I was scrolling along a dating app the other evening, and I came across a gentleman whose bio said, “Let’s talk about the books we’re reading!”

First of all, I love that concept. That’s a great conversation starter, and I was impressed with his creativity until I realized…well, I’m currently reading a corny, cringey, “steamy” 90s romance novel. 

You know the type. The author always has, like, two first names. Have you ever noticed that? It’s always like “Margaret Ann Harwood” or “Nora Jane Rudolph.” 

And the author’s name is always bigger on the front of the book than the actual book TITLE (which I never actually understood, and I’m obviously still scratching my head), and there is always, and I do mean ALWAYS, some iteration of a shirtless man (he could also be wearing a billowy shirt, a pair of suspenders, a bolero with nothing underneath, etc. Whatever the case may be, there are ALWAYS pecs on the front of these novels) and a wispy woman with long hair, gazing adoringly at the veritable hunk beside her.

That, by the way, is a tried and true formula (probably). Scantily dressed hunk + slender, flowy-haired lady = best-selling 90s romance. 

(The gag about that is that it can be adapted for all kinds of themes and settings. A novel set in the jungle? Jungle Hunk and Babe. A novel set on a pirate ship? Pirate Hunk and Babe. A novel set in the French court during the Middle Ages? Plague Hunk and Babe. See? It’s a one-size fits all.) 

Anyway, I’m going to be honest with you: I’m a little embarrassed about this book I’m reading. I kinda feel like I can only read it in the comfort of my apartment. If I whipped it out, say, in a doctor’s office waiting room, I’d feel like everyone was looking at me and wondering, “Why is she reading that book, and why is there a half-naked man on the front of it?”

As well they should. 

Let me take a quick aside here from my monologue about half-naked men to talk for a minute about reading. As someone who writes for a living, the amount that I elect to read in my spare time is, um, not much. In fact, barring a monthly Cosmo that shows up on my doorstep, there isn’t much reading that happens in my apartment. 

I’m trying to change that.

I used to be a big reader when I was younger. Now that I live on my own and get to choose how I spend my time, there’s a lot more Netflix and a lot less novels, I’m sorry to say. So, in order to break myself out of this rut, I’ve been sort of collecting books, creating a little library that is distinctly curated to my own book tastes and needs. 

And when I was at a thrift store the other day, I couldn’t help but add my current 90s romance novel to my basket. 

Maybe it was something about how the hunk’s pecs were gleaming. I am only human, after all.  Maybe I was mesmerized by the babe’s look of adoration. 

See? I was sucked in. Damn those romance novel publishers; they REALLY know what they’re doing. 

Since I’ve begun curating my own little book collection, the books sort of circle around a central theme: confidence. I wouldn’t call them “self-help” books, necessarily, but that’s pretty much what they are. Books that, either through one person’s narrative or a collection of tales, can help me reach the final page more confident in myself than when I started. 

And I think that’s a good start for my collection, but I wanted to branch out. Hence the embarrassing 90s romance. 

Additionally, as someone who eventually wants to publish a novel herself, I think reading cringey 90s romances can help educate me in how exactly I want a romance to develop in my own novel. Or, rather, show me what I need to tweak or outright give the finger to as I conceptualize characters and storylines. 

For example, I don’t think that every single male love interest needs to be over 6 feet tall and built like Dwayne Johnson. I really don’t. Nothing against Dwayne Johnson, of course, but isn’t that a little unrealistic? 

And to that point, why are the women always lithe and slender, but with “womanly curves.” Like, what does that even MEAN? Once, just once, I’d like a female character to be described as being, say, “bottom heavy.” 

“She was uncommonly, uniquely beautiful, with a soft belly and wide hips, draggin’ her wagon all over town.” 

I mean, how hard is it? 

I understand that maybe these authors aren’t interested in realistic characters, because maybe some readers pick the books up for the fantasy element. To each their own, but I personally can’t read the words on a page if my eyes have rolled into the back of my head.

When I was in high school, there was this romance novel that I found on one of my mom’s bookshelves, and it was this story about this gal who was raising her tragically-deceased brother’s kids out in Kansas or something, and she was (of course) very beautiful: auburn hair, slender, wiry shape, short but sassy, with a sharp tongue on her. 

She ends up falling in love with this guy who’s just blowing through town, and he’s this tall, dark, handsome outlaw type, kind of quiet and mysterious, and HUGE. Really tall, big muscles, thick, dark hair and stubble. And of course he LOVED this sassy redhead, because she was “untameable” or “unbreakable,” or some other word that basically means she didn’t make it easy for him to shmooze her. 

And of course, the gruff, dark-haired stranger OBVIOUSLY ends up shmoozing her (both in the romantic and…biblically graphic sense), and then she miraculously forgets the fact he’s kind of a grubby grifter who will probably leave her AND her kids, who also have grown attached to him. 

And there was some part at the end of the book where he came to her rescue (naturally), cementing the fact that he was actually in love with her. He decides to stay with her and help her run her homestead out on Route 66 in the middle of nowhere.

It was a freaking fairy tale, okay?

The moral of that long Sparknotes summary is that I can notice these patterns in these romance novels, and while there’s something weirdly comforting about the fantasy of those patterns, it’s helping me realize that, in my own writing, I don’t want to write a damsel in distress, who falls for a guy who is obviously bad for her but she ends up conveniently forgetting, and who has the typical long-hair-slender-body-sassy-mouth combo. 

I can break out of that a little. I know I can. 

All of this is to say that when it comes to books and reading, I have a few goals that I’d like to share with you. 

I want to read more books, and a wider variety of them. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna force myself to read something that doesn’t interest me, but it means I am going to open my mind a little more. Open mind, open book. Okay, the catchphrase is a work in progress. 

In my own writing, I want to create more realistic romantic storylines than “Pirate Hunk kidnaps and woos prim English lady who should be absolutely horrified by him, yet for some reason is actually casually forgetting that this pirate rapes, pillages and generally terrorizes people regularly.”

And finally, I want to create more realistic characters. Not every male romance lead needs to be buff with an oiled chest, or “tall, dark, and handsome.” Not every female romance lead needs to be svelte and conventionally feminine. There are so many other character traits and physical attributes than “slender but curvy” and “sassy.” I want to bust it wide open. 

So, yeah. This all was running through my mind as I was swiping on my dating app the other night. “Let’s talk about the books we’re reading!”

Look, buddy, you don’t even want to get me started. 

Cover image: Lynsay Sands’ “Lady Pirate” novel cover art, 2010. HarperCollins.