In Defence of Rom-Coms
I’ve been compiling my list of favourite reads for 2025 to do my annual book giveaway to a subscriber (this will be my 5th year!). And just as I do each year, I have to fight one particular urge. To make myself look clever.
Whether we like it or not, there is a hierachy in the world of books. Certain genres are at the top, others at the bottom. And that hierachy can be vaguely correlated with how much money those genres generate - with the highest numbers of books sold tending to be dwelling at the bottom of what many consider literature. Commercial fiction. And at the very bottom of Commercial fiction? Romance, Romantic-Comedy or sometimes just plain old ‘commercial women’s fiction’, whatever you call it, it holds a lowly place in the literary world.
I love rom-coms. I love being swept along on a sweet, twisty turny ride. I love the third act break-up, the mid point escalation, the first act meet-cute and of course, the happily-ever-after (or HEA as it’s often known). Critics of the genre often blame this essential element for why it has no literary merit. And they get together in the end is apparently cliche, predictable and boring. Why bother reading if you know how it ends?
But aside from a few genres, such as crime, good books do not need to have a surprise ending to be excellent. It’s how the author gets us there in a surprising way that matters most. As Katherine Center points out in her very funny novel The Rom-Commers via her screenwriting protagonist Emma ‘A great rom-com is like sex. If you’re surprised by the ending, somebody wasn’t doing their job.’
So I don’t believe it when people say they don’t like rom-coms because the ending is happy (or unrealistically happy as some put it). People look down on it because it’s popular and because it’s not considered ‘clever’ to enjoy a love story that ends well. Which is funny considering even Shakespeare knew the value of a rom-com and the HEA and even called one of his plays Alls Well That Ends Well. WS, you could say, is the ultimate rom-com writer, but people prefer to wet their pants over that tediously brooding Danish Prince instead.
Back in the ‘aughts, I was fresh out of film school, working in the masculine world of fashion photography and downplaying many aspects of my femininity in order to be treated equally on the job. It was a time in which it was not cool or clever to love Nora Ephron or Nancy Myers. While I was then (as I remain now) a staunch defender of the rom-com film genre and would have happily died on that hill (and included Laura Mulvey and John Berger in my arguments, like the massive film nerd I am), the cultural pressure at the time had me ignoring romantic fiction or ‘Chick Lit’ as it was known then. (Incidentally this was also the era where women’s body parts appeared on book covers - in the forms of photographs if it was literary fiction, and in cutesy illustration if it was commercial fiction. Disembodied legs or torso anyone?).
While I was defending my favourite films to the death, I would have been too embarrassed to be seen on the subway or tube reading chick-lit. If it had fashion-drawing style illustration of legs in a pair of high heels on it’s cover, you can bet I was not picking it up.
So what changed? Possibly it was the absolute dearth of good rom-com films in the first decade and a half of the 21 century and I needed a fix (Legally Blond, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 13 Going on 30, all being excellent exceptions). It was also partly a shift in how romantic fiction was sold and marketed (good-bye body part covers). But mostly, I grew up a lot and realised I had been shitting on this genre of books, the way others had often shat over my beloved rom-com films. To feel superior.
At some point a paperback copy of Marian Keyes’ Rachel’s Holiday landed in my lap and I was blown away by this witty Irish writer who wrote a tragically moving and funny story about a woman in rehab, that I realised, perhaps I had been missing out all along.
I was reminded of how long it took me to pick up a rom-com novel as I reread Katherine Center’s excellent author’s note at the end of The Rom-Commers, which came out this summer. In it Katherine writes that “if you’ve been shamed away from reading love stories, hello friend, come over to the fun side. The ridicule, it’s wrong, in that way the world has of being so very wrong, about so many things.”
So it’s interesting to me that I still have a moment of pause as I compile my list and ask myself, how many rom-coms is too many for a ‘best of 2025’ list. I didn’t ask myself that question about the literary fiction, I simply wrote those down. Of course, I want the list to be diverse enough so that everyone can find something that sounds like it might be the perfect next read for them, but is a part of me also still a bit ashamed of how much I love a love story?
Baked into our social fabric is a deep disdain for all things made to appeal directly to women. David Nicholls published a completely delightful love story You Are Here, this year that many were very happy to proclaim their love for (and they were right - it is delightful). There are many who find a love story written by a man easier to swallow (also can we talk about the fact he got to have a map on his cover, when most women author’s have cute, slim, white women on theirs). The New York Times has a list of 3228 of the best books of the 21st century and only 8 fall under the genre of Romance.
We might now live in a world where its cool to love Nora Ephron, and where Nobody Wants This and Bridgerton top the Netflix charts. But we still consider reading to be high culture and television to be low, so perhaps thats why we have readers assuming if the genre is Romance, it must be a badly written book. Quite happy to wax lyrical about the hot Rabbi in Nobody Wants This but wouldn’t be seen dead on the tube with an Ali Hazelwood.
Are all rom-coms good? No! I’ve read some terrible clunkers. I’ve also read some really dreadful, navel gazing, meaningless drivel, literary fiction too. There are terrible books in every genre.
When I realised I still have the urge to curb how many rom-coms I share on here, I decided to write a whole post dedicated to some of the rom-coms I’ve loved in the past couple of years. Some of these titles will appear on my favourite books of 2025 list next week. It’s not an exhaustive list - there’s plenty more out there. This is just a starting point, incase you’re ready to dip your toe in the delightful waters of rom-coms.
And I promise, it’s lovely here.
The Dead Romantics - Ashley Posten
The Rom-Commers - Katherine Center
Life’s Too Short - Abby Jimenez
How To End A Love Story - Yulin Kuang
Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfeld
Thank You For Listening - Julia Whelan
Summer Fridays - Suzanne Rindell
The Soulmate Equation - Christina Lauren
Yes to this! Noting down all the titles on your list I haven’t yet read… 💛
This is just what I needed! Good rom com reccomendations - and a good few I’ve not read yet! Have you tried any of Leeane Slades books on audible? They’re free with membership, she was my new discovery this year… and I’m now re-listening!