I’m an avid book reader. Action, mystery, plot twists, perhaps even murder and yes, maybe a subplot of romance make the perfect book for me. In all honesty, I’m not a huge romance reader. But that’s OK. It’s not my cup of tea and my favorite book genres, dystopian and mystery, might not be everyone’s cup of tea, either.
Many readers prefer different genres. Fantasy, thriller, horror, historical fiction, romance and others. Maybe a mix of everything.
Anyone can read whatever they want, no matter how rare it may be for most people. But I think there’s also times where we need to discuss and fully address the controversial content that some books contain.
One genre that I really want to discuss and also despise to some level is dark romance. Because I’m a book lover, I scroll through endless TikTok videos on the #BookTok community to look for new recommendations to add to my to be read list. It’s mostly thrillers which is sometimes hard to come across since most trending BookTok books are romance and that includes the subgenre dark romance.
Dark romance involves darker themes and mature content such as BDSM, trauma, violence, manipulation, stalking, captivity, power struggles, kidnapping, rape fantasies, dangerous situations and more that includes a list of trigger warnings in the beginning of every dark romance book. Now, I haven’t read dark romance myself but thanks to several informative videos other book readers have created, I probably never will.
Dark romance combines all aspects of abuse and romanticizes it. Usually from numerous dark romance books that people have analyzed, there is a huge power imbalance between the female protagonist and her love interest. Desire takes over the male lead who goes to great lengths to manipulate and control the female protagonist who reciprocates this as feelings of affection and, in turn, falls in love with her manipulator or captor.
And it may not just be the male lead who demonstrates these characteristics of manipulation; sometimes the female protagonist can display them too, which makes the relationship incredibly dangerous.
Dark romance is making this content and behavior seem OK when, in reality, it’s not. Criminal actions committed in these books are romanticized at a great level. One example is the duology “Haunting Adeline” by H.D. Carlton, which follows main character Adeline Riley being stalked and tormented by male lead Zade Meadows.
The book itself contains really dark and graphic subject matter but is still being consumed by readers. The character Zade Meadows had done a few good deeds within the book but it does not excuse the actions he commits against Adeline’s will.
Yes, it’s fiction. Yes, I don’t have to read these books. Yet, you do have to realize these books have an impact on what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like and how it affects the issue of assault and abuse.
Another popular example is “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover. I haven’t personally read the book but I witnessed it blow up on TikTok in 2022 and many readers have praised it as one of Hoover’s best books. However, the experience has not been positive as the book faced backlash for its story, marketing and representation.
The story follows protagonist Lily Bloom who enters a relationship with a man named Ryle. Over the course of the book, Ryle slowly begins to abuse Lily, both emotionally, physically and sexually. And throughout the plot, Lily has to find a way to end the cycle of abuse that started with her parents who also had an abusive relationship.
“It Ends With Us” has readers split. Many praise it for its realistic portrayal on how it may be difficult for someone to leave an abusive partner they still love. They also praise how Hoover humanized Ryle after Lily reveals she’s pregnant in the book. This changes their relationship into co-parenting their daughter and having Ryle better understood when it’s revealed that the reason for his behavior is due to an incident that happened when he was a child.
On the other hand, many argue Hoover has described the relationship as non-abusive; she slightly brushes over the fact that Lily is still being harmed and deems Ryle’s actions romantic and justifying domestic violence by humanizing him. Another aspect that really puts this case into perspective is that the book is being marketed as romance when it shouldn’t be.
Lily has another love interest; her childhood friend Atlas, but the story surrounds Lily and Ryle. Since “It Ends With Us” is labeled as romance, readers will expect two characters to fall in love when it involves the destruction of a relationship too. It provides something that won’t happen which can misled younger readers to think that abuse is okay in a relationship.
Healthy relationships involve consent, communication, no threats of harm and, of course, no desire to take control over someone against their will. There are many healthy ways to have a good relationship with a significant other.
Let’s not normalize assault and abuse in a relationship. It very much downplays the issue that can affect both survivors and people from coming forward. Abuse is not romantic. Assault is not sexy. Please do not romanticize it.
Write to Anahi Zuniga at [email protected]
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