Dorchester cover shoot with Mr. Romance, NYC, 6/17/09 – 21 of 26 (Photo credit: rtbookreviews)

My mother is a voracious reader, reading often a book or more a day. While she likes a variety of genres from paranormal to historical, they almost all have some element of romance to them. If you’ve read any romance books, however, you know that, no matter how innocent and chaste the story inside, the titles and book cover image are almost always over the top. Hunky shirtless men ripping women’s clothes off, titles so corny I can’t even parody them without accidentally stumbling upon a real title… you get the idea. Regardless of the interior content, the exteriors are always blush inducing.

In the meantime, my father reads a variety of thrillers all of which surround either a murder or someone running around killing people. The covers are all from the same generic boilerplate of solid colors and silhouettes and the titles are all just as corny in their own way

Whenever my father goes to the library to pick up both his and my mother’s books, the women who work at the counter give him a hard time for mom’s romance books. It’s always some sort of comment on how many books my mother reads or how ridiculous the titles are or whatever. They have never, ever made a comment on his reading selections even if mom does the pick-up.

On a recent visit, they made a comment that, to me, crosses a line and brings up a very interesting point. 

As he picked up a stack of romance books for mom, the woman at the library said to my dad, “Your wife has a nice guy like you. Why does she need these books?”

Upon hearing this later, my mother commented, “That would be like if I went to pick up Dad’s books and they said, ‘You’re such a nice woman. Why does your husband want to murder you?‘”

And while the woman at the library was probably awkwardly flirting and my mother was just being funny, I think this brings up a very good point. There’s been some really fascinating discussions about gender and how it plays into publishing both from the standpoint of the authors and the readers going on (Example: Maureen Johnson’s Coverflip challenge) and this is a great parenthetical to that discussion.

Because no one would ever accuse a man of planning a murder for reading nothing by books about death and violence but a woman should only read about romance if she is in need of some? Why is it only entertainment and harmless for fun for dad to read thrillers but mom shouldn’t be reading romance if she already has a great guy? And why is there such a stigma against reading romance books (which is, after all, a pretty harmless topic) when there’s none against reading books about murder and killing? Is it because romance is considered a “female” topic while violence is somehow “manly”?

What do you think?