself on the FMC at their first meeting. Apparently, his member has hypnotic powers because instead of acting traumatized, she acts like she’s been roofied by ultimately falling madly in love with him. This was an International Bestseller. I like to think that in Romance, heck, in pop culture, that we’re moving away from all that into a more enlightened era.

But I digress. I’m not just saying that as a transition, I’m stating a fact: I Digress. I’m the Queen of the Universal Tangent.

I was talking about’80s and ‘90s Romance. And Guilty Pleasures. On those subjects, I love old Harlequins from that era. Partly for the nostalgia factor. I started reading Harlequins in 1987 and I came of age in the’90s. (I’ll give you a moment to mentally calculate my approximate age). But partly because I love to laugh/cringe at them. If you’re ever in the mood to fall down a rabbit hole, go to Goodreads, find some 1980s Harlequin Presents novels, and click on reviews by a user called “Boogenhagen”, who writes some of the best. Sarc is my second favorite kind of Asm, and Boogenhagen is a master. I like to reread the ones I read back in the day through a modern lens and marvel. Disclosure: I’m friends with Boogenhagen on Goodreads, but I don’t know them IRL or anywhere outside of Goodreads.

I love some of the old Historical Fiction. Some of it I straight up hate. However, Robin Lee Hatcher’s books from before she started writing Inspirational/Christian Romance are some of my favorites. Her heroines are strong minded (although some of the other female characters are just awful). Usually they are pretty independent, and in some cases, they have their own careers, or do their own thing. In Passion’s Gamble, the heroine runs a very successful gambling establishment. And not all of her main characters are white. One heroine is Latinx, for example. One of her heroes is Native American (although he is partly white) and he is not of the Noble Savage stereotype. Hatcher’s Inspirational heroines are less interesting, but still worth reading if you like Inspirational. Her previous work is out of print, and she has no plans to republish them on Kindle or in hard copy; she disavows all of her non-Inspirational/non-Christian books and has said that she was pressured and forced to write mainstream Historical Romance by her publisher. To be fair, Inspirational Romance was not the moneymaker then that it is today. Her mainstream Historicals were definitely ahead of their time.

One of the more modern authors whose Historical Romance novels I love is V.V. Wedding (whom I have met and befriended IRL, and she’s wonderful). Sadly most of her books are out of print, but if you can lay your hands on any, I recommend doing so. She writes what I call Intelligent Romance.

Other authors in the Historical Romance genre whom I love are Julie Garwood, Caroline Lee, and Julia Quinn. Julia Quinn is best known for writing the Bridgerton series of Regency Romance. Caroline Lee has a couple of series about a family. And Julie Garwood, who may be best remembered for her Romantic Suspense, started off by writing Historical Romance. These authors have one thing in common: humor. Their writing makes me laugh right out loud, and I treasure them. I also enjoy Hannah Howell and Celeste Barclay, both of whom are just good writers, and both of whom use touches of humor, although their work is not as funny as that of Garwood, Lee, or Quinn. Garwood and Howell began writing in the 1980s, and continued writing into the current millennium.

Basically, if it’s smart, or funny, or has a strong heroine, I’m there for it. It doesn’t matter what era in which it was written. Actually, it doesn’t matter which sub genre of Romance it is either, barring the couple of types that I don’t read, like Alien Romance or Tentacle P0rn.

And the Family Sagas of the 80s and 90s! I used to watch Falcon Crest like it was my job, and some of the Family Sagas had the best (and worst) kind of elements of Falcon Crest. Or Dallas, or Dynasty (although I never watched Dynasty). I’m not a Danielle Steel fan. Come the apocalypse, still standing will be cockroaches, James Patterson books, Nora Roberts novels, and the complete works of Danielle Steel. But my Guilty Pleasure in this sub genre is Fern Michaels. Her Texas, Vegas, and Kentucky sagas, specifically. I will probably get around to writing a review about at least one. I don’t even try to think about redeeming qualities with these books. These novels are 100% pure schmaltz. When I read them, I am transported to a world where the main characters are rich and fabulous. I can read about Fashion Design (love me some fiction about fashion design because I did a lot of work in Theatrical Costume in college), Casinos, and Horse Racing. (What I know about racehorses could be engraved on the head of a pin with room leftover for the Lord’s Prayer, but it’s still fun to read about. And imagine.) These books are Over The Top, much like the’80s, come to think of it. (The shoulder pads alone could be used as stuffing for thousands of mattresses….) My love for these books is definitely a Guilty Pleasure. They are absolute fun.

I’m not a person who usually feels shame, not gonna lie. But I do feel a little bit of guilt and  shame about the frosting.