Steve Ammidown, co-host of the Black Romance Has a History podcast: There is literally a romance novel for every taste, which is one of the things I love about the genre. I gravitate towards what I like to call “us against the world” romances. These are the kinds of stories where the main characters aren’t just falling in love, they’re also taking on some bigger issue at the same time. Courtney Milan’s Brothers Sinister series is a great example of this, as is Alyssa Cole’s Loyal League and Reluctant Royals series. I also love authors who play with form and mix up the elements of a romance novel, like Olivia Dade and Katrina Jackson. I’ve also, for no particular reason, been reading Kit Rocha’s post apocalyptic heist gang Mercenary Librarians series, which aren’t romance novels per se, though they are very sexy on top of being hopeful.

Reiya Bhat, political science PhD student at UC Irvine: I see romance media as a form of sweet escapism. For me, romance doesn’t need to be realistic, which is probably why one of my favorite tropes is fake dating. There is never a real need for that to happen! The tension, the increasingly outlandish reasons to explain the leads’ behavior, the fear for each that their love interest isn’t feeling the same thing. I love a slow burn/ friends to lovers, people who can’t stop talking, and Nora Ephron, so When Harry Met Sally is the blueprint for me. Other romance media that I come back to again and again include Emily Henry’s Beach Read, the first To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie, and Nick and Jess’ first kiss in season 2 of New Girl.

Kacey Calahane, Professor and Historians on Housewives writer and co-host: What’s not to like about the romance genre? What started with a friend dropping off Tessa Bailey’s It Happened One Summer as a fun post-PhD rom com read turned into an instant plunge into all facets of BookTok romance, from dark romance (like the Cat and Mouse Duet) to all kinds of shifter romances (crocodiles, wolves, dragons, bears), to mob/mafia arranged marriages, to fated fae mates, to monsters, aliens, secret societies, serial killer lovers, and billionaire bosses. When it comes to tropes I “listen and I don’t judge”—there are no bad tropes. Rather, the genre and the sub-genres within offer escapism, therapy, and instant community when standing in the romance section at the bookstore and on social media. Aside from the pop culture relevance, the genre serves as an important social and cultural marker too, especially with the comparison between “book boyfriends” and the current hellscape that is the dating and political landscape, (insert the man versus bear debate here). 

Olivia Cappello, reproductive rights advocate and romance head: I love love: the meet cute, the fake dating, the enemies-to-lovers treat where we know there will be a happy ending. Some might say that given my work, I’m seeking an escape (and maybe a little smut) at the end of the day. But in this golden age of romances, the lovers find connection amidst and even because of the horrors. They’re creating queer community in deep Oklahoma, fending off gentrification in greater Washington, DC, and struggling in late capitalism just like the rest of us. These romances aren’t an escape: they’re a window into what keeps making this world beautiful. 

Angelina Eimannsberger, PhD student, University of Pennsylvania: I started reading romance novels because of Casey McQuiston’s Red White and Royal Blue and Jasmine Guillory’s The Proposal. I loved romcom movies before that, especially the classics with Meg Ryan, but had no idea really that a corresponding genre existed in literature, outside of super old-fashioned mass market paperbacks. I also didn’t know that romance could have progressive politics and do interesting things with intersectionality, diversity, and representation, and have been so glad to learn (a lot!) about how that’s really not true anymore. I just think there’s so much negative and/or overwhelming emotional information floating around, and it can be extremely hard to process, so having a genre with a literal promise to end happily is such a good antidote to the “real world” without being blighty dismissive of how hard things can be. Another happy ending about romance is that everytime you finish a book, there’s easily ten more you can read that are connected by series, author, trope, or vibe, and so the quest for happiness literally never needs to end. 

Diana Filar, Assistant Professor of English: I am a huge romance novel reader and romantic comedies have long been my favorite genre of film, but whether or not the medium is categorized as romance does not matter to me—I will always be rooting for the marriage plot (so to speak). To put it bluntly, I love love. I seek out the love story, pulling it from any hints, anxious to know when the characters will finally kiss. When my husband and I watched The X-Files, I would not shut up about the tension between Mulder and Scully. I loved Normal People because I feel no one has ever captured so accurately the tragedy of how I felt as a constantly love-sick millennial teenager. When everyone got mad that Kylo Ren and Rey kissed at the end of The Rise of Skywalker, I was adamant that this was inevitable! When I embarked on a first time watch through of Cheers, I looked up which episode Sam and Diane finally got together—not caring about spoilers, I just had to know that the possibility would become a reality. And that, I think, is what I love most about romance media: the idea that against all odds, two people will find the thing that they (we all) are searching for. 

Noël Ingram, PhD candidate in English: I often joke with friends that time in the academy correlates with time spent reading genre fiction. I’ve always loved romance media, but over the last year, I’ve become a huge fan of romantasy. I love a good slow burn and/or enemies-to-lovers arc because both tropes show the surprising beauty in the unexpected. Sarah J. Maas’s Aelin Galathynis, Manon Blackbeak, and Lidia Cervos are three of my favorite characters of all time because their stories are ones of post-traumatic growth, where fully stepping into their power means grappling with and accepting all aspects of who they are. It’s not a hot take to say that we live in difficult times. Romantasy books, at their core, tell stories of how goodness, light, and joy can exist in a world that is often unfathomably difficult and cruel.

Arah Ko, poet: Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy. Fleabag’s hot priest. Bridgerton’s eligible bachelors. The ACOTAR “bat boys.” There’s something delicious about fictional men written by women that I still can’t put my finger on—is it the escapism, humor, outfit, ability to admit fault, or swagger that makes them swoon-worthy? Or is it the role reversal of that omnipresent male gaze inverted into something softer? Romance is one of the only genres consistently dominated by women, and even more than fantasy and sci-fi, it offers a dream-like escape without taking itself too seriously.

Brooke Martin, prolific reader, noted homosexual: I’m gay and grew up in a conservative area, and I love reading queer romance in particular because two people managing to fall in love despite the fears and obstacles of homophobia always thrills me. I like character driven-stories, though. I hate modern romance novel marketing that’s like, an Instagram graphic that says “rivals to lovers!” or “only one bed!” on it. If I don’t know who these characters are, why should I care?

Jodi McAlister, romance author and Senior Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture at Deakin University: The great promise of romance fiction is that everything will turn out all right in the end. Unlike some other forms of love story, in the popular romance novel, there is a guaranteed happy ending, where all will be well – an increasingly powerful promise of optimistic certainty in increasingly uncertain times. The romances that have best exemplified this for me lately are Courtney Milan’s Wedgeford Trials series—The Duke Who Didn’t, The Marquis Who Mustn’t, and The Earl Who Isn’t. They’re set in a small town in England at the end of the nineteenth century populated mostly by East Asian immigrants, and their happy endings are optimistic not just for the couple, but also skilfully encode the promise of a better, more just world. 

Sohum Pal, Cancer Sun and Mars, Capricorn Moon, Gemini Venus: Perhaps I give away too much in admitting that my favorite trope is that of reconnection. Not “true love,” mind you, but loves that are deeply troubled, that fall apart because of circumstance or pigheadedness and require returning to, and even then may fall apart for good. I am particularly attracted to this relational arc in TV, probably because it allows or even forces the audience to endure the full episodic and durational nature of love’s circuitous and thorny path. Some of my favorites, for better and for worse: The Mindy Project‘s Mindy and Danny, Six Feet Under‘s Nate and Brenda/David and Keith, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Rebecca and Josh/Greg, Normal People‘s Marianne and Connell. Can love last? The “second chance” plot vindicates my sense that love need not last to be worth returning to, that there is more to love than duration or integrity alone.

Charlotte Rosen, a historian, writer, and editor based in Chicago: Romance media, when done right, captures the euphoric experience of feeling uniquely seen and infectiously loved by someone. Of course, we typically don’t see all that comes after: the settling into routines, the moderation of passions, and the inevitable emergence of conflict and compromise that arises in long-term partnerships—for this reason, romance media is often correctly accused of being unrealistic, escapist, and silly. But I wonder if it isn’t important for us to be regularly disarmed from the temptation of cynicism and to give ourselves over to the cringe-but-freeing sensation of irrepressible chemistry and connection, the kind that makes you feel insane and carnal and as if you have lost your marbles…but that also makes life worth living. In an era of individualistic optimization and regimentation, where people often brag about their rigid routines and “self-care” and 10-year plans (how truly boring, not to mention unstrategic and fatalistic in our current context of present and looming global disasters), the message of allowing your best laid plans to get fucked and upended by the glorious experience of being truly and singularly loved is perhaps something we should all revel in more. Films like Notting Hill and The Wedding Planner feel like geniuses of this genre, and are incidentally my two favorite romantic comedies: they both feature protagonists who believe they are hopeless and will wither away alone alongside their pathologies (J.Lo’s character in The Wedding Planner settling into dinner alone in front of the TV in her pristine, dust-less apartment is burned into my brain), who are then pleasantly thrown off by unexpected, even initially unwelcome encounters with attraction and connection. For all of the gendered bullshit that the romance genre brings, there is something universally affirming (and maybe even socialist? OK, I’m bullshitting a bit) about the encouragement to cede control, ignore rationality (an ideology that keeps the capitalist in our heads alive and well), and open yourself up to the beautiful disaster of loving and being loved.  

Ignacio Sánchez Prado, Washington University in St. Louis: Romance media captures the desires and anxieties of capitalist social relations, a process particularly visible in cinema. Sometimes films project them by enacting fantasies of exhausted modes of production where the couple forms against the background of a predictable social code to be embraced or restored: think the restoration of love in The Princess Bride. In other cases, the success of the love relationship is tied to the successful or failed integration to the order of labor relations and social values: think of the underemployed architect who suffers a relationship as precarious as his employment as a greeting-card writer in 500 Days of Summer. And yet, when love is successfully imbued into a media or an artistic form, the affects it portrays and elicit contain a surplus above ideological reading. Consider Chunking Express, where the counterpoint between two modes of love is visually formalized in excess to the vertiginous spaces of Hong Kong. Or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where love has to be projected into the realms of the personal subconscious because the structures of the social cannot comprehend or sustain it.

MTC Mixtapes: asks our editors, writers, and readers to share their responses to a particular question about something they’re loving, hating, fascinated by, or curious about right now.

Article photo by Farah Bakaari

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