As an English Lit student I read a lot, so for me cracking into a romantasy book is a welcome balm to the 18th century Scottish philosophy that I have to read during term time. ‘Romantasy’, the colloquial term given to fantasy books where the romantic aspects are part of the main plotlines, rather than an addition to the fantasy storylines, saw a huge boom in popularity after the publication of Sarah J Maas’ book series A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) and more recently, Fourth Wing. For many, it’s not hard to see why. They frequently contain muscled and broody male heroes, intense fight scenes and political intrigue, and most importantly, a dangerous heroine. I completely understand the appeal of a book that has fun - and often smutty - plot elements to it, whilst also giving the reader the wider scope of a fantasy world to sink their teeth into. The reader will never be bored.
With this said, many are of the opinion that these books are not to be considered serious literature. While I fully comprehend the introduction of such an opinion, there is a historical precedent for women’s interests being overlooked, dumbed down or considered inferior to what, in this case, one might consider “proper” fantasy, say George RR Martin or Brandon Sanderson. It is massively sexist, and also an injustice to the romantasy genre at large, to assume that books written by women, with women’s interests in mind, are automatically sub-par when compared with their male-authored counterparts, especially because this assumption implies that women cannot write books with complex political intrigue AND good smut.
But what about romantasy books with very little plot, many many broody male love interests and whole chapters of smut, must they be considered good books too? My response to this is, frankly, who gives a fig. Let people read what they enjoy! If reading romantasy is relaxing after a long day or gets people back into reading after not picking up a book in years, they should absolutely be able to do it. The bottom line when it comes to literature is that reading should be fun - just because someone stayed up for 12 hours straight reading Fourth Wing, does not mean they cannot also debate the nuances of empire in Dune. Read whatever you like, and if that’s romantasy, send me some recs!