My preferences on reading books in the Romance genre
Since I have done a post on what I look for in fantasy Books and a post on what I look in thriller books, I figured it would be also a good idea to touch on what I look for in romance books.
For me, it really depends on which genre of romance I’m looking for because romance is honestly I think one of the biggest umbrella genres that exists.
First, I decide if I want something that’s a contemporary romance or a traditional romance and other words am I needing something that’s gonna have an HEA or not.
My next question for myself is how much spice I’m wanting is it really important for me to have that in the book or is that not something? I’m really caring about.
The third thing I look for is how dark the book is is this a dark college romance? If so, I’m probably not interested.
If it’s an omega verse or shifter romance of sorts, I do not understand how any of that works so because I don’t get it, probably not gonna pick it up either
I have noticed that my favorite romance books in the past tend to have strong character development, lots of humor and banter, tension, and partners that treat each other exceptionally well, but are also realistic
I do enjoy when the characters have their own internal and interpersonal struggles however, I don’t want to be reading the main character’s inner dialogue as 90% of the book. I definitely want there to be events and dialogue with characters happening mixed in and more of a balance.
I prefer books that have representation in them of things that I see in myself. (Whether this means that the book is sapphic, whether it means it has a neurodivergent character, whether it means there is a character with an illness).
If there is a genuine realistic romance, that looks good I will probably pick it up
The things that I usually will skip over are once again the college romance is the monster romances the shifter romances and most dark romances freaked me out quite a bit
The romances that I have really prefer if they are contemporary is a workplace romcom, which usually doesn’t have super in-depth themes to them that make me cry anyways, so and they usually have happy endings, and if not, the author specifies that it’s a series or something along those ends
If I am wanting a thriller with some spice in it, then I will go for a dark romance, but I will go for a dark romance from very specific authors that I trust
Most of the romances that I pick up, I think are romcoms
I do not yet have a desire to read a traditional romance book that makes me really sad and pulls on heart strings
I am the same way with movies if I’m looking for a romance movie, I’m wanting something more Hallmark more Christmasy more workplace romance, more romcom, leaning and a lot less princess bride really sad depressing vibes
I heavily prefer having a happy ending guaranteed so I usually try to stick to contemporary romance authors that just put it in their books anyways because they know their readers want it
I know that it’s not an essential in contemporary romance, but the good authors know that it’s important to disclose if that’s not the case
As far as pacing goes, I genuinely don’t care too much about what events occur so long as the two main characters are heavily involved in it and there’s not a lot of other characters I need to keep track of
For me, character development is the number one thing that I look for in a romance because I want to feel connected to these characters so if they are not well developed the book to me feels very boring because there’s likely not a lot of events that are occurring because it’s not a thriller, nor is it a science fiction usually and it’s just kind of people talking at that point and existing in the same City at the same time that happened to do kissing maybe at some point and to me, I don’t really want to read that
A lot of of my romances have sci-fi fantasy mixed in, so yes I do absolutely read Romantasy but I read very specific types, and I tend to navigate away from certain tropes
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