It may be self-aggrandizing to say this: it’s an accomplishment that I’ve finished 17 books so far this year. Like so many of us, my 2019 self had many plans for 2020.
I feel you on reading “candy”. I have a huge backlog of Serious Reads, and I DO love reading them... but a lot this year, more than last, when I snuggle up in bed at night to read, I can’t bear how disrupted my sleep will be if I dive in to one more painful recounting of racial aggression, or a history of why everything is so fucked, or even just a business book that gets me thinking about the economy, cue spiral.
Jasmine Guillory’s books are all amazing. It’s interesting that you note that the disdain for romance is misogynistic (it is), because I usually dislike romances because the stories themselves are, well, if not downright misogynistic at least cliche and heteronormative. Yay for Guillory again. Have you read Helen Hoang’s the Kiss Quotient yet?
I typically tackle my Serious Reads during times when I can process them. That said, a reminder that while your sleep may be disrupted by reading about racial aggression or history: BIPOC folks’ lived experience is that and their sleep and lives are constantly disrupted and spiraling.
I’m not sure what romance you’ve read, so it’s hard to generalize the genre (which does have its problems) and stories told. Even before Guillory and Hoang, the stories are usually about women who fall in love, but typically on their own terms. So many of the protagonists end up being more than what they were at the beginning of the stories. Learning to demand for what they rightly deserve, and their own choice in their happily ever after.
I feel you on reading “candy”. I have a huge backlog of Serious Reads, and I DO love reading them... but a lot this year, more than last, when I snuggle up in bed at night to read, I can’t bear how disrupted my sleep will be if I dive in to one more painful recounting of racial aggression, or a history of why everything is so fucked, or even just a business book that gets me thinking about the economy, cue spiral.
Jasmine Guillory’s books are all amazing. It’s interesting that you note that the disdain for romance is misogynistic (it is), because I usually dislike romances because the stories themselves are, well, if not downright misogynistic at least cliche and heteronormative. Yay for Guillory again. Have you read Helen Hoang’s the Kiss Quotient yet?
I typically tackle my Serious Reads during times when I can process them. That said, a reminder that while your sleep may be disrupted by reading about racial aggression or history: BIPOC folks’ lived experience is that and their sleep and lives are constantly disrupted and spiraling.
I’m not sure what romance you’ve read, so it’s hard to generalize the genre (which does have its problems) and stories told. Even before Guillory and Hoang, the stories are usually about women who fall in love, but typically on their own terms. So many of the protagonists end up being more than what they were at the beginning of the stories. Learning to demand for what they rightly deserve, and their own choice in their happily ever after.