Cath closed the book and let it fall on Levi’s chest, not sure what happened next. Not sure she was awake, all things considered.
The moment it fell, he pulled her into him. Onto him. With both arms. Her chest pressed against his, and the paperback slid between their stomachs.
Cath’s eyes were half closed, and so were Levi’s – and his lips only looked small from afar, she realized, because of their doll-like pucker. They were perfectly big, really, now that she had a good look at them. Perfectly something.
He nudged his nose against hers, and their mouths fell sleepily together, already soft and open.
– Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
Butterflies flooded my stomach the first time I read this passage as a hopeless romantic in the ninth grade. Fangirl was important to me because Cath, the main character, was a nerdy introvert who wrote fanfiction and fell in love during her first year at college. It was a quirky and sincere coming-of-age tale about a girl coming into her own at university and who she meets along the way.
As a teenage girl, I gravitated towards narratives like this for being remarkably normal and relatable, and for portraying the ‘average’ girl as capable and deserving of swoon-worthy love. I clung onto the romances in Fangirl, Anna and the French Kiss, The Selection, Better Than the Movies, and the like, so charmed by ‘book boyfriends’ for being full of character yet respectful and loving.
Most importantly, I loved YA contemporary romance novels because they made me feel hopeful. My favourites of the genre are, at their core, portrayals of messy but tender relationships that ultimately focus on the protagonist – a girl that could be me or you – and someone who loves her. They very sweetly show us that there is magic in the mundane and beauty in the everyday. Although they tend to be characterized by a ‘happy ending’ that is contingent on the main characters getting together, the best YA novels encouraged me to not necessarily strive for romance, but to romanticize the everyday.
In a society that systematically undervalues and exploits teenage girls, contemporary romance novels, especially the YA genre, unapologetically make space for them. The things that young women tend to like – and their roles as daughters, friends, athletes, intellectuals – are often devalued or deemed mindless, whereas stereotypically male-oriented content is seen as the standard. YA Romance novels (along with rom-coms), when well done, are a way to reclaim and embrace the subtleties of girlhood.
I do, however, grapple with YA being simultaneously empowering and less-than progressive. It’s hard not to reread some old favourites and criticize the protagonist for being self-centered. Many Goodreads reviewers I’ve come across are tired of teenage protagonists who lament about their troubles while disrespecting their female peers and taking their middle-class white privilege for granted. But the novels that stand the test of time have strong female leads, characters that show each other care, and healthy masculinity. Since they are aimed at teenage girls, YA romances have the power to be incredibly influential. Perhaps my complaints point towards the need for an increased publication of a variety of authors and voices, instead of a rewrite of existing stories with new-wave feminism.
The genre lives on though, and I do think it’s heading in the right direction.
Despite my qualms, YA romance got me into reading. It was a springboard for imagination and for my appreciation of more complex narratives that are more representative of those of us in the ‘real world’ that are faced with precarity, despair, and conflict. At the core of every story, though – YA or otherwise – is a person grappling with their place in the world. Yes, YA romance is cliché, simple, and idealistic – but that is precisely the point.
At the end of the day, aren’t we all striving for love and happy endings? To love and be loved in any and every sense of the word; to feel deeply and to learn; and, to be okay at the end of it all.