CBC : 52.3: Exploring Romantic Fiction

 On June 30, 2024, the Cochin Book Club organised meetup 52.3, Exploring Romantic Fiction, at CCD, Kaloor. Ten members attended the event and participated in the discussion.  It was my first meeting. 

Attendees were:

Harris

Meenakshi

Konchitha

Ganesh

Rohit

Meera

Harshan

Shon

Rekha

Harish

We began by each of us sharing the romantic fiction books that we read. It was curious to note that there was no one amongst us who seriously read contemporary romance novels like those by Colleen Hoover or Ali Hazelwood. But it turned out that all of us have read many novels that belonged to romantic fiction, either classics or literary fiction, like that of Jane Austen or Paulo Coelho. 

Other than the regular romantic writers of different periods, like Colleen Hoover, Jane Austen, Nicholas Sparks, etc., books with strong romantic plots by writers like Murakami, Orhan Pamuk, Paulo Coelho, Basheer, etc. were also discussed. The discussions also branched out into several related topics, like differences in gender perceptions in different parts of the world, issues men and women face while entering a relationship, etc.

The following were the salient points that we covered in our discussion:

· Differentiation of romantic fiction and romance in fiction.

· The impact of an author's gender and sexual orientation on the portrayal of characters of different sexes.

· The role of social prejudices in the portrayal and the misogyny involved.

· The different tropes that are commonly found.

· How social media contributes to book sales.

· The role of publishers in pigeonholing romantic books based on tropes.

· The changing trends of romantic fiction.

· Queer romances and some common tropes.

· How cute covers are used to entice younger readers into consuming books with explicit content.

· The Instagram factor of covers.

· Romantic tragedies and comedies.

· Portrayal of relationships in generic romantic novels vs. in real life.

· Is smut necessary in romantic fiction, and to what extent is it healthy?

We began with the difference in Romantic fiction vs. Romance in fiction and how the romantic fiction by itself is so vast covering comedy, tragedy, contemporary, etc. 

One must read recommended was AS Biott - Possession - RH Hash - Booker. 

Vineeth Abraham not not present conveyed - Grand Sophie by Georgette Heyer. Book there was False colours 

By the time we all left after five hours, our TBR lists were filled with book recommendations shared with each other.