Most of my favourite authors are still alive, and so the two that it came down to were Jane Austen and Mary Shelley. I’ve decided that I would love to dine with Jane Austen, so I might apologise to her for my ignorant misconception of romance novels until reading Pride & Prejudice.

Reading Pride & Prejudice and then Sense & Sensibility back to back kickstarted my consumption of isekai rom-com because I started reading historical romance graphic novels. So, she’s technically to blame for Say Nope to the Trope.

Most romances I read before Austen were ones that were attached to fantasy YA I was reading and they were always like the side of vegetables I didn’t like (often coupled with my least favourite trope I mentioned earlier). Reading Pride & Prejudice completely reworked my thinking around romance and literary feminism. It was an incredible eye-opener to misogynistic ideas about those genres that I’d developed through social exposure and what was splashed around in TV shows and YA novels. Combined with studying the Indigenous Knowledges minor, that year was incredibly important for me to really dig through unconscious/conscious biases that really were just other people’s ideas printed onto me.

It was also the catalyst for my specifically seeking out romance written by women and noticing the difference immediately. Sometimes, if you’re not enjoying something, try it from a different angle.

And also! Genres have very vast spectrums! Don’t avoid an entire genre like I did as a kid just because of a perception of one aspect of it 😅 . Originally I didn’t read science-fiction because I believed I wasn’t smart enough to understand them … and now I’m publishing a mild sci-fi in October 😂 . The world is strange.