Princess Weekes

We are putting a microscope into women's bookshelves.

But women are still people and it can also reinforce patriarchy.

Is it reinforcing heteronormative, you know, paradigms if we're going to have these stories where women just keep ending up married to these men?

Well, you know, I first started seeing it pop up online.

And I was interested because I grew up reading a lot of what we would have called like paranormal fantasy or like paranormal romances, like the Anita Blake books, the Kim Harrison books, these kind of texts that were like female centered, had like romance subplots, and were kind of treated as like sort of like

pulpy, femme-centered fantasy.

And so I was excited at this idea of having this mixture of romance-centered fantasy as a genre.

And then I was being recommended Akatar and Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros, which is this really popular...

romanticist series about this big character who is forced into this brutal war college for dragon riders, which is a really good premise for a book.

And while they weren't entirely for me, I do think that they spoke to this burgeoning new femme readership online that was looking to have this more adult side

fantasy stories that had more sexuality and intimacy.

These are conversations that have plagued the romance genre from the very beginning.

This idea of, is it reinforcing heteronormative, you know, paradigms if we're going to have these stories where women just keep ending up married to these men?

And then you'll have stories where they are, where there are

you know, power structures being reinforced.

And that does happen, especially in some of the most popular ones.

But then, of course, there are always subversions to those things.

But you also have, in my opinion, two different kinds of readership.

People who are just, you know, have always loved reading and continue to read.

And those who really became readers through the book talk