Are You Even Reading If It's Not "Serious Literature"?

The never-ending debate of genre fiction being just...

Via Freepik

Dear Friends,

I'm neither a romance writer nor a reader. I don't read romance much; exceptions are definitely there. For instance, A Little Bit of Love is a romance set in Mumbai, India that I devoured in two days (that's my reading speed on steroids). Message in a Bottle by the legendary Nicholas Sparks is another of my favourite; I’ve read several of Nora Roberts...

TL;DR: I’m here to support romance and thrillers.

Since we're not counting my (barely there) dearest books in the romance genre, I’ll give you a roundup of the debate.

Someone in a writing group I’m part of complained about a publisher's post citing open submissions for manuscripts in this genre and not seeking "serious literature" that's thought -provoking and not just….

I politely (yes, it took a bucketload of patience) mentioned that:

Love is the most thought-provoking, enigmatic human emotion.

Please whiplash me if I'm wrong.

There was a trickle of opinions, almost all in the favour of love being deeper than the Pacific Ocean, diverse than the castes in India, more thought-provoking than rasode me kaun tha¹, existentialist (no idea what that means exactly, so no simile here), difficult as organic chemistry, life changing like the 2020's new normal and the bygone what-normal?, and life-learning lessons like how-to-write-a-bestseller-in-3.5-days-and-get-rich workshops. (Note: I claim copyright in these similes.)

Another good discussion was a romance book being a hotcake in the market due to the celebrity author. I’ve read that romance book out of pure curiosity (please don’t come after me; I had no intention of enjoying it but maybe reviewing it one day) and because it was free on Audible. IMAGINE! Free book!

Yes, sometimes I do weird things no one would, specially with my reading choices. Shh... I even read CB's thriller last year and cried, too (funny, right?). And this hot selling romance novel is loaded with 1708 cliches with a love-struck heroine full of imaginations (not thought-provoking though; sigh! only if the author had tickled her imagination cells) sans goals and conflicts.

Oh wait! The heroine had the goal of romancing Mr. Ripped-Muscles. And the conflict: looking for flaws in him. Perhaps, she was filling in the gaps as the author didn't think of lending flaws to her protagonists. Oh wait again, I found another conflict. Hero's sullen brother, who appears hardly for 10 minutes, has trust issues.

OK... OKAY, this isn’t a review of the book. So, I better move on to the scorching discussion that happened on genres.

Because one hit romance book is crappy, someone in the writing group took the liberty to call romance books “not literature, just romance”.

What makes a book read-worthy, though? What kind of books do you prefer to indulge in? All serious tales with war stories, coming-out sagas, identity crisis, existentialist books, stories with feminism issues or relationship woes? The intelligent nonfiction?

I’ve read some of these. But what I enjoy the most are thrillers. If I have to blindly pick a book, which I often do, it would be a thriller. Next comes fantasy of all kinds, and literary fiction like The Kite Runner, The Book Thief, The Girl with Seven Names (oops, a biography), The Island of Missing Trees, The People in the Trees. However, that last serious thought-provoking literature was a DNF for me.

I can only handle so much solemnity.

Like so many readers, I like to read what entertains me, to escape from reality and to feel happy. Stories that race my heart as if I’m galloping on a horse without a saddle and a lead, ready and excited to trip.

And I like to understand what other thriller writers are doing. How those stories work. What tropes are in and out, how twists lift the stories by many notches. Remember the COMP section in queries we send to agents and publishers? Right… that won’t fill itself.

And who says thrillers don’t pack a punch with thought-provoking emotions. The Last House in The Needless Street talks about psychological effects of deaths, trauma, and flawed parenting on a child. Serial Killer Support Group exposes how abusive relationships can be catastrophic and friendship, a saviour.

The psychological thriller I'm pitching to agents deals with childhood trauma, a strong desire for a complete family, loving someone unconditionally, and betrayals.

If these emotions are not serious, then what are?

During that conversation, Mills and Boon novels were also reprimanded. So, books not about wars, questions related to humanity, deaths, partitions, politics, and other so-called deeper topics don’t need publishers' and readers' attention?

I beg to differ because reading for some of us is pure joyride of thrills and fluttering of hearts — whether love flutters it or chasing a murderer.

I leave the topic here for you, my friends, to let me know your thoughts and go back to my extra-thrilling book — All Her Little Secrets on StoryTel.

How unserious of me to listen to an audiobook, right? That’s a topic for another time.

Have a healthy day,

Rashmi

1. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a viral meme about an Indian mother-in-law chiding her daughter-in-law