Paranormal romance is the intersection between a
romance novel and the supernatural. Often times, the story follows the formula
of one character meeting and falling in love with some mysterious love interest
who turns out to be some sort of supernatural being. Sometimes a vampire, other
time the love interest is some kind of shapeshifter.
In order to qualify, at least from the criteria
on Goodreads, the story needs to have both romance and the supernatural element
at its forefront. If there’s a vampire love interest, let’s say, but him being
a vampire isn’t a major part of the plot, it doesn’t qualify. The same is true
if the story itself is paranormal, but there isn’t a romance at the center of
the story. The best, and most well-known, example of a paranormal romance is,
of course, Twilight. There’s a romance, regardless of how much its love
or hate, and the paranormal element, Edward being a vampire and that being a
central part of the story.
Now that we’ve established what it is, let me
tell you my thoughts on paranormal romances. I’m not a huge fan. I’ve got
nothing against anyone that writes this subgenre or reads it, but it’s just not
for me. I’ve read many, and there are a lot of things about the subgenre that I
just don’t like.
Usually, the main character, who’s almost always
a girl, learns her crush is a vampire or werewolf or whatever when she finds
herself in a dangerous situation and he rushes in to save her. I’m not a big
fan of women being damsels in distress. Often, the main character is bland.
She’s bland, she’s boring. She’s not pretty, or smart, or talented. She has all
of the personality of a paper bag. I know, there’s an argument to be made about
the story being wish fulfillment, but why does that mean the main character has
no personality? Boring main characters make the story so much harder to read
and it takes me out of the story. If I don't care about the main character, why
should I care about what happens to her?
A lot of these stories are YA novels, and YA
novels tend to over-dramatize relationships or make aspects that shouldn’t be
seen as romantic appear like they’re relationship goals. Also, it weirds me out
that hundred/thousand-year-old beings have nothing better to do than lurk
around high schools. It’s weird and creepy. Even when the supernatural being in
question isn’t a thousand years old, there’s almost always an age-gap. Maybe
the protagonist is in high school, and the love interest is college-aged it’s
still weird, especially given the prevalence of adult men dating “mature”
teenagers which is just a smokescreen to hide the predatory behavior of said
men. It sends the message that dating someone older than you is fine, because
it means you’re more mature, not that he’s predatory.
There’s sometimes a soulmate aspect, which works
when used correctly and appropriately, but it often isn’t. The angle is used to
wave off any problematic aspects of the text that someone might object to. The
love interest follows her around or breaks into her house? He’s not stalking her;
he’s just worried about his soulmate. He loses control when she cuts her hand
or it’s a full moon? Of course, he wasn’t really going to kill her, she’s his
mate. Also, I find the concept of soulmates, and the implication that the
characters are incomplete without each other, to be dumb. In some, there’s an
added problem of the main character being the creature’s soulmate meaning she’s
somehow responsible for “fixing” him. I don’t see why she’s all of a sudden
responsible for what this random person, who she probably just met, does.
The last pet peeve that I have about young adult
paranormal romance is the bad dialogue. This isn't the case with every novel in
the genre, but a number of them have this problem. The characters are supposed
to be teenagers, yet they don't sound like teenagers. They sound like what a
40-year-old thinks teens sound like. It easy to tell when the author is
much older than the demographic they’re writing for in this case. I’m sorry,
but no teenager these days is going to call someone a “trollop”. No one’s used
that word in about 40 years. As soon as I read that, it takes me completely out
of the story itself and all I focus on is the dialogue. Additionally, and this
has nothing to do with paranormal YA in particular, but exposition/info dumps
through dialogue also needs to go. It needs to stop. It’s unrealistic. No one’s
going to explain the entire, centuries-long war between two factions, their
first time meeting someone.
These have been my thoughts on paranormal
romance, more specifically young adult paranormal romance. As I said earlier,
I’ve got nothing against the genre, it’s just not for me. I also know that not
every book has these issues, but I thought I should mention why I dislike
certain parts of the genre rather than just say something like “it’s just
stupid”. What are your thoughts on paranormal romance?
