okay so, today we are going to be talking about romance.
Specifically, romance in non romance books. I do have a video coming where I
will talk a little bit about romance books, because I have a video about books
that I liked that are outside of my normal reading taste. But that's not
today, no sir. Today we are specifically talking
about books in let's say the fantasy genre. I think there are other genres on
this list - I'm actually not sure - that have somewhat of a romance in them, and
we're gonna talk about the ones that did it really really well, in case you're
looking for a really sweet romance within your books. And we're also going
to be talking about the books that did a really bad job at it, because it's the
internet and you guys eat that stuff up. So I have five books that did romance
great and I have five books that did it pretty awful. So we're gonna start off
with a good book and we're gonna just go back and forth, and we're gonna start
with the book that I have not talked about in a while and that's an
unkindness of magicians. So this - when I first read it was a standalone fantasy,
short fantasy book, but it's actually now gonna be a series.The next book - should be out
this year I think. This is kind of described as the adult Harry Potter
which I see but don't agree with. So this follows -
okay I'm gonna attempt to do it without reading the description even though it's
been a minute since I've read this this - follows a the unseen world which exists
apart from you know the muggle world. They don't use the word muggle I'm being
dumb now, and in the unseen world there are a series there there are a bunch of
houses within the magical community and everybody belongs to a house and every
so many years there's a house war that goes on where they pick one
representative to represent the house, and everybody dukes it out with their
magical abilities to try to be the one that's in charge. And whoever wins is the
head house and that's kind of a big deal because they set the rules of the unseen
world. And there's also a lot of darkness involved in this world the way that they
use their powers is pretty horrifying and I love it - I don't love it it's
horrible but I love that this book went there because whoa it's a really short
fantasy book and I have no idea what cat Howard is gonna do
with the sequel cuz it felt pretty well contained but I'm interested to see
anyway. I forgot what this video is about. Okay
romance - so 100% the focus of this book is not romance, in fact it's a very minor
minor minor thing that happens on the sidelines. However I loved the way it
turned out. So if you've hung out with me for very long you probably know that I I
don't know don't have a heart and don't really get on board with most romances, I
just don't really care if they exist within a book or not, and if they do and
much prefer for them not to be much of a focus. And usually I just I don't I don't -
I don't get invested but every now and then a romance is written in a way that
I'm like oh I'm so glad that was here it was really cute and I was invested in it
in it. And this is a book where that happened where it was not a focus at all
but the little moments that it had I loved. Now first on my list of books that
now first on my list of books that maybe did a terrible job, and I'm gonna be
clear that on this list this is not these are not books that are supposed to
have been of whirlwind romance, I'm talking about books that had a little
bit of romance in them and it was really bad. And I'm sorry my sweet friends, but
the romance in this in this series so far is - oh man it's bad stuff. Now I'm
gonna be really clear, this is not supposed to be some swooning amazing
heart-throbbing romance, it's supposed to be normal people - actually they're not
normal at all, it's supposed to be really messed up people trying to figure out
their lives. Okay so this is not meant to have a healthy or beautiful romanced
romance in it it's just supposed to be characters that happen to be in love
amongst all the other things that they're doing. However people tend to
hate the way it goes because our main character Locke is very very very in
love with a woman who is just really bad at relationship. She's very closed off
and she's very not trusting and it it leads to a lot of a lot of frustrating
scenes where it's it's very one-sided but also very strung
along and it's not supposed to be romantic but it does frustrate a lot of
people people oftentimes end up hating Locke's love interest because of all
that. And I don't I don't - I don't hate her.
I actually really like her um but she's really - she's really bad at having
emotions. Korey really doesn't like her. Next is
letters to the lost. Julia and Declan let's make sure I'm right,
Juliet and Declan, so this is a contemporary. It's one of those
hard-hitting contemporaries, we're talking about grief, we're talking about
abuse, we're talking about forgiveness, we're talking about a lot of stuff in
this duology but specifically letters for the lost, but I like them both. So
it's a hard-hitting contemporary but it also does have a focus on romance, so
maybe it doesn't belong on this list but hey it's my list so I'm doing it. And
this is one of the few books where it is about something heavy but romance plays
just as big of a role and I loved it it was just really really cute the way the
relationship pays - it plays out the way they fall for each other get to know
each other. It's just sometimes an author writes relationships in a way that
connects with you and bridgid Kemmerer seems to be one of those authors for me.
Okay let's go on the same theme, I have some books that actually did try to have
a cute romance and they failed, but let's just go with the same theme as lies of
Locke Lamora first because let me tell you even though this isn't supposed to
be healthy cutesy beautiful romance there is a romance in it and oh my golly
is it bad. So this is kind of a similar situation where Kavothe is just like
ridiculously in love with this woman and she has issues, so she plays this sort of
cat-and-mouse game with him where she strings him along and expects him to
stay on the hook but she'll give him nothing. And much like the relationship
in the lies of Locke Lamora, if if Kavothe does anything mildly wrong
or says anything mildly wrong, she's gone. But she'll eventually come back because
she wants him on the hook it's not supposed to look romantic but it is a
romance sort of happening within the story and it's terrible and I would just
love for it to end. Now it's true that kavothe does go through this evolution
where every single woman in the story throws herself at him, as seems to be
pretty typical for a lot of fantasy books with the male protagonist, but she's
always around, she's always his main squeeze, and she's
always horrible.Again I feel like I need to reiterate I know that the author
wasn't trying to make this a beautiful romance, I'm just talking about - there is
romance in the book so I'm talking about it dadgummit. Alright next I'm gonna talk
about a current read and that is rage of dragons, at the time that I'm filming
this video I'm halfway through the book at the time that you're watching it I
may already be done because I have not devoured a fantasy book like this in a
long time I love this book so much and if it lets me down I will riot. So I
don't know how the romantic relationship in this book is gonna play out I have no
idea if it's gonna stay cute or if it's gonna be one of those things where he
finds someone different because it is - oh it is an impossible situation. It's
beautiful. This is actually a relationship that starts at the very
beginning of the series they are already, they already have somewhat of an
attraction to each other before the story even begins which is not something
that a lot of authors do and it works so well in this book and it's just like I
said before I tend to be the type of reader that I I don't really care if
there's any kind of love romance in my books and if they're there I usually
don't care about them, but in this one, man from the very first scene with the
two I just thought that they were so cute together
and I love their interactions and I love their relationship as of the first half
of the book. And I feel for them and their dilemma in their situation and I
just - every time they get a scene together I'm eating it up which is so
uncommon for me and I love it and when I get this feeling I love it when a couple
connects with me on this level that I look
forward to when the couple is together. Let's talk about another recent read and
that is the starless see. So the starless see one of the subgenres for this book
is romantic fantasy, romance fantasy, fantasy romance. And let me tell
you how bad the romance is in this book. I really wanted to like it because I
really liked the love interest and if you've heard me talk about this book
ever then you already know that the main character is the most bland of all
blaned bland bland bland that ever did bland. That phrase is gonna be a bugger
to try to close caption. Anyway so it's not just that I only cared about one
half of the couple in this book but it's also the fact that it was such a big
case of insta-love. They meet, they partner up, they're in
love in this detrimental, will die for you , must have you sort of way. In such
an abrupt way it was like this this love interest was an insignificant character
and then all of a sudden we would die without them and I really really like
the love interest so I wanted to like this coupling but I didn't because it
was the most abrupt nonsense in the world I didn't get a chance to love them
together. Okay this is a weird one I may change my mind because I'm gonna be
rereading this series really soon but this is one that grew on me and I'm not
gonna do spoilers but I would like to. But if you don't want to know anything
about the Stormlight archive then move forward but Dalinar and his love
interest, at first I didn't really have opinions on it it was kind of a weird
setup and I didn't really know how I felt about the two together. I kind of
felt in neutral but when we got some backstory and when dalinar
started having a rough go, he started struggling a lot internally and
regressing as a person because of everything that he was going through. The
way she stepped up was beautiful and made me fall in love with them as a
couple. When things got hard they got stronger instead of things got
hard so we had a miscommunication trope or something like that, but there is a
line that she says is essentially things are hard for him
right now and he's not doing okay and I wish he was helping me more and
everything wasn't on my shoulders but that's just the way it is right now and
I'm gonna step up and I'm gonna take all the responsibility and someday down the
road I'll need him to do that for me and I
know he will and that's okay because that's just what it is being a couple.
I really paraphrase that but man I loved that line. Okay moving on to another
fantasy series that has some romance in it. Wheel of Time. have read
seven of these books and there's a lot that I love about these books and
there's a lot that I don't and one of the things I happen to not love is
romance and there's a lot romance. It's not something that Robert Jordan makes any
attempt to be good at in my opinion but it still is something that he
incorporates a lot in his books. He really likes his characters to get
together and be deeply and madly in love but he doesn't like writing it it seems,
so he just makes them together. Characters are just abruptly in love
with each other and someone will declare their love and I'm just like, where did
that come from? And the die-hard Wheel of Time fans - I happen to be buddy reading
this series with someone who is a die-hard fan - and the diehard fans will
tell me every time I say that was abrupt and uncomfortable, will tell me no there
are scenes that led up to it, you just have to really really really look for
them. And I guess if you've read the series through a couple times and you
know the relationships are coming then you can kind of see those subtle things,
but honestly it's not enough. It seems like there's only one couple in this
entire series and this is a massive cast, there's only one couple that I'm
actually invested in and they get the least page time. And then everybody else
I'm just like. I don't like this pairing it didn't make sense to me that they got
together what is happening right now? There's a lot that I love about this
series but also romance ain't one of themT his next one is gonna be a little
bit controversial and I'm gonna need to do another spoiler tag so if you haven't
read. or are tired of hearing about Harry Potter jump to this point.There are a
lot of relationships that I don't love the series Lupin and Tonks didn't make
sense to me. but I accept that because they were supposed to develop off page
so it's fine that I didn't watch them develop. Hermione and Ron, I know a lot of
people don't like that I don't like them together, but I don't like them together.
I don't like them as a couple. However we are in the relationships I
liked section of the video and I liked Harry and Ginny. I know a lot of people
say that they were abrupt and didn't make sense but hard disagree. I know
Rowling changed her mind and she initially didn't plan on this pairing
and decided to do it later on and I think that that does show. I wish that we
had more build-up than we had I wish that they had started liking each other
in book 5 and then got together in book 6 but despite it being a little bit more
rushed than I wanted, I still really liked them together. We got to see them
as friends and really used to being around each other and it was a really
sweet friendship and Harry got used to having her around and he really liked
her, we also saw Ginny come alive and become this awesome character that I
loved so much and honestly I think that they work really well together. I think
that their personalities compliment each other quite well and I really like this
pairing. I know that a lot of people say that it was it was abrupt and came out
of nowhere but I actually thought despite me wishing that it started
earlier and we got more buildup, I think the build-up was executed really
really well and I liked it. And we are going to end this video on another, this
one's not controversial it's just very split down the middle, and that's gonna
be a curse so dark and lonely. So this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling,
Harper's an average gal, the prince is trapped in this curse and then his
right-hand man, head of his guard is trying to help him break that curse. It's
ia wild ride. t was cute and I really enjoyed it,
oh my golly I just realized that this is the same author that wrote letters for
the lost and this was on the good list and you know curse so dark and lonely is
gonna be on the bad list. This is something that readers seem to be super
split on, this was actually one of my patreon books and half of us loved who
Harper ended up with and half of us hated it.
I personally felt like Harper had way more chemistry with someone else in the
book than the one that she ended up with. This is one of the few situations where
I was actually really invested in the romance and I shipped the wrong ship and
I'm still mad about it. So there ya go, there's a whole bunch of
books that did romance; Some of them did it well and some of them did it poorly; I
intentionally did not talk about books that actually have romance as a focus, I
just talked about books that happen to have some romantic subplots and how did
they do. Some of them I liked, some of them I didn't. I know that this comment
section might be a little bit chaotic because we're talking about opinions
here, but please feel free to chat with me about what you agree on, disagree on,
and books that you want to add to the list.
Just keep it spoiler free or at least use the spoiler space space space tag, I'd
love to keep chatting with you about these in the comments, I post videos
every Sunday Tuesday Thursday and Saturday I'll see you guys again soon