ICYMI - Should We Quit Romance Novels?
Slate Culture Feed
Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2024
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Candice Lim is joined by Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion to talk about their love of romance novels. The romance genre grew rapidly this past year, becoming the fastest-growing category of fiction and generating over $1.4 billion in sales revenue. Partly thanks to Goodreads and BookTok, romance novels are getting into the hands of younger, more outspoken and vocal readers. But recent scandals, including last year’s Hockey BookTok disaster, question the limits of literary thirsting and ask whether we can ever quit romance.
This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, I'm Candicelem, and you're listening to Icy Y-M-I, in case you missed it, |
| 0:17.8 | Slate's Podcasts about Internet Culture. |
| 0:20.5 | And guys, I am in Spain without the S, okay? Coming back to work after the holidays is harder than being club |
| 0:27.2 | Shalame in 2023 and surprisingly so much internet has happened in these past two weeks. |
| 0:34.8 | Paul Meskle has allegedly been running away from girls in the park. |
| 0:38.2 | Steamboat Willie has entered the public domain so James Cameron get your underwater GoPro ready. |
| 0:44.0 | I. O'E Deborah posted a letterbox review of Saltbourne and then deleted her profile pick and the review. |
| 0:51.0 | Whoever made her do that, I will be seeing you in the Denny's parking lot. |
| 0:55.4 | But I'd love to talk about some New Year's resolutions I've been seeing on your timelines. |
| 1:01.0 | I've been seeing a lot of people saying they want to read more books in the new year. |
| 1:04.7 | Some are saying they want to read less books in the new year. In fact, before the year ended, |
| 1:09.9 | I heard a rumor that someone here at slate.com |
| 1:13.6 | had a revolutionary, controversial, and bold |
| 1:16.3 | resolution to stop reading romance books in 2024. |
| 1:21.7 | And I was shocked, but intrigued, because I am going to embrace who I am on this |
| 1:26.0 | pot and say that I am a romance reader. I love them. Jasmine Gillery, Emily |
| 1:32.4 | Henry, Helen Huang, I am one of you. I love them. Jasmine Gillery. Emily Henry. |
| 1:33.0 | Helen Huang. I am one of you girls. |
| 1:35.0 | I also acknowledge that the romance genre has some flaws. |
| 1:39.0 | You know, first, the ripped bodist published Their Diversity in Romance Report and in 2022, only 12.3% of romance |
| 1:46.8 | novels were written by authors of color. |
| 1:49.5 | And that's not the only type of diversity they lack. |
... |
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