Why We Can't Stop Reading Romantasy (And Never Will)
Why We Can't Stop Reading Romantasy (And Never Will)
Hello Gentle Readers,
Today we're going to be talking about all things Romantasy. The romantasy genre is a trend that's taken over the bookstore shelves and is never going to go out of style. Why? Because bookish girls like us love a story that feels like a roller coaster, and as much as we deny it… we all love a little chaos. The immersion into a world of ruins and the journey to rebuild, what it feels like to get to the very top of the ride, when a glimmer of hope shines through us all for it to drop us… cold and devastatingly, in a way we could never see coming.
Yes, romantasy has a way of slowly building us up to savagely break us down, but it does so in a way that keeps us coming back for more.
It introduces us to an array of beautiful characters that aren't perfect, but are extremely relatable, found family that we wish we had, and brooding men that somehow manage to get on our nerves and make us blush all at the same time. While the immersive worlds may be that of imagination, the plot itself — the heart of every romantasy, what the characters are fighting for…is as real as you and me. In fact, a lot of my favorites involve politics, injustice to those who aren't nobility, the light and the dark.
Romantasy gives us some amazing heroines that fight to give a voice to the voiceless, justice in an unjust world, and rebuild what someone else broke.
The heroine of every romantasy is always different, but I find that some of my favorites have one thing in common… they are all severely underestimated. In ACOTAR it was a girl in survival mode, in Throne of Glass it was a girl broken by history, and in Fourth Wing it was a girl forced to become something she never signed up for.
Strength to me can come in many forms… combat, archery skills, even mercy — and there's power in a genre that can give us all of this at once. That's why romantasy books are flying off the shelves, why we keep coming back for more… because they're a reminder of how much power we hold. They remind us that we don't need to be perfect or live in a perfect world to be able to change it. They give us something we could all use a little more of… hope.
So when in doubt, my Gentle Readers, remember one thing: our favorite romantasy heroines started as the underdog, and all of them were severely underestimated. Still, this did not take away from the impact they made on their worlds.
With love,
Jasmine