![]() ![]() ![]() This is the lens through which we must view romance novels. In Japan, slurping loudly is considered polite, as is burping in China, and I’ve yet to visit a Latin American country where calling someone fat is actually considered offensive. But throw those aside, and what you find is a fascinating genre with its own rules and tropes and standards entirely foreign to most readers.įoreign. Sure, they are all mostly terrible, at least by the generally accepted standards of what constitutes a good book. Six books later, am I an expert on romance novels? Not exactly. ![]() Was it possible that our intolerance was rooted in ignorance? Were we shortsightedly denying ourselves the best that the age old tradition of written storytelling had to offer? We had to know.Īnd so began a great experiment. We guffawed.Īfter all, neither of us had ever read a bodice ripper. After cracking a few jokes at the expense of heaving bosoms and brooding bachelors, we were chased away by a very passionate kiosk attendant who did not take kindly to our casual disparagement of her favorite literary genre. While we were browsing the booths, we came across a display of bodice rippers. On our first date, I took my wife to a book fair at Parque Retiro in Madrid. ![]()
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