You Should Be Reading Romance Novels

an ode to the healing power of the rom com

Romance novels are often dismissed as fluff — but for me, they’ve become something else entirely.

Romance novels feel… horny. In the best way.

I think women should be walking around feeling a little bit horny in the world. A little more turned on to life.

Some context: I’ve always loved reading. I was an English major mainly because I just wanted to sit in coffee shops and read books. But as an adult, I wasn’t reading much at all. I had a growing list of books in my notes app and piled up by my bed, but I just wasn’t picking them up.

Romance novels? Not for me. I’d absorbed this quiet cultural judgment that they were silly. Embarrassing. Not important. Definitely not real literature.

Turns out, I was wrong. (And I’m learning to love being wrong.)

Since I started reading romance, these stories have reminded me that being in our bodies — in our desire, in our longing— is not something to suppress. It’s something to celebrate.

These books weren’t just about romance. They were about aliveness, and want, and pleasure. They made me feel like it was okay to be a woman who wants things. Big things. Physical things. Messy, complicated, beautiful things.

There’s a whole movement toward embodiment — a return to our bodies. Call it yin and yang, call it divine feminine and masculine, whatever language works. The truth is, so many women I talk to spend most of their days in their heads — in the energy of doing, fixing, optimizing, making shit happen.

We live in a society obsessed with productivity. We’re riddled with anxiety. Disconnected from our own knowing. Disconnected from our bodies.

The feminine is not about being soft and sweet. It’s about fierce love — of self and others. It’s about creativity and receptivity. It’s intuitive. Emotional. Relational. Sensual.

In Pleasure Activism, Adrienne Maree Brown writes:

“Horniness is the opposite of helplessness.”

“Pleasure is a measure of our freedom.”

“When we begin to take our pleasure seriously, we begin to dismantle the systems that benefit from our numbness.”

This is part of a bigger shift. A return to something ancient and instinctive. A return to the divine feminine — to feeling over performing. To intuition over optimization. To play, pleasure, tenderness, and truth.

These books give us permission to be in our bodies. In our want. In our messy, powerful, ever-evolving feminine selves. They help us soften the judgment around our own craving and delight.

They are, I realized, about funny, flawed, whip-smart women figuring out what they wanted. They were in their bodies. They had big feelings. They flirted. They failed. They fell in love.

There’s a reason Taylor Swift is the biggest pop star in the world and is so beloved — she writes about love and girlhood and emotions and feminine rage. What society has told us is frivolous, she asserts is of the greatest importance. Because it is.

Romance novels echo the same thing.

I’d also argue they offer something else: gentleness. Playfulness. A way to soften when life feels heavy.

My experience is that in grief — in the hardest moments — I have to slow down, to surrender to the season. As my mom was dying and shortly after, I just felt such a need for lightness. Life felt hard, sad, and serious, and at the end of a long day, I found myself binge-watching Bridgerton, or rewatching Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City. My screen time was up, my sleep score was down, and my imagination felt practically nonexistent. I yearned for a respite from all the intensity. Instead of judging that desire, I gave myself permission to lean into that longing.(Not judging what I want is something reading romance novels has reaffirmed.)

I decided to dive into a rom-com — and plot twist: I loved it. I devoured the first book, then the second, then the fifth. (At the time of writing this,  I have read upwards of 70 romance novels.) I barely turned on my TV.

My heart expanded as I read about fully developed, interesting, complicated, messy characters working through their desires and fears. I fell in love with the wit of the flirting and the charm of the banter. I was inspired by the bravery, tenderness, tenacity, and joy that comes with the most human experience of falling in love.

George Bernard Shaw said:

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”

These books felt playful. (Yes, I’m aware of the absurdity of quoting Shaw to justify reading romance — but honestly, it works.)

This past November — a time it felt like everyone could experience a bit more joy — I sent an email to about 30 women in my life.It said, in short:

“I'm starting a book club for cool girls (you!) who love rom-coms. If this isn’t your thing, feel free to stop reading now. But if you’re intrigued, read on.”

“These books helped me laugh and feel hopeful during one of the hardest times in my life. And now, I want to offer that same lightness to the people I love. So I’m inviting you to celebrate girlhood, love stories, and everything society deems ‘frivolous.’”

Within a day, I had a flood of replies. Women saying:“I’m in.”“I need this.”“I’ve been looking for something like this.”

Since November, we’ve met every month — sometimes fifteen of us, sometimes just five. It’s casual. No pressure. But the energy is always the same: warm, giggly, thoughtful, real.

The smartest, most badass women you know giggling about books and love and sex. Fucking powerful.

We end up talking about intimacy. About fear. About worth. About how a character learning to communicate made someone feel less alone in their dating life. About how reading one woman’s preferences helped another woman name her own.

And now? I have this conversation everywhere I go. At weddings. In DMs. In bookstores. In bars. I was in Paris this spring telling women they needed to read Abby Jimenez. I will absolutely match who you are with what you should read — just try me. Are you a slow-burn girly? Secret pining? Enemies to lovers? I’ve got you.

Romance novels remind us that joy and pleasure and connection aren’t trivial — they’re sacred. That flirtation is an art form. That softness is not weakness. That we don’t have to apologize for wanting more — more intimacy, more beauty, more aliveness.

So no, rom-coms aren’t just fluff. And I think every woman should be reading them.

P.S. If you’ve read a rom-com you loved recently, please *comment below*. I want to hear about it