No other gook genre has taken the internet by storm like Romantasy. Spurred on by the rise of Booktok, the genre earned an estimated $610 million in sales in 2024. Additionally, many credit Romantasy for reviving the book industry, following years of steady decline. That said, despite the amount of love this genre has gotten, it has also garnered a rising tide of fierce detractors.
Among the many critiques thrown at the genre, the sheer amount of books being released, both physical and online, has had many people worry that the market has been muddled with mediocrity.
It should be hardly surprising that the increased market, thanks to social media, has heightened the demand for more of these books. Additionally, the way people look for books to read has also changed. A majority of romance readers look for stories with their tropes, recurring storytelling devices, and themes that most audiences will recognize. This has had the effect of many romance stories having the same settings and archetypes of love interests, since most don’t care about the story’s plot outside of its main romance story.
This has led to the perception of the romantasy genre being a genre incapable of telling worthwhile and memorable stories, only easily consumable stories that will be forgotten easily. This has become more apparent following the rise of AI technologies like ChatGPT. The romance genre, specifically, has been one of the few genres where AI-written novels have run rampant.
Now, mediocre stories have their place; not every story needs to change the reader’s life. That being said, the Romatasy genre has all the elements of where great stories can be told. Just because a story centers romance doesn’t mean it can’t be worthwhile. For romantasy as a genre to succeed, it can’t hide behind the many story tropes that have gotten the genre its current popularity. Romantasy authors need to take risks, make their main character multifaceted, and their fictional worlds more than props for their characters move around.
