'Tropesick' and 'Extracurricular' are romance novels that subvert genre expectations
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What is the premise of Lauren Oki’s novel *Tropesick* and how does it subvert romance tropes?
Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Sometimes the best way to push a genre forward is to break it down into component parts and build it back up again. Like how Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl lays out your expectations of what a thriller is supposed to be, how a victim should act in a murder mystery, to, of course, upend your expectations completely. The two books we've got for you today do something similar for romance. Both books are aware of what the audience expects out of a romance, and they try to both meet and subvert those expectations. Up ahead, a teacher-student relationship that tries to even the playing field a bit. But first, Lauren Oki's book Tropesick is about two writers who have to work together to write a love story and take a wild guess what happens.
Oki talks to NPS Juana Summers after the break.
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If you're a fan of romance novels like I am, you probably have a favorite trope. There's things like enemies to lovers, forced proximity, fake dating. Well, a new book called Tropesick is all about those familiar storytelling techniques. Two childhood neighbors reunite to ghostwrite a love story for a withdrawn author at her Hamptons estate. And as they write and grow closer, some of those familiar tropes from the page begin to play out in their very real lives. Author Lauren Oki joins me now. Welcome to the program. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Okay.
How do Katie and Tyler’s back‑story and the rivals‑to‑lovers setup drive the plot of *Tropesick*?
So in the early pages of your book, we find ourselves meeting Katie and Tyler for the first time. And at the point when they re-encounter each other, they haven't seen each other for eight years. Can you just start by telling us briefly about each of them?
Sure. So Katie Caruso is a 25-year-old sunshine trope girl, and she is living and working in New York City as a ghostwriter for Meredith Bradford, who is sort of like the Stephen King of romance. She is... kind of the author in the romance space. And she writes about two books a year for Meredith. And she is also, in my opinion, sort of suppressing the grief of the death of her brother, which happened eight years ago. Her brother was... opioid addict. And she is paired up with Tyler McNally, who is her now deceased brother's best friend, to write this next book. And this is a surprise. They have not seen or spoken to each other since Mikey's overdose death when they were finishing up high school. And so when they reunite, it is sort of this mashup of kind of like a classic Rivals to Lovers rom-com setup and a very, I think, realistic and grounded kind of moment of intense
tension because they've not ever dealt with the things that happened or tore them apart. So Tyler is sort of this literary fiction author. He is failing to sell his manuscripts. He has accepted this job in hopes of gaining favor with a good literary agent. And Katie is just sort of there living her life. And all of a sudden they are back in each other's orbit to ghostwrite this romance novel.
I mean, as any romance reader knows, tropes can be incredibly divisive. Some draw readers in, others can repel them. And yet your book weaves together so many different types of tropes. Where did you even start?
This is a funny question because when I realized that I was going to be writing a metafiction novel, which this certainly is, one of the things that I didn't want to do was allow the metafiction element to become more powerful than the natural story itself.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the premise of Lauren Oki’s novel *Tropesick* and how does it subvert romance tropes?
0:02–2:10
2
How do Katie and Tyler’s back‑story and the rivals‑to‑lovers setup drive the plot of *Tropesick*?
2:10–4:27
3
In what ways does Oki balance metafictional elements with the natural love story?
4:27–7:09
4
How does the book’s structure use parallel narratives and embedded tropes?
7:09–9:33
5
What inspired the major twist in *Tropesick* and how does it affect the reader’s expectations?
9:33–12:02
6
What themes of addiction, grief, and agency are explored through Katie and Tyler’s relationship?
12:02–14:26
7
How does Rachel Lynn Solomon’s *Extracurricular* reimagine the teacher‑student forbidden romance?
14:26–17:11
8
Why are romance novels an effective space to discuss mental health and consent, according to Solomon?
17:11–19:14
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from NPR's Book of the Day
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