Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture

by Catherine M. Roach

"Find your one true love and live happily ever after." The trials of love and desire provide perennial story material, from the BiblicalSong of Songsto Disney s princesses, but perhaps most provocatively in the romance novel, a genre known for tales of fantasy and desire, sex and pleasure. Hailed on the one hand for its women-centered stories that can be sexually liberating, and criticized on the other for its emphasis on male/female coupling and mythical happy endings, romance fiction is a multi-million dollar publishing phenomenon, creating national and international societies of enthusiasts, practitioners, and scholars. Catherine Roach, alongside her romance-writer alter-ego, Catherine LaRoche, guides the reader deep into Romancelandia where the smart and the witty combine with the sexy and seductive to explore why this genre has such a grip on readers and what we can learn from the romance novel about the nature of happiness, love, sex, and desire in American popular culture."

Genres: Nonfiction, Romance, Academic, Books About Books, Feminism, Psychology

240 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2016

About the author

Catherine M. Roach has 25 years of grant-funded research experience on gender, sexuality, and American popular culture. A two-time Fulbright awardee with a PhD from Harvard and publications in both fiction and non-fiction, she's been an invited visiting professor in Canada, Australia, and Europe. She is Professor of New College, an innovative liberal arts program at The University of Alabama, where she's won the school's top research and teaching awards and where she offers a popular cross-university course titled "Sexuality and Society." She is based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Reviews

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two types of chapters in this book: those that deal with the academic side of romance novels and their impact on society and those that focus on the author's dual identity as both an academic and a romance author in the wider context of the romance fandom.

This was a quick read and I got some interesting observations and book recommendations. I may check out the author's historical romance book.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read only till chapter 6 before quickly skimming the rest. To be honest I blame Madwoman in the Attic for giving me unrealistic expectations of what literary analysis books can do.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating book. Roach makes her point by using both her selves. She is an academic and has published two romance novels. Glad I read this.

[Smut Report]

Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture spoke to me as someone who is kind of between worlds. Or, rather, as someone who is familiar with both Academia and Romancelandia, even if I have imposter syndrome when dealing with both of them. (Self-analysis for another time.) Roach set out to explore romance fiction – and as part of her project, acted as a participant-observer. Not just as a fan, but also as an author. (Fun fact! Her first book, a historical romance called Master of Love, culminates with the heroine pegging the hero.) So her book is more multi-faceted than the standard academic work: she intersperses more “traditional” analysis with playful chapters where she explores her own experiences in Romancelandia.

Her main thesis is that the romance narrative is the central defining narrative in Western culture, which I’m not sure I buy (I’ll come back to this point). I think she fails to convince me in part because of the way the book is structured. The book felt more like a collection of essays about romance than one argument that built to a climax. (Pun intended.) On the other hand, her book is richer for being less focused, as it allows her to share a more immersive take on what romance novels look like at the beginning of the 21st century.

Read Holly's full discussion at The Smut Report

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[kess | wordwanderlust · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. wish it was more historical and wish it delved more into the broader cultural history!

[Lizabeth Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Catherine M. Roach, also know as romance writer Catherine LaRoche, looks at Romancelandia somewhat in depth, from who writes and reads it, why and how the genre resonates with so many readers, and the types of tropes that can be found. Before you dismiss the author out of hand as being one of "those" women, something I've heard from non-romance readers in the past, who are viciously dismissive of the genre, be aware that Roach is Professor of Gender and Culture Studies in New College at the University of Alabama.

I found this to be an accessible read for both academics and romance readers wanting to dive more into the story, if you will, of the genre. Yet I was surprised at the lack of history and the influence of writers such as Georgette Heyer, mentioned so briefly early on before she was pushed away along with Jane Austin. Heyer, in particular, is frequently mentioned by many historical and regency romance readers as their gateway drug into romance, even if Heyer herself hated that classification of her works.

Perhaps it was page constraint that caused many of the "founding mothers" of the genre to be essentially ignored or barely touched upon. Yet fanfiction, m/m, and slash fiction all had more content. Which, don't get me wrong, I appreciated that the three were mentioned as too many so-called studies tend to ignore them completely. Overall, I mostly liked this. I just think it could've been expanded more upon. 3 out of 5.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting addition to the world of romance criticism. Roach is both an academic and a romance author, this divide can be felt throughout Happily Ever After, with some chapters leaning more heavily on one side of her personality than others. Personally, I skim read the first few chapters as they provided a general introduction to the romance genre and romance academic criticism. Two topics that I'm already fairly familiar with.

I found Roach's opinions on sexuality, and the way female sexuality is used in romance novels particularly interesting. Mainly because it tended to align with my own thoughts on the topics. I liked how she incorporated her experience with teaching romance into the novel. She gave the reader an insight into what her students thought about romance, and more generally how female sexuality is represented in popular culture.

Overall a quick and engaging read that provided some food for thought.

[Sreepurna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting book that I can't not rate it, even though I usually don't mark non-fiction/academic books here on Goodreads. But reading this book was a really different experience, and I'm glad Roach spends so much time discussing the process of research and writing - I think this is useful even if someone isn't interested in this particular field. I also admire the experimental structure of the book, and some of my favourite chapters were the less academic ones, even though the rest of it was more 'useful' in terms of understanding the scholarly scene.

[Cristina Varanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a tendency to be quite short in my reviews, and this will not be different but this book has completely reshaped one of my papers this week. (Also gotta admit I found it funny to finish it in valentine's day)

[Mary Foxe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to the romance genre in academic and fandom settings.

[Tracy]

I liked the first several chapters, then wasn't sure about the "interviewing herself" format, then wasn't sold on a couple arguments and skipped over several chapters.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good study of the romance novel (and the community and industry that revolves around it) and its role in contemporary society. The book has going for it, among other things, the fact that it's able to pull in a number of recent examples--like a certain erotic novel that even the least disinterested reader is aware of because it punctuated the mainstream pop culture landscape so decisively--when she's considering how popular romance has evolved and all the ways the latest trends, themes, and popular tropes provoke new understandings and questions about the genre. Roach is clearly a fan and supporter but doesn't avoid examining problematic issues that certain aspects of the genre expose.

Roach is an academic, so even though she tries her best to present her thesis and break down her arguments in a less academic tone, she's not entirely successful in keeping it from being jargony and repetitive at times, but it's not a big deal. I have to add that Roach has also been a published romance author, so interspersed between the academic chapters are her chronicles of that experience, which I found to be an interesting way to present yet another perspective of the romance novel 'world'--another thing that this book has going for it.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my three linked posts about this book:

http://romancenovelsforfeminists.blog...

http://romancenovelsforfeminists.blog...

http://romancenovelsforfeminists.blog...

[Meg]

Interesting, academic participatory fandom in romance writing and reading. Readable but still pretty academic in tone for many chapters - save the chapter where her romance-writer-persona has an arguement with her academic gender studies professor persona - which I deeply enjoyed. something to chew on.