Why do women read romance?
On a winter day, worthy of a Tolstoy presentation with its disconcerting degrees below zero and a wind chill that rivals an ice bath, I was given this article to write. At first, I didn’t really have many answers. I love romance fiction myself, but I really wasn’t sure about putting it in a logical, framed box like an article.
But I knew that if I asked family and friends a few questions, I would find out why 40 percent of the book market is in this genre and why it sells so well.
These are some of the responses. Not surprisingly, many of these are intangibles in our lives.
Renewal:
We could have a really lousy day at work or in our home business or as a parent. The boss could have gone completely crazy and assigned fifty projects for tomorrow. Or the fax machine in our home office might have eaten another fax so now we have to phone someone and impress them with our office equipment. Maybe your two-year-old has figured out how to hack and run off the breakfast table with jam dripping from his little fingers and oh no, he’s headed for one of the clean rooms! Many days, life can be chaotic.
When all the craziness of everyday life needs to be rebalanced between living and reacting, nothing better than entering into a romance.
Romance readers report feeling a sense of renewal after immersing themselves in a happy love story. It is a way to remove the day’s dirt from our shoes and sit down to relax.
A literary tome would not serve the occasion. A mystery wouldn’t be quite right, but a romance is always the hero of the day.
Expect:
Romance readers also reported seeing a sense of hope in romance books.
Maybe your true life romance needs a little repair and a weekend in Bali, but you fall into a book and they have it much worse. I still remember a book I read years ago when the main character had done something out of the ordinary and drove a car crazy, which of course turned out to be driven by his new boss. He went through the entire book, more or less cringing every time he saw it for fear she would recognize his birthmark. From embarrassing to desperate to any kind of random misfortune, heroines and heroes do it all.
As human beings, we need to have a sense of hope and when our own spirit is battered, why not romance?
If you’ve read the story of Pandora’s box, among all the horrible things that escaped, hope also escaped. As an avid reader of romantic fiction, I sincerely believe that romance offers hope. Regardless of the obstacles, the main characters go to work to overcome all the reasons why the world is rotten, but then they find throughout the book the moments of hope, the spirit to carry on. Romance readers are treated with hope in every book that really is a romance.
The predictability factor:
While not all romances are exactly the same, we can take the guesswork out of a book by selecting a romance right away. We can know for sure that at the end of the book we are promised a happy ending.
For this reason, most romances try to stick to the general appearance of a romance.
Share the hero:
And naturally, we can also assume that women read romance en masse for heroes. Think of some of the heroes you may have read about. They are usually beautiful, tortured, complex souls that would absolutely melt the heart.
In truth, I think a lot of women just want to intertwine their own lives by reading these men who will do whatever it takes to solve the problem of the day.
If you’re looking for romance and feel like you have to hide the cover from the store clerk, forget it. Women have been reading romance forever and a good romance book is warranted any day of the week. Just don’t forget to turn off the stove before tuning in for a good romance.