We don't know how to measure what we care about, so we care about what we measure.
— Chris Dancy (@chrisdancy) July 1, 2016
This is always a good reminder. I can’t figure out which of the two categories my Goodreads reading falls into. Future me will have a better idea, perhaps.
Goodreads has a yearly reading challenge where a user can pledge how many books they want to read in a given year and then track their reading against that goal. I have been taking part in this challenge for the last 3 years. However, it is only this year that I have made it a point to update my “read” shelf religiously with every book I read. Needless to say, I am killing it. :-)
So what happened in the earlier years? It wasn’t that I didn’t read enough to reach my much smaller goals of 2014 and 2015. I just didn’t update the list with every book I read then. This was because I didn’t want to acknowledge the sheer number of romance novels I read in a year. In my head, acknowledging it would mean losing some of my psuedo intellectual cred. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I read a lot of romance. And the graphs below will quantify it nicely. It started with Mills & Boons way back in high school. However, as I have grown older the types of romance novels I read have also evolved. The novels you will see in my Goodreads list for this year are more aligned with my politics. These novels have primary characters who are women of color, who are comfortable wearing a dress size 14 . They are feminists. They are suffragettes. They are civil rights activists. They own their sexuality. They are comfortable with their body and their curly hair. They will wear breeches, ride out and save the day rather than wait for the hero to come and save them. Infact, none of them need saving. They are gay. They are trans. They are geeks. They will blow your mind away and will have you rooting for them from the get go. And each of them in their own way will give you permission to be yourself, to want a bit more, to occupy more space.
My romance reading wouldn’t have taken this turn, if I hadn’t started following Courtney Milan on twitter. Not only is she a phenomenal writer (I love all her books!), her recommendations are lit! I found so many of my most loved romance authors like Alisha Rai, Rebekah Weatherspoon, Rose Lerner and Kit Rocha through her. Romance reading rocks and I am so thankful to these folks for making it so.
Now for some basic charts that illustrate my reading patterns based on Goodreads data:
It is only apt that I wrap this post up by linking to this twitter thread by my favorite romance author!
I’ve been through all the phases of romance denial.
— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) February 18, 2016
1. I only read sci fi and fantasy because I am Not Like Other Girls.