This week’s theme had me completely stumped. Hopeless romantic? That’s not a phrase anyone would use to describe me. I was hard pressed to think of any books with romance as the central theme that I loved. There are many I’ve loved where romance was the subplot but when romance is the primary plot, that’s almost an automatic reduced star rating from me.
Romance Doesn’t Rank High for Me
Case in point, out of the 52 books I read and shelved as “genre-romance” on Goodreads, only 2 books received 5 full stars from me: (1) Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor — it is a glorious book! But it wasn’t the romance that made me fall in love with it; (2) A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall — this one was just too cute not to like because the fact that it’s from several perspectives shipping and encouraging a couple-to-be made it such a quirky read.
Heart as Symbol of a Hopeless Romantic?
Since I struggled so much with how to represent Hopeless Romantic, I decided to go with the height of clichés: hearts. After all, clichés are clichés for a reason, no? While I’ve yet to read Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, I like that the heart on the cover isn’t whole. It’s made up of shards which form a mosaic heart. Since there is that one pink shard among all the blue ones, I’m going to assume that in the end the protagonist does find her love.
Which romance books would you recommend to someone like me who is anything but a hopeless romantic?
Georgie is the opposite from me and a huge romantic, so her photo’s much more optimistic. If you’re participating in Mise-en-scène, remember to leave your link to your photo in the linky widget down below!
I’m not a fan of books that are exclusively romance either, but Stephanie Perkins books’ surprised me! They are romance but they’re also very much about self growth and centred on the protagonist rather than just the love interest side of things, plus they’re hilarious and very easy to get through!
Lovely photo as always! <3 I admit I'm a huge hopeless romantic- I think it's a well known fact I really adore contemporary romance. And one of my faves from way back when I was just getting into the genre? Twenty Boy Summer! I'm so book pushing this one to you sooner or later. ;)