In 2020, the book market became stronger among Gen Z – the generation born between 1995 and 2010 – who currently dominate social media. The reading habit among this generation grew thanks to a subculture created on TikTok called #BookTok, where anonymous people or even influencers recommended books, mostly romance novels, sharing their stories like gossip.
After a community was established within BookTok, the popular genres of books varied, as did the influencers. But even four years after the quarantine ended, the category that still gets the most attention, whether from the audience or publishers, is romance. This includes fantasy worlds, elaborate plots with detailed declarations or just common stories with clichés.
Since then, the number of female authors has multiplied, and cute covers with pastel colors and handsome boys leaning over girls have taken over bookstore shelves. Of course, in a capitalist society where everything has to be productive and generate results, girls and women reading just to relax while enjoying a good romance story wasn’t always seen in a positive light.
interests and priorities
Generally, men read less fiction than women, making up only about 20 percent of the market, while women dominate the other 80 percent, according to research done in the US, Canada, and England in recent years. There are many reasons for these statistics, including stereotypes, the market itself, and even personal interests.
Just like capitalist society, which encouraged an era of productivity, men also tend to think that reading for fun or relaxation is a waste of time. Fiction is often seen as a way of “doing nothing,” so they prefer reading non-fiction books, which are based on facts and aim to inform, making them feel more productive.
lack of encouragement
The lack of encouragement for boys to get into reading starts way back in childhood, right alongside the whole “pink is for girls, blue is for boys” stereotype. That kind of thinking just opens the door to a bunch of other divisions that come up over the years, one of them being reading, which ends up labeled as a “girl thing”. So, from a young age, boys tend to go for stuff like video games instead.
The boys who do dive into the world of books usually don’t make it to romance novels. If they do read fiction, it’s often more like mystery, suspense, or fantasy, think Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. But even in those fantasy books, if there’s a love story that becomes a main focus, then it’s suddenly considered something that is supposedly for girls.
This whole idea of certain habits being “feminine”, especially when it comes to reading, can look totally different depending on the country and its culture. In Brazil, for example, there was a TikTok trend where people would say, “He’s a guy, but…” and the “but” usually hinted that the guy might be part of the LGBTQIA+ community. And a lot of those videos had the same reason: “He’s a guy, but he reads”.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., guys who read are actually seen as attractive. There’s even an Instagram account that only posts pictures of random guys reading in public, and it’s super popular. The book series The Bromance Book Club, which tells a story about a group of men reading romance books to win back the wives, is really well-known too (especially among girls), and on TikTok, people are always hyping up characters like Jess Mariano from Gilmore Girls just because he’s always reading in the show.
Market aimed at women
Whether because of the pandemic or not, both the covers and the content of romance books are undeniably targeted at a female audience. These books, written by women and narrated by female characters, even if they try to be different, always revolve around the same basic story: the girl who wants the boy and ends up with him in the end.
Authors who try to go a little further sometimes dare to write chapters narrated by male characters, but of course, they always say and think what’s necessary for the story—that is, what the main character wants to hear. In this very stereotypical genre, the last successful romance author was John Green, and even he only wrote one book where the narrator and main character is a guy trying to win over a girl, but he couldn’t completely detach the image of romances from women.
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The article above was edited by Camilly Vieira.
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