The Case for Romance Novels

I read my first Romance Novel when I was eighteen. A fresh graduate from high school, the world was my oyster. In this world filled with hope, I stumbled upon an awfully written, extremely misogynistic, Romance Novel. It wasn't quite Romance given that it started as a Twilight fanfic (if you know, you know) but it was all the rage in 2012. I couldn't put it down. It was a fascinating character study where nothing made sense, or was good, but everything happened. A billionaire? Check. A damsel in distress? Check. Skinny, young, inexperienced 22 yr old enthralled by someone more experienced? Check and check. It was awful but it opened up a whole new genre of books for me. 

In 2012, everyone read Romance and pretended not to. This bookish world, pre-Covid and pre-TikTok, was the shameful place readers-who-knew-better resided in. These mindless books you would pick up in between college assignments were the equivalent of brain rot doom-scrolling today. Back in 2012, people wanted to be perceived as intellectuals on the social media stratosphere. Having interests that didn't add any value to your life were deemed as beneath you. As one can imagine, this was not the time for Romance. Romance section at the bookstores saw more cobwebs than a cemetery. You would often find tacky covers with ripped bodices and oiled ethnic looking men in mass market paperback format (RIP to mass-market paperbacks, you will be missed) in this section. I recall blushing walking through this section at my local Barnes & Noble. 

It was in this timeline that I found myself gravitating towards Romance. It wasn't that I thought these books were good, it was just that they created judgment free worlds for me. The world was beginning to care about the right words. We didn't quite have words for Social Justice warriors or Woke or Virtue Signaling in the colloquial language yet. This was a world where what words you used mattered a lot. The over-correction from years of not caring about language was finally happening. Naturally, in a world like this, you cannot admit to reading (and enjoying) anything remotely misogynistic. Traditional roles were ridiculed in the face of Girl Boss feminism and women were in their I-can-do-it-all era. We had effectively solved centuries of patriarchy, or so we thought anyway. 

Romance Novels, in this world, provided a haven for exploration of thought. A world created by women, for women, curiously meandering through many facets of what women want. No mockery of desire, no outrage because women's rights are being set back, and no shame for wanting to question aspects of what women should want. Romance Novels became the sanctuary for all forms of love. A woman who wants to be a construction manager, or a baseball team owner, or is madly in love with her childhood friend, or has forsaken all forms of love until she meets The One, or never connected with anyone until her, or them - all were welcome. A brown girl who has forsaken marriage until she finds her Darcy at a wedding of a friend of a friends, or one who falls for the tatted guy her demure, simple-minded parents would surely disapprove of existed outside of fleeting desires. A biker romance where a guy would go to war for his woman was no longer a Homeric fantasy. Romance Novels greeted all with open arms. You have a niche trope or sub-trope that you always fall for? There's a Romance Novel about that somewhere. Whether you like spice or sweet, someone has had the same desires. Romance Novels created the most wholesome world women could communicate through. 

The greatest thing to come out of Booktok is the shamelessness that Gen Z influencers created around reading Romance. The popularization of Romance on Booktok has revolutionized how Romance gets written and published. It has created a whole new genre for Romantic Fantasy, Romantasy, because Gen Z unabashedly embraced Romance. The popularity of Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry is a testament to what Romance is capable of at its best. There is a joke on TikTok that women only want men (partners) written by other women. However, there is a degree of truth to that statement. Within Romance, women see an equal footing. It's the only place on earth where a scenario is created and resolved based off of what women want. Whether it's a Second-Act Break Up i.e. the man has to run to the airport to confess his undying love for the FMC (female main character) or it's a resolution without needing any big theatrics (as is the case with Windy City series by Liz Tomforde), all of it reflects what women want. Women, it turns out, are as human in their wants as men. And that in itself is the ultimate case for Romance Novels. In a twisted, long-winded way, a Romance Novel is an attempt by women to be considered human. In its varying themes, interests, tropes, micro-tropes, and desires, women just want to be treated without a generalization. Romance is the only space where women can evaluate other women without the influence of men. Romance nurtures thought without the need to prove, or defy, or resist. I am no less a woman because I prefer a Sports Romance over a Mafia Romance, for example. Romance Novels humanize all women - the readers, the writers, and the characters. Men are no longer the center of this world and that opens up a lot of room for reflection. 

In its lack of attempt to be taken seriously, Romance Novels have created an inquisitive study of womanhood. There is no expectation of effort from the reader, and yet, if one chooses to, they will find plethora to ponder over. Romance Novels embody seamlessly what many works of fiction try so hard to, they remind women that no thought is too shameful to be experienced. And ultimately, in doing so, Romance Novels have freed women from performing for men. 

Copy heart. Copy bracelet.

I recently switched back to an Android phone and found my saved notes from 2015 - 2017 in my drive. These were some random snippets of thoughts and quotes from books I was reading at the time: Gatsby, poetry, notes on Death, recipes, and grocery store lists. I found a list I had written down when I lived at home with my parents to help care for my grandmother. Such an interesting snapshot of time.

At work, I delivered a presentation today on how the software we use captures and compares data month to month. The technical part of me wants to write a piece of code that compares on certain values but isn’t that what writing is at the end of the day.

I have always found writers who write for themselves to be the most enjoyable. I don’t care what the audience wants to read, I care what you want to read as a writer. When you bring in performance, it always cheapens its meaning a little bit. Alyssa Liu winning a gold medal on her terms is the greatest example of this. She performed for herself. And in her joy, we all found a missing piece of ourselves.

In my previous writings, I found a draft of a piece I was writing on Math after graduation. It’s one of the many pieces I never bothered to publish. I am always taken aback with my love for all things Math. It lies dormant because I haven’t studied it in years. However, it always finds itself back in my life. A couple of years ago, I was going through a really tough time. I started tutoring Math to high school dropouts so that they could get their GED. At the time, I needed to think about something other than myself. Math was that grounding force for me. It was numbers and letters. In its familiarity, it reminded me that world could make sense.

I felt similarly invigorated by the Artemis II mission. Math working so beautifully and precisely to take humans further than they have ever been, and returning them safely home was a tribute to The Human Spirit in every way. It lit a fire in me that I haven’t experienced in a long time. The blaze that kept me going through my undergrad degree because I forced myself to find joy in the little things is peaking through under the protection of an experienced mind. I no longer believe in the systems we have created as the absolute truths. My therapist often says, life exists in possibility. In a way, it’s the most mathematical thought. Probability teaches us that there is no perfect 0 or 1. The basis of Math is in the Multiverse Theory. There exists a universe that we define. Once we have defined that universe, what are the conclusions that we can draw from it? This universe is the universal set. So, mathematically speaking, life is in its possibilities. And this is where things become joyful.

Whether it’s the first woman to ever go around the moon or a 4 minute performance an athlete has prepared their entire life for, only to so-called blow it. The possibilities of human capability are endless. Why go to the moon? Why climb the mountains? Why explore the deep ocean? Because it’s there. It’s as simple as that. There are a lot of practical reasons for all of it but at the end of the day, it’s something we believe is possible. And that possibility alone is the defense of its attempt. Given the right resources and the perfect scenario, what can a human being achieve? And if we fail, when can we try again?

As Huxley says in Brave New World,

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.'

'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'

The Great Attempt at anything is the reason for it all. Humans to stare at in awe, humans to cheer, humans to communicate with, and humans to come back home to - this has always been the North Star. It means something because we care. It exists because we want it to. Not out of hubris but in appreciation of. An homage to the stardust in us responding to the stars further away.

Some thoughts on Representation in Art

 Growing up in Texas as a Pakistani-American is challenging on many fronts. I am not going to bore the reader with tribulations of being Hyphenated, as that discourse is overdone. However, a missing piece within the current conversation is the expectation placed upon the Hyphenated to represent Pakistan (or Homeland). I find it quite silly because the stage is set for the Hyphenated to fail. You can never represent the experience of someone back home. You simply haven’t lived it. And you cannot be the other half of your hyphen only. The battle begins early on and most seem to stumble their way into a sort of peace. If you don’t let yourself get pulled too much in either direction, you manage your way through life pretty okay. Of course, the average person only has their loved ones to disappoint. The complication arises when you extrapolate that balance and attempt it at a global stage. Whether it’s Hasan Minhaj trying to make jokes about brown dads that evolved beyond the Russell Peters caricaturization of brown dad humor or it’s Riz Ahmed’s self-deprecating attempt at satire in Bait, there isn’t enough of an audience with that niche experience to grant them immunity from the monumental task of Homeland Representation.

In the recent years, both Minhaj and Ahmed have challenged the ideas of what it means to be Hyphenated but that critique is largely aimed at the Empire and not at the Homeland. It doesn’t help that anyone making it big in Hollywood uses being Hyphenated as their brand to get anywhere. Simply put, they have asked for the criticism from the Motherland.

It is a disadvantaged brand because in trying to appease everyone, it manages to displease all. There’s a saying in Urdu, dhobi ka kutta na ghar ka na ghaat ka, which represents this brand quite well. It makes me wonder, however, what responsibility the viewer has towards the Art they engage with. There’s a general sense of entitlement with any diasporic Art where it must represent all facets of life in Motherland. This thinking was highlighted in criticism for a show like Never Have I Ever that dared talk about a brown girl falling for a white guy (completely neglecting the fact that most brown men consider it an accomplishment when they sleep with white women, for example, Jemima Khan is still revered in Pakistan despite Imran Khan having been married thrice). Outside of the general misogyny, I find it fascinating that a generation of millennials that grew up smitten by Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray had trouble accepting a brown girl wanting to date a white boy. The audience back home seems to want a Pakistani drama in English and aired on Netflix but following the script of Hum TV. The diaspora, who are probably closest to Art like that, find it cringe for attempting to do what great Hollywood TV has done. And anyone outside of the specific Hyphenated cannot help but stereotype, even while trying not to. A Trader Joe’s meal that combines Thai curry sauce, Chinese soup dumplings, and coconut milk finding a moment of stardom on TikTok attempting to be cultural but being hollow in every aspect.

The onus of deriving meaning from Art is as much on the viewer as it is on the creator. The nuanced filtering of what works for the viewer vs not is the path forward. Anyone creating Art for the consumer is always bound to fall into the trap of pretty aesthetics over actual substance. Art is meant to be a portrayal, not a two way conversation. Picasso didn't paint in hopes that people will feel represented. It is the artists’ job to create what is most truthful to them. It is the audience’s job to engage, not to demand.