Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 9613643" data-attributes="member: 9053">Yeah, this is the core of it. It's okay to like what you like. When I was in college, I dated a woman who was a fellow English major but also really into romance novels. So I read some. And we discussed the style, story beats, and rules of the genre (and at the time, every book that I read followed these rules). What I discovered was that they just weren't for me because I wasn't the target audience, and I didn't have the ability to focus on the things that she enjoyed. And yet I remember that we both also enjoyed The Chronicles of Amber and Winter's Tale, not to mention the Silmarillion. We had big crossovers in taste, but in some cases, it didn't work.And I expect there are plenty of people, regardless of gender, who cross over in terms of interest. We talked a lot about the romantic genre from an academic standpoint and what the authors were trying to do. I came away from the discussion realizing there was a lot going on in these novels, but they weren't for me. It wasn't a macho thing; it just meant they were written for someone who was looking for something different. There doesn't need to be any conflict here, coming from someone who reads a lot of fantasy and science fiction, but didn't know about this whole genre's existence until this thread.</blockquote>