why are romance books 'cringe'?

today we are discussing the topic of romance books being considered 'cringe'. As someone who loves romance books, but also often criticises them, i thought it would be interesting to go over some common reasons why people dislike romance books, and discuss them! at the end i will recommend to you my favourite romance novels :)

🌼 s o c i a l m e d i a
• twitter: @thebookleo
• instagram: @thebookleo

🌺 a b o u t m e
Hi! My name is Leonie and I am a 25 year old girl from the Netherlands who loves talking about books! From YA to non-fiction to classics, I read it all (although fantasy will always be my fave).

🌹 m u s i c
Music, art, and video by Jokabi

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[seriengirl]

You forgot by the stereotyps, that the man has a tragic backstory, which is why he only feels hate! 😌

[connorlongaphie]

I read mostly romance books as a man but my wife hates them. I am the guy buying them all

[Willow]

I personally enjoy romance more as a sub plot, as in, the characters are going through there storylines and fall in love along the way, rather then the entire book dedicated to their love story.
Although that doesn't mean I won't try to find a romance book that I truly enjoy :)

[BecxReadz]

As a romance reader the cringest thing I find in romance is the dialogue during sex scenes or flirting scenes. 90% of the time I'm one talks like that" its so weird reading dialogue that if I had to listen to people say irl I'd roll my eyes that hard too.

[pendragon]

That was quite the image: "Roll my eyes so far back into my head that I can see my own gag reflex." LOL. Nice job, Leonie!

[Madeline-olwj]

what’s astonishing is i’ve read fanfics that are so much better (in terms of plot, character depth, build up, chemistry, editing, making sure there’s still chemistry AFTER they get together, etc) than actual published books. the romance publishing industry feels like fast fashion: low quality, more money, etc

[rzuue]

What annoys me about the tiny woman and the tall man combo is that the writers clearly don’t know what it actually feels like to be a tiny person next to a very tall one. I am 10 cm shorter than average height among women and 30 cm shorter than average height among men in my country. A tall man here is about 40 cm taller than me which is nearly a third of my height.
That is absolutely not a comfortable height difference. I need to take a step back if I want to comfortably look at their faces, rather than towering it feels like I’m standing too close to a wall at times. Like, would you stand 30 cm in front of a wall with your face?
I’m not saying it can’t work, I have tall friends, but it doesn’t feel as natural as it does with a person of more similar height. I found myself a boyfriend who is short himself and it is very very comfy like that.

[OmarAyusoVA]

Romance books can be amazing the problem is when more of the story is focused on the romance instead of the characters and how they relate to and interact with each other. So much romance is about the act of being in love and not enough about the uniqueness of the characters and how they love each other

[kkslali]

I love how booktok inspires girls to read - power to them! But something that deeply bothers me is that the quality of romance novels we’re being presented today is atrocious. Romance can be good, but please, if you’re writing actual books don’t let tem be read as fanfics ripped off of AO3

[VioletSaathoff]

I have 0 tolerance for toxic male love interests, and there are a lot of tropes I don't like either, so while I love romance in theory, in practice I hate the vast majority of it 😅

[Julianna]

Also, anyone who cringes at romance should read Jane Austen- p&p is the original rivals to lovers & the characters are fleshed out & relatable

[lizzycorvus]

I honestly think that a lot of toxic romance readers/authors have kinks they haven't processed. There are tropes that are super obvious fetish fuel to me, but the readers may well in many cases like education or self-awareness about kinks.
Also, Colleen Hoover's popularity is I believe in large part due to being edgy in a way that Middle American conservative women find palatable.

[ruthp]

At 7:21 when you said the most important trait of a male love interest I was immediately like “abusive?”

[Josettes]

When it comes to books being realistic I think fantasy and romance are very different. The story should feel realistic WITHIN that world, like yes I can suspend my disbelief and get into a magic world but I need it to all make sense together. Romance authors are claiming to portray our real world, however the things that happen often don't make sense within the limits of that and what we know and experience

[g.n.]

After reading the love hypothesis "smut" i stop liking smut. I cringedso much it makes me so uncomfortable that i couldnt read smut for a while

[Shyngi]

Sometimes when I read a romance book, I think "this is so bad, I've read fanfics that are better than this". And because of this video, I started wondering why is that. Like the internet is full on bad fanfics but also very good ones. But I think the main reason is about the characters. When you read a fanfic, you usually read and find the stories about characters you already ship. And if the fanfic is lacking the build up, the logic and/or the chemistry, you add them in your mind when you read the story. So maybe a bad story doesn't bother as much. But when it comes to actually published books where you don't know the characters, you need the build up, the logic, the realisticness and the chemisty to actually enjoy the book, the romance in it and the story not to feel cringe.

[margaret]

Unfortunately most romance books no matter the genre feel the same in plot. Strangers become lovers but there's always a tragic background, exaggerated drama and a lot intimate scenes like they try to channel 50 shades of grey.
Many follow what's popular on the market and don't try quality stories and instead recycle themes already existed in previous romances that make the book bland.
Enemies to lovers now feels overused and bland, the romance feels forced with little chemistry or many write about toxic relationships that shouldn't have been romanticised in the first place.
I am not referring to all romantic books but now it feels that the good ones need more digging to find them.

[dixieAQHA]

The third act breakup can be so grating to me. It feels like most of the time if these people were really in love they wouldn't just fly off the handle and break up (and get back together equally fast).

[fatimej]

Romance books, while unrealistic, introduced me to ideas that were new to me. And consent is one of them (I’m slightly older and I come from a religious background). Nowadays a lot of romance books tackle serious themes and seeing women knowing what they want, finding confidence (yes in bed too) and love is pretty cool. (These things were taboo for a long time). You can also re-live certain emotions and experience new forms of loves through the lens of a character/ characters or are introduced to new ideas about love itself.

[lemonlord]

I like how you mentioned love theoratically because as someone who's not the biggest fan of contemporary romance i was so surprised by how much i enjoyed it, the main girl was weirdly relatable(even if i did cringe at some of her jokes) and it did help that i kept picturing the love interest as Nanami Kento, they had so much chemistry as well which just made it so much better