I scrolled aimlessly through Instagram and I came across a reel. It was actually a sneak peek of a book that's about to be released. I read it's content and I was disgusted. I've never been so disgusted by words than I was while reading. The contents of this reel, I would rather not disclose cause if I do, this post would be deemed NSFW. This is just me ranting about my displeasure in the romance book world of today.
My heart has always been in the romance genre. The pink and yellow type of romance. The regular guy liking the normal girl, attraction at first sight sort of thing. I love reading romance. Experiencing it? I sure as hell love it.
I can't remember when I began venturing into the world of dark romance. I mean the red and black type of romance. It probably began with the days when Wattpad and Light Reader started trending and people (girls especially) started fawning over the hot billionaire men in there. Aside billionaire romance, on that app, I came across two books which will forever be among my list of favourites.
Married to the Devil's Son was my first book that tilted towards the dark romance genre. A love story between a regular girl and one of Devil's sons. And I think the next that made me fall in love with the genre completely was Hellbound With You. A story between an immortal man and a not-so-regular girl. Boy, did I love the latter🥺
Writing about these two books makes me emotional because books with plots like theirs are hard to come by these days. As I grew, I ventured deeper into the dark romance genre. I loved what I was seeing. But with the type of dark romance books that are being released these days, I'm afraid dark romance is dying. Now, we're left with psycho-romance. So many extremities are being portrayed in books these days and they're tagged romance.
One or two years back, I would never have said some authors shouldn't be writing books but with the way tropes are evolving, some plots are better off in the author's heads as imaginations and not in ink. Not on paper. What do you mean you're writing an enemies to lovers and the male lead is pushing the female lead off a cliff? What do you mean you're writing a romance book where the male lead kidnaps girls and kills them off one by one because he says he loves them but they have sinned too much to be with him? And I assure you, I've read way worse. Ones that whatever happened in it shouldn't even be something a human should come across. Be it in books or reality. You think you saw the worst in Haunting Adeline? That is nothing compared to many others that are being released today.
It's saddening that the genre which I once loved so much has become grounds for extremities just because an author's imagination ran darkly wild. Not everything should be part of the plot. Some things are better off disclosed to your therapist alone. I don't get appalled by things like this very easily but what these authors have been doing in the name of writing should be checked. Just because we fan over morally grey men doesn't mean you go and give us psychos, under the disguise of morally grey men.
It's even hard to come across good romance books written by recent authors. If smut scenes don't override the plot, the characters that are portrayed as normal, are actually toxic. Even it's neither of the two, it's just a scattered plot. It's just a very few authors that are still maintaining the standard. Bless their souls. While ideas may vary, not everything should be normalized.
While I came across one of the worst plots I've ever come across in my life today, I also experienced something beautiful. Do you read books with music playing softly in the background?
I do that a lot. It's something I've been doing over the years. I had my earpods in my ear. I wasn't actually reading a book. I was just going about my daily domestic duties with music. I was mopping the house. And there was this song that began playing. This song was one of my favourites about two years ago. I don't know how I stumbled on it today but it was in the list of songs that played today.
Sometime, two years ago, there was this book I was reading. I had this same song playing when I read a mind shattering scene in that book. Listening to the song today again, emotions after emotions flowed through me. I saw myself two years ago, curled up on the sofa, a blanket draped over my shoulder, my brother doing his business on the floor beside me. Tears flowing from my eyes because my favorite character was being tortured. I didn't cry today but the memories? Something I'll never forget.
I love books that come with playlists. That way, I feel a connection to the author while they wrote the book I'm reading.
I love reading.
I love Music.
I love Books.
And when reading a book is paired with music? Bliss.
Do you love reading with music like I do?
Thanks for reading. You stayed till the end. That means you were interested in what I had to say.
Arigato.
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