How to get into romance books — and why you should

polygon.com:

I have always loved books with kissing in them, but for most of my adulthood I was told these books weren’t worth serious consideration.

I grew up devouring young adult romance, loving writers like Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen, but lost touch with romance novels as teachers encouraged me to read things they deemed more appropriate and “more challenging.” (A sentiment echoed by other adults in my life.) By my early 20s, I’d fully bought into the idea that only “literary” works merited attention — a gatekeeper phrase that’s difficult to define, and biased toward an unchanging historical library of Western-canon classics. Outside of those novels, I was recommended books that dealt with heavy subject matter, suggesting sadness over joy as a primary marker of value and heft.

I do love many of those classics, and I love books in general. But I also got fed up with the social norms that led me to gatekeep my own tastes. A few years ago, I dove into romance novels again with absolute delight, eager to find what I lost. My interest was piqued by a local bookstore, The Ripped Bodice — during the bookshop’s third-year anniversary celebration, I spied a line of people wrapping around the block. I hadn’t even known there was a bookstore in my neighborhood, and couldn’t resist joining in. I had no clue about what I was going to buy — what was even happening in romance these days? Where was I supposed to (re)start? Luckily, I struck up conversation with other people in the line, and they kindly offered me a ton of recommendations. They quite literally cheered me on. I walked out of the Ripped Bodice with a big stack of books in my hands, and I have not looked back since.

I’m so glad I ran into that line, years ago. Since then, I’ve