As a child I read a lot of books that were probably really bad for me. Romance novels, mystery novels, novels where someone important died at end and I was to little to realize that crying over fictional characters would get me laughed at as I aged. I am totally over that though, no hard feelings towards people who made fun of my…well.. my feelings. I am going on a tangent here…
See, back in my day romance had a different flavor. I was to little to understand how authors battled each other for the spotlight. To me they wrote for the fun of it and weren’t oppressed by societies expectations. They did not feel the same pain us lowly untalented plebs went through. It was until I was older that I learned any differently but still I drowned myself in the worlds of others. Teaching myself to see through their eyes with a greater understanding then my peers. I wanted to witness love from places reality could not touch.
So is it any wonder that I feel in love with R.L Stine‘s Fear Street Series.
Yes, I know what you are thinking “R.L Stine isn’t a romance writer”. In this you would be correct but the thing is romance written for children and young adults do not look the same for romances for adults. We get things like Hunger Games, Twilight, Looking For Alaska, Remember me, and Green Angel. Books that may have some romantic elements but cover a wide range of other genres. These are our introductions into the world of romance. As adults we will get to read books that are actually centered about the idea of love but until then we are traumatized into thinking that the dude with the murder boner for innocent people is our fated mate.
So yea, I got my twisted ideas of romance on the lap of the dude who gave us Goosebumps.
Back in my day bad boys ruled the world. The badder the better. I feel in love with the maniac murderer because he was the only one to treat the protagonist with any sort of kindness. I mean sure, he shot some dude in the face but true love concurs all. OK yea, he was stalkish and creepy, but did you hear him describe the way she looked as he watched her while she was sleeping.
Swoon
NIGHTMARE FANTASY 
Crying over characters, not new to me 😰
Every time lol. I am forever crying
Stories were real before the political correctness police started kicking in overdrive. A bad guy was just that, a bad guy and not a tortured soul.
Yes! I think it is funny to watch older movies. They had some really good villians that people may sympathize with but still knew they were villians. Now the lines are a little blurred. The obvious bad guy can now double as the love interest if you add or subtract a line of dialogue.
This is amazing! I remember days on days when I would cry or laugh or love with the characters in whatever book I was reading. They taught us to feel!
Reading was always an excape for me. I found my bestest friends in that of fictional characters. Even now I love being able to chill and read a good book that lets me forget the world. You are so right that they teach us to feel
Crying over characters? Whatever next?
Ha-ha – I even cry over them as I write them, and I’m having trouble with one of them at the moment/ Box of tissues time tomorrow!
Hahaha I feel you there. I read a book to my daughter (The Giving Tree) and started crying half way through blubbering about the woes of friendship. By the end of it we were both crying 😢
I still love bad boys,lol
I grew up on romance novels. I was reading the really awful ones in grade five,ugh! I eventually grew out of them but they definitely skewed my view. This was a really interesting post, thanks for teaching me something new.
It was just something I noticed one day. Books featuring love geared towards preteens and teens give unrealistic viewpoints to what it really looks like. Some of it comes across as really toxic at times. Featuring a whole lot of insta-love. Not that adult books do any better but at least we have series where they get to know each for a few books first. I remember reading one book that had the main heroine falling in love with a different dude each book, which sure, people can fall in love fairly quickly. But it was a bit much considering half the guys were borderline creepos and the others were “oh so perfect” yet they would break up between books.
Can you imagine if anthropologists based their conclusions of society on books like that? I can’t even.
Oof that is a sombering thought. I can see it now lol
Haha there’s just something about a bad boy isn’t there!
Debbie