i got 99 problems

— and every booktok romance reccomendation has at least one.

i’ve always been a reader. if you asked my entire extended family what my hobby was, they’d unanimously agree: reading. birthday money went on books. i’d tag along on food shopping trips just to flip through the tiny book sections. when my siblings watched tv, i’d sit off to the side with a paperback in my hand.

once, my uncle drove us to my nana’s and stopped at the big tesco on the outskirts of town. he told me and my little sister we could get one thing each. she picked out toys. i picked a book (which was awful, but it was exciting to read at the time).

as i got older, that part of me fizzled out a bit. i became a scroller. a consumer. i started spending more time on tiktok than inside a book. i’d read occasionally, in bursts, but nothing stuck — until i started downloading epubs and downloaded everand. if you don’t know it, the latter is basically spotify for books: monthly subscription, unlimited access. it worked for me. i could try everything, read across genres, and didn’t feel pressured to love it all. that’s where i started reading romance again — more than i ever had before.

and to be clear: i never hated romance. i wasn’t an original hater. this is a recent realisation.

like many people who fell down the booktok rabbit hole, i started with the recommended classics. my first one was josh and hazel’s guide to not dating by christina lauren.

i didn’t enjoy it. at all.

hazel, the main character, was the definition of a manic pixie dream girl. she was supposed to be quirky, but honestly, she was just… irritating. every page was her reminding us how loud, messy, big-breasted, and “not like other girls” she was.

we got it. we didn’t care.

the man — josh, i think? — was completely forgettable. boring, inoffensive, flat. i only remembered his name when i saw the title again. i had to DNF, which i usually hate doing, but the final straw was the sudden, unearned surprise pregnancy. i cannot stress this enough: i deeply hate that trope.

i tried again with the spanish love deception by elena armas. also a DNF. why was it so long? it did not need to be that long. it read like a first draft that someone forgot to edit. the pacing dragged, the tension felt forced, and halfway through, i realised i didn’t care if these people kissed or not.

i realised very quickly that i just had an issue with the rom-com tropes. they just didn’t appeal to me at all. grumpy x sunshine just feels like a rehashing of heteronormative gender roles in a lot of these stories. the guy is some 6’5 muscular billionaire who growls a lot and the girl is 4’2 and quirky and smiling all the time. she’ll fix him with kindness. he’ll call her ‘brat’ (or some other stupid nickname like princess or puppy or my least favourite, kitten) and learn how to feel. the end.

twisted lies by ana huang

that’s not to say it can’t be done well — i think katniss and peeta are a reversing of the trope and they’re one of my favourite literary couples — but none of the booktok recommendations so far have shown me that sort of nuance.

i’m going to say something that some of you will find a little insane, but walk with me. i think the rise of these hyper-formulaic, trope-heavy romance novels — especially the ones pushing rigid gender dynamics — is happening alongside a quiet cultural shift toward conservatism.

i don’t mean these romance books are consciously political. most of them are deeply unserious. but culture doesn’t have to be intentional to be ideological. and right now, we’re seeing a lot of content that’s dressed up as comfort, but ultimately reinforces a really narrow stereotypical version of femininity: be small, be cheerful, be patient, be desirable, be forgiving.

haunting adeline by h.d. carlton

you see it in the romantic arcs. you see it in the way female protagonists are written — quirky but non-threatening, career-focused but ready to throw it all away for a man who barely speaks. the way they go from having a personality to being focused on their man. you see it in the way “alpha males” are packaged as aspirational.

and more than anything, you see it in the way so many women are asked to change, soften, compromise — while the man just… shows up and broods attractively?

romance, as a genre, reflects fantasy. and what’s telling is the kind of fantasy that’s booming right now. not messy, complicated, vulnerable love. not transformative, mutual care. but power imbalances. slow-burn pining that rewards patience over boundaries. relationships where one person is a project and the other is the prize.

in that way, these novels are weirdly aligned with the wider shift we’re seeing online: gen z girls calling themselves ‘tradwives’ as a bit, then not. these influencers that romanticise submission. hot takes about high-value men and women. the obsession with roles, polarity, and being in your ‘feminine energy’.

cruel king by rina kent

what i mean is, we’re living in a moment where everything feels uncertain. the economy’s a mess, the climate is terrifying, gender is being debated by people who don’t even understand it, and online discourse is increasingly obsessed with control. and when people feel anxious, they crave comfort. order. predictability.

these novels offer that — in the form of structured roles, guaranteed endings, and dynamics we already recognise. the man is dominant, a provider and protective. the woman is soft and small and good. she teaches him to love. he teaches her she’s lovable. rinse and repeat.

another thing that’s always rubbed me the wrong way — and i know it’s not new, but it’s everywhere — is the way he’s always sexually experienced and she’s basically a virgin. not just inexperienced, but pure. untouched. a blank slate for him to awaken. he’s had years of casual sex, deep trauma, and god knows how many women. she’s kissed maybe one boy at a school dance. somehow, that dynamic is meant to be aspirational. but all it really does is reinforce that old idea: men need experience to be valuable; women need innocence. he brings the skills. she brings the virtue. it’s literally just repackaged purity culture with better lighting.

and this is why i was confused when that tiktok went viral — the one where the booktoker said that she was happy trump won because he was “lowering the cost of books” (???). which like, girl be real. but what i was confused about was the shock of the wider community. these recommendations were almost always conservative. not overtly political, but packed with soft power messaging. gender roles, hierarchy, submission framed as romance. are we really shocked the tradwife/maga/right-wing crowd is into the same romance novels when the entire fantasy is: girl with no experience gets swept off her feet by a silent, older, emotionally unavailable, and vaguely dangerous man, who somehow becomes just soft enough for her?

and look — i get it. there’s comfort in familiarity. sometimes i want a formula. i like certain booktok romance books. i enjoyed you deserve each other by sarah hogle and i’ve reread it three times (i love you nicholas rose). but when that formula starts to feel indistinguishable from a 1950s gender manual with a pinterest filter, i start to wonder if it’s giving love or subtle propaganda?

i’m not saying that every book has to be radical. but if the fantasy keeps looking the same, i think we owe it to ourselves to probably ask why.