Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Thank you, THANK YOU for making the point that romance novel readers aren’t automatically confined to romance in all their entertainment!  I, for one, uniformly hate romantic movies, with very very VERY few exceptions.  And chick flicks?  Make me puke.

I had someone try to give me a huge box of mysteries the other day.  Now no knocking of genres, but mysteries just aren’t my cup of tea.  I politely told her this, and she said, “But most of them have a love story in them, too.” Well, that’s nice, but it’s STILL A MYSTERY.  And I’m still not into that.

My boyfriend and i go through this all the time-the first time he saw me reading a romance novel,he was surprised-and basically said something to the effect that since I pride myself on reading good books,what was I doing with junk. Argh.
SB Candy-I did send you a recommend for a romantic graphic novel-should I apologize?

I think this happens outside of genres, no matter what your genre is. When I was a massive fantasy fan who rarely if ever read sci-fi, everyone kept recommending all this sci-fi to me as if it were the same thing. I would gently point out to them that, no matter what Waldenbooks says, or how they shelve the bastards, Sci-Fi is NOT Fantasy, and vice versa.

To be fair, I’m sure there are just as many subgenres to legal thrillers, I just don’t particularly care enough to find out. :-p God help us all if we tried to sort out general fiction!

Perhaps this is just a fiction reader’s curse in general, and not solely restricted to romance?

since I pride myself on reading good books,what was I doing with junk.[\quote]

That’s just your boyfriend not knowing what’s good for him. Romance novels are practical reading, imho. Not only using your own imagination, but the imagination of hundreds of other people!

Next time he makes a jab, show him a particularly hot and steamy passage and say “See that, right there? You were going to get some of that tonight, but not now.” He’ll learn to keep his mouth shut, PDQ. :-)

Some reviews at the time said it was a hybrid, but when I saw it, I never bought the romance between Cruise and Zellweger.

The only “relationship” in Jerry Maguire that worked for me on any level was that of Cruise and Gooding.  And I don’t mean that in a slash-y way, although I’m sure there must be some Jerry/Rod fanfic floating around out there on teh Interweb somewhere.

First: Barely anyone who is close to me (including family) realizes how much I love romance and how committed I am to my romace reading, except of course, for the hubster. I fear the *ahem* Fabio-cover backlash, which is extremely hypocritical. So sue me. Friends and family know me as the Battlestar, CSI-and-Heroes-loving type who refuses to see maudlin or romance comedies in theaters because it’s a waste of $20 and a babysitter.

Second:

I’m pretty up front that when I’m hormonal (like I am now, boy howdy) all I want is romance. Seriously? I can’t even watch the news without bursting into sobby tears. I want a Happy Ending and I want it NOW GODDAMMIT and PASS ME A GLAZED DONUT TOO!

I think we’re on the same cycle. As the month goes on, the reading gets smuttier, then cycles back to the H/H barely kissing. Must be the NJ water.

Enjoying a good romance doesn’t mean I’ve lost all sense of discernment

Is it wrong that what pops into my head is Lorelei Gilmore saying to her daughter (upon finding her dressed as Dona Reed), Did it involve a blow to the head?

Just because it’s maudlin tripe doesn’t mean it’s romance.

*snerk* The next person who tells me that I’ll just love The Notebook (which has at least thankfully replaced The Bridges of Madison Country in this particular role) is so gonna get whacked upside the head with something large and hard and “tomey” (like maybe my well-worn copy of Plato’s Republic or any one of George R. R. Martin’s books)! Recently they’ve started recommending that I just watch the middle part where the characters are young. You know, forget that the “love story” is bookended with total smarm cheese.

I hate, hate, hate the will they/won’t they/when will they-- they love, hate, love each other-- between a male and female lead in a movie or tv show. 

The archetypal example would have to be Moonlighting.  But as far as I was concerned x-files became a lot less interesting and complex as their friendship swirled down that drain-- And yes, I agree that CSI has done a good job so far.  Or maybe I just enjoy people bitchin’ and moanin’ because they weren’t in on the consummation.

I think ‘Doxy’ could approximate ‘whore’ in regency novels

PB

I am a sap for romance in movies, but they have to be approrpiate and well-done. Sense & Sensibility—high end. The sugar-shock horror that is Christian Slater in Bed of Roses, which I just watched last week—swirling down the toilet at the low end. I have standards, but in all honestly, they are probably lower with regard to film because of a) the time involved in reading a book means the book must strike me as more satisfying and rewarding, and b) the myriad individuals involved in films, particularly the actors, can make up for a multitude of cliched scripting sins.

Luckily, my reputation before outing myself as a romance fan was that of a nose-in-the-air lit and history nerd, so the recs and pressies I receive from family and friends are still varied. My girls, however, will probably grow up thinking I have a brain the size of a dried-out pea.

I can’t believe you liked Harold and Maude.  The movie was creepy and gross.

But other than that, I agree with everything else that’s been said. 

I also don’t like when they try to make infidelity romantic.  On what planet is sneaking around and violating your vows sexy?

Oh, and The Notebook and The Bridges of Madison County both made me throw up.

Lordy lordy lordy, romance shoehorned into a movie has been a hot-button issue with me for years.  I DESPISE when that happens...and it seems to happen far more regularly than it should. 

The film that put me on a rant I’m still on to this day was Titanic.  (Excuse me?  This story isn’t dramatic enough as it stands?  Gee, I guess not.  I guess it needs a bozoner of a screenwriter to slather it with some shit-frosting of a so-called love story that’s not only pluperfectly ludicrous but cheapens the real tragedy of the event.  Yeah, that’s what it needs to move people.)

I hate it, too, when a horror or fantasy or psychological-thriller author pulls in romance by the shorthairs.  That is not why I read such books.  Some animal magnetism or occasional nookie or maybe even a bit of pervy squick, fine, but not the whole balla HEA crap.  Ruins the whole damned story for me, I swear!

My sister still has problems remembering that I’m not a fan of the romantic movie.  Romantic comedy, as long as it’s got some good comedy (The Matchmaker, anyone?), I’m good with.  I’m always explaining to her that my imagination isn’t as engaged when watching as it is when reading.  Give me a good action/adventure, comedy any day of the week.

The movie that MOST offended my “romance” sensibilities was “Entrapment” with that cheesy and completely unnecessary romance between Sean and Catherine.  Honestly, that would have been a *much* better movie if they’d let that plot thread die on the editing room floor.

I don’t know, I enjoy romantic movies often.  To a certain extent, it depends on my mood- I can watch something like the Wedding Planner, but I have to be not really paying attention too closely.  I think in terms of romantic comedy, I prefer something like watching Friends, which has romance but is more focused on the funny.

I need reader friends who understand my particular romance preferences.  Random Fabio cover is not necessarily going to work for me. I also dislike getting books lent to me unless I request them, since then I HAVE to read it.  I hate that.

I love reading romance.
I love reading mystery.
Elizabeth Peters and Mary Stewart spoiled me rotten.

I hate romantic movies.
I hate mystery movies.

I think everyone is so confused about what I like and what I don’t like, they just don’t bother anymore.

I loved Harold and Maude.

I too love Harold and Maude. Own it on DVD and watch it at least a couple times a year. Love it.

Just because it’s maudlin tripe doesn’t mean it’s romance.

I think I have a new signature.

Random Underworld comment: there was a frequent complaint about it, which can be summarized as “The commercials made it out to be Romeo & Juliet with a vampire and a werewolf, and it turned out that they just randomly fell for each other out of nowhere!” I find that to be hilarious, because that’s exactly like Romeo & Juliet, which I like even less than Underworld.  At least Underworld had that werewolf scientist guy.  I wish he had a movie.  I’ll put up with it now and then when the boyfriend wants to watch it.

Also, I haven’t seen the movie Harold & Maude, but a local theatre is currently putting on the first Midwestern production of a musical version written by the same guy who did The Fantasticks, and I love it.

Man, I agree a thousand, thousand times.

I can’t imagine what the love lives of movie producers must be like, since they seem to assume that if a male character and a female character spend any amount of time alone together, they are destined to have lots of sex and babies for a long, long time. Are they all married to women they met in elevators or men from the dentist’s waiting room or women who looked at them briefly during a hostage crisis??

I tend to like romantic comedies - although not Rom-Com heroines, oddly enough. I’d love to drag Meg Ryan, Ashley Judd, and Kate Hudson into Bad Movie Court and charge them with the heinous (HEINOUS, I say!) crime of MAKING HUGH JACKMAN/LUKE WILSON LOOK STUPID!

I had to watch “Someone Like You,” about a month ago (for Jackman, naturally - and because I’m writing a rom-com-tweaking screenplay) and I thought the romance between Ashley Judd/Hugh Jackman felt forced - EVEN THOUGH IT WAS SUPPOSEDLY SUPPOSED TO BE THE POINT OF THE WHOLE MOVIE. The first hour and a half makes them out to be nice friends (well, Jackman a nice friend, Judd a damp weeping mess), and then suddenly they’re all hot kissin’? Bad, baaad film.

I’ve just recently actually started reading romance (first romance evah: Bet Me by J. Crusie! LOVED IT! Anyone But You and Getting Rid of Bradley are in the mail!), but most of my family seemed to misunderstand it as well. Lots of people thought I was “lowering” myself.

My family members, however, don’t care a whit for the genres (fantasy and now romance) I read. My grandparents, especially, continue to make attempts to “rescue me” from the horrors of popular fiction. Whether I’m reading fantasy or romance, it doesn’t matter - they’ll keep sending over Faulkner, Hemingway, and Forster.

So much hate for The Notebook! I loved it (the movie not the book have never liked any of his books). But I have a thing for Ryan Gosling so, it wouldn’t have mattered if the movie was actually good or not.Although, one thing that’s always bothered me about it-the girl, Allie, her lipstick always appeared to have an orangeish tint to it. That annoyed the bejezus out of me.

And the hostility for Underworld...! I also liked it.... Scott Speedman-lordy, what a hottie, but I like anything with vampires and werewovles, so sue me! :)

Zeta/Connery combo- INAPPROPRIATE on sooo many levels, ugh!

I have never read a Danielle Steel book and never intend to!

I have a Batchelor’s Degree in Literature and am about a month away from earning my J.D.  People who know this about me are shocked and appalled when they see my bookcases: romances all interspersed with Dickens, Faulkner, Hemingway, and assorted law casebooks.  They question my good taste.  Then they question their friendship with me.  I’ve wasted more time than was probably prudent trying to explain to the uninitiated that not all romances are the same and not all are poorly written.  Some romance writing even stands up to that of the dead white dudes of the traditional english cannon.  It’s nice sometimes to talk to people who get it.

Also…

Harold and Maude is indeed awesome.

Those of you who only caught the first Underworld movie really missed out on the wonder that is Underworld II.  I say “wonder” in a very literal sense, as in, the sex scenes were so mechanically impossible I had to wonder where exactly he was putting it.

I just saw that new movie, 300, over the weekend.  It was horribly violent and gorey.  I loved it.  My husband couldn’t figure out why I loved it.  He asked and I told him: it was like an extremely bloody, violent romance novel.  It had all the action guy go for, plus a love story that fit into the plot in a way that made sense, with a few appropriately steamy scenes to top it off.  I highly reccommend it to those of you who aren’t bothered by a lot of blood.

Must agree - there’s only a few romances in film I really like, and mostly they’re British.
Out of curiosity, are there romantic films that you would unhesitatingly recommend, besides Sense and Sensibility? Is that a post for another day? Two of my favourite films are The Scarlet Pimpernel (the Jane Seymour, Anthony Andrews version) and Moulin Rouge.

I read the “V for Vendetta” comic when it first came out, and ISTR there was no love story at all in it.  Waaaaay too grim for that. I have a feeling that was movie madness.  Also, Falling Free and Ethan of Athos are my least favorite Bujold novels.  You want romance?  Read Shards of Honor and A Civil Campaign.

People know better than to recommend romance novels or movies to me, but they seem to think because I liked The Foundation Trilogy and go to Worldcon that I also dress up in Spock ears and love “Star Trek”.  To them it’s all the same science fiction stuff.

I get that with vampires.  “Oh, you’d love this book, it’s about vampires.” And the thing is, I really don’t read very many vampire books anymore.

Actually, that’s how I ended up watching Underworld.  :(

To be honest, though, I do that with people.  I tell them, “Oh, you’ll like this book because it’s sci-fi” without knowning what *kind* of sci-fi they like.

I guess I’ll have to stop doing that.

A retraction! There is one romantic movie I love: Shrek!

I am looking forward to seeing 300, I have heard great things.

Finallay, for the record, the storyline for Underworld was stolen.

I totally agree with V for Vendetta!!! I thought it was a good amazing gloomy movie but then out popped this weird love. I was like Stockholm syndrome? She was all of a sudden in love with him and i didn’t like it. Quite disrupting. I also agree about the assumption. People are always saying things like “Oh. well its a slutty and bodice ripper type. You will love it!” I always think, thanks, but get a grip! Good honesty and wit, keep it coming.

Gulp… I liked Underworld despite it’s horrid reviews, but da-yamn if werewolf boy wasn’t hot.

I get the reverse stigma.  Since I’m not partial to chick flicks and I don’t *tend* to like books where the primary conflict is created by the relationship between a romantic couples, I get the “Oh… you won’t like ________.  There’s romance in it” as if the sight of a man and woman in love is kryptonite and will send me shrieking away from Lord of the Rings or Office Space.

I like my romances where I feel like the couple almost has earned it.. I like old Dean Koontz for that.  “Well honey, we’ve nearly been killed seventeen times by unspeakable horror.  Wanna do it?”

Though I was one of those evil X-Files shippers that thought the tension was hawt and endlessly wanted the characters to fall into the sheets (hey, they earned it).  Sadly, the way that it was handled was… yai, and seemed to mostly involve completely assassinating Scully’s character until she’d turned into a whiny she-demon.

I have HUGE problems with watching romance movies (Shrek being the notable exception) because I just can’t get with the hero, oh 99% of the time. I’m sorry, you think HE is attractive? *snort*

I like intelligent, wry, bald men with chest hair who don’t go in for child molesting (Connery...yum! Connery/Zeta-Jones...yuk yuk yuk). Not gonna have much luck anytime soon, am I?

Who are Harold and Maude?

Evie and V in the movie version of V for Vendetta.
--Oh, Gods, yes. That was the most ill-considered movie “romance” in years. No way in hell would Evie have fallen for V. No way. Thank the Gods Moore wasn’t enough of a Hollywood numbskull as to have a romance between those two in the original.

On a side note: The movie I hate the most that won Oscars, The English Patient, was promoted to me as “a love story.” I don’t believe it was. I believe it was an attempt to glorify adultery and obsession. That pissed me off to no end. It was a successor to Vertigo, if anything, though a very poor one with an incredibly ludicrous and overlong “death” scene.

I rarely GET recommendations because people assume all I like is romance.
--Ditto.

I went to the used book store today. In addition to some fun romances, I picked up some awful looking pulp books to make fun of, Barbara Paul’s The Apostrophe Thief, and a Lewis Grizzard for my husband. I’ve gotten copies of books I wanted, like old Stephen Kings and mysteries, there as well. My family knows I read widely and always have.

I despise Sparks, too. I think he writes for and about rich bored people, and as a member of the lower classes myself, I find it really insulting. Most people can’t afford to take eight-week vacations. Honest.

You like Harold and Maude.

You win.

Trip and T’Pol in Enterprise - after about two episodes into the ‘romance’, I had to give up watching the show. It just seemed to me like a ‘romance’ stuck in by a scriptwriter who had no idea what might actually attract two people to each other.  For me, it Did. Not. Work. Bigtime.

(I’m not a big Star Trek fan, but used to watch it with DH - until the Trip and T’Pol debacle. Just about anybody else, for either of them, I could have gone along with, but those two? Bleurgh.)

Harold and Maude, oh yeah.  One of a kind.  Love that Cat Stevens score, too.  Love Ruth Gordon even more.

As several people have said, this is a general problem with being a fan of a genre—any genre. And also a problem with outsiders not being able to tell genres apart. No, I’m not going to appreciate a hard-core horror book for a birthday present just because I like those weird books (science fiction and fantasy)…

Those of you who only caught the first Underworld movie really missed out on the wonder that is Underworld II.  I say “wonder” in a very literal sense, as in, the sex scenes were so mechanically impossible I had to wonder where exactly he was putting it.

Did you watch it in slow motion and conclude that he was humping her navel, too?  My mom and I got thoroughly giggledrunk off that!

And luckily the Scully-character-assassination happened after I turned off my TV for good.  I didn’t see any episodes after the movie came out.  Now I’m glad!  I totally had a girl-crush on Scully and didn’t want to see her lose that sexy-hot super intelligence and logic.

Nina A...wanna share your graphic romance novel recommendation?  Been thinking of trying one, but not real sold on graphic novels, so hoping to experiment on a good one.

Underworld...humm.  #1 had some romantic elements, and that hottie werewolf.  Took the kids (teens) to #2, big mistake. And no romance.  Underworld #2 opens with some wonderful costuming, then quickly moves into wall to wall violence & gore that continues the remainder of the movie...except for one porn clip in the middle.  AMY E...you caught that also?  If they were having sex, his junk was shoved into her bellybutton...totally embarrassed my kids (& friends), they sat in a row with hands over eyes...all of them.

300...Speaking of the offspring...my three teens (girl 18, boys 16 & 14), scheduled a bonding afternoon and went to see 300 together.  They all loved it (except for the sex scenes), and declared it all time favorite.  Then again they are all history buffs, and the boys are fans of Sparta and this battle.  I hear the cinamtography is wonderful.

Cinamatogrophy?

Movies...I watch a few when not reading.  I like romance in movies, but not usually as the only storyline.  Examples would be The Mummy, The Saint, even Armageddon (despite Ben Affleck or because of Bruce Willis?).

Interesting that this conversation happened just before I read this review.  As I’m perusing the latest issue of Library Journal, a cover catches my eye at the beginning of the Fiction review section.  I flip to the review.  Interesting summary, definitely not in my general purview of reading though.  The book is “The Moonlit Cage” by Linda Holeman which looks to release on Tuesday.  The thing that gets me about the review though is this:

Fans of romantic historical fiction will be recommending it to their friends.  Recommended for public libraries, especially those with large historical fiction/romance collections.

Now, I would posit, from the summary, that someone who’s a fan of historical romance as Stephanie Laurens, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas and Elizabeth Hoyt write ‘em, would not necessarily be a fan of this book.  Though I haven’t read any of her books, from what people have told me about Sara Donati, it seems like she would be the better match.  Which leads me to this: at what point do you stop calling a story a romance and start calling it romantic?

My girls, however, will probably grow up thinking I have a brain the size of a dried-out pea.

Oh, lovelysalome, they are going to think that anyway.  {EG}

And, Monica and Wry Hag, I am in total agreement that infidelity is not sexy nor is “Titanic”. I’m not saying hero or heroine must be perfect and never break their vows or otherwise do anything ‘bad’, but so-called love stories that are all about folks cheating on their SO’s and calling it grand love - yuck.  Over it. 

That said, people seem to have made the book connection more than anything else with me.  So, I get books because people know I read. No genre-typing of yet.

Nina: No worries about recommending the graphic novel to me. Like I said, people who recommend me romantically-themed stuff and the like as a result of this website get a pass because a) they’re generally romance readers, so they get that James Pratt and Nicholas Sparks aren’t going to float my boat, and b) this is a site about romance novels and the romance genre, after all.

Those preparing to see 300--if you don’t mind violence and gore, then see it. It is full of pretty, pretty men. More six-packs than a Super Bowl party.

The error of Hasty Generalization is endemic in all genres. People like to classify people, and “what you like to read” is an easy touchstone to create. Unfortunately, if the person making that hasty generalization doesn’t know much about the category they’re sticking you in, they’ll make all kinds of mistakes. I confess, the only reason I know about the zillions of subcategories of Romance is because I work for a large, commercial publishing company.

Romance in particular gets seen as the Genre of Badly Written Bodice Ripper because when the genre initially exploded as a publishing category, there were so many badly-written bodice rippers published. Further, publishers were shoving anything they could into the genre (Danielle Steele) because that helped boost sales and positioning.

That the genre has matured and expanded is not obvious to people who don’t pay attention to it. I’m waiting for the publishers/editors/marketing guys to catch on to the “romance” novels that appeal to men. I have male friends who are perfectly happy to read a hawt sex scene, but they are not happy to read a book where the whole point is to show how Boy and Girl end up with a HEA.

For a movie with good romance elements… The Mummy. That whole story could have been told as romance novel, with the danger and intrigue as additional complications driving Rick and Evie together (though they would have stuck a Big Misunderstanding in the middle...probably Rick thinking Evie was interested in Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) or something).

But rather, The Mummy was a fun adventure movie, with a well-paced and believable romance occurring between the two lead characters.

I’ll echo those who’ve recced The Mummy as a well-threaded romantic subplot.  Not to mention the beefcake eye candy can make a girl dizzy.

I think the movie that bothered me most in terms of poorly-stuck-in-romance that ended up sticking out like a sore tentacle had to be Attack of the Clones (yes, I’m a Star Wars geek).  It continued in Revenge of the Sith, with the supposed Chosen One doing all sorts of TSTL in the name of twoo_wuv, but AOTC set my teeth on edge.  It felt like something written by a man who hadn’t dated a woman in twenty years, and who didn’t talk to any in that span of time, either.

Anakin: “I killed them all, the women, the children.”

Padme: :::do me:::

::headdesk::

Okay, so the posts about the RITAs days back, and this post, got me thinking again about a question that’s been lurking in my mind for a while, so I’ve asked it over on my research blog: Is romance too broad and diverse a genre to be effectively covered by one ‘label’?

Thoughts from the Bitchery - and anyone else - are welcome.

(And here endeth the shameless research promotion)

Hmmm… I think I’m increasingly glad I didn’t see the third movie, considering the little kid and Padme had more chemistry than the awkward first cousins thing she and Anakin had going in the second.  Sad sad sad…

I hadn’t thought about the Mummy!  That was a good one!  And well-deserved!

Bron...yes, “Romance” is kinda like “Caucasian”...too large a catagory to adequatley define anything.

Both 69?

I’m a bad, bad girl. I thought “300” was boring beyond dull, and after fifteen minutes of all the beautiful, half-naked men in what looked like leather adult diapers, I began to think their 84-packs were just as CGI as the backgrounds. :-( Oh, well. Different drummers, I suppose.

the danger and intrigue as additional complications driving Rick and Evie together (though they would have stuck a Big Misunderstanding in the middle...probably Rick thinking Evie was interested in Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) or something).

Ooh, I’d have done Ardeth Bay.... Sorry, what were we talking about? :-)

Human brains are hardwired to put things in categories and give them all their place (which helps us not go insane from the sensory overload people would experience if they didn’t have these filters), which is why having a “Romance” category is handy. The problem comes in when you ask Person A what they would put in “Romance,” and then assume Person B will put that same item in there as well. Titanic the movie? Yeah, NOT romantic to me. If the dude dies at the end, how is that romantic? That’s sad, not romantic. I don’t find Victorian soppiness romantic, but lots of people do.

Then again, the stuff I find romantic (a guy who would buy me something I want, even if it is a really sweet vacuum cleaner that sucks up all the pet dander and dust, instead of candy which I likely wouldn’t be able to eat considering my particular food allergy) would anger lots of other people.

Maybe the insult isn’t to us as Romance readers, but to us as human beings. A feeling that said book suggestor should know us well enough to know how wrong-wrong they are in our tastes?

Sorry, the point of that long ramble was this:

Romance as a category is a really handy starting place. Otherwise, you’d have a billion-million smaller categories (Vampires! Vampire books without nasty sex in! Vampire books with nasty sex in! Vampire books with leather! ad nauseum) and people like me--who don’t necessarily read by category but by writing skill of the authors--would have a much harder time “skimming” the best out of the bunch.

As it is, I know I generally like books that fall in the Romance category. I also like other categories, but we’ll start here. So I go to that category and start shelf-reading until I find something that catches my eye and interest.

If you split it all out into smaller subgenres, it would take forever and I might miss a good book because it’s not in a place I usually look.

Besides, it would be a pain in the ass to catalogue it by subgenre. Hell, it’s pain in the ass enough cataloguing by main genres!

Sorry, it’s Friday, I’m rambling. :-)

Katie, I thought the abs in 300 were likely CGI’ed as well...but since I had shelled out $16 to see it at the IMAX, I decided to get whatever enjoyment I could out of it.

I agree with you on the need to classify books into general categories to help readers weed down to at least a shorter list. The problem becomes a tug-of-war between market segmentation and finding larger markets. How do you find all the people who are likely to enjoy a particular book, without spamming the hell out of everyone else? How many of the outlying “probably would buy it” folks do you opt to ignore so you can focus on the core readership?

There is no perfect solution, and the price we (as readers) pay for getting generally accurate recommendations is that occasionally we get pigeonholed or people recommend things we hate.

Sorry late to the discussion.
A person in my life got sort of hostile when they saw quite a few no-romance books on my TBR shelf (I send them off to friends after i’m done) “Well aren’t you the smarty pants reader!”
I’ve seen readers get mighty pissed when a romance author branches off into another genre. I think what happened the other day to me kind of explained (to me anyway) why people feel so uncomfortable when when you stray outside the little box they have drawn for you.

On the 300--EW quoted the actors as working out constantly in order to get into shape. I don’t think all those muscles were CGI’ed PB