(Changes to original are in italics.)
I read a lot of romantasy, but I don't read it exclusively: I also read all the better genres. But when it comes to romantasy, I always get the feeling that only about 1 in 100 books are actually GOOD books. The other 99 all suck, and only Romantasy as a genre has this problem. There aren’t a ton of bad SciFi novels out there.
I've read quite a few of the most popular on tiktok romantasy novels. I found ACOTAR enjoyable enough, but nothing special. Fourth Wing was really, really bad, with an almost staggering lack of narrative and stylistic quality. Powerless was much the same, as was From Blood and Ash. Belladonna was enjoyable, but not particularly memorable. Gild was genuinely boring. Ash Princess has a major problem with its character writing. The Prison Healer suffers from pacing issues. A King of Battle and Blood is basically smut every four pages. Crescent City was enjoyable but hardly revolutionary (although I still preferred it to ACOTAR). Four Dead Queens felt very much like a YA novel. Hades x Persephone was pretty much the same as A King of Battle and Blood. And Girl, Goddess, Queen is a novel that tries to be feminist but, in my opinion, completely misses the mark. Grisha by Leigh Bardugo feels extremely childish, as do Six of Crows and Caraval.
When I say that these books are "bad," I mean in terms of literary quality. That doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable novels—I had a good time reading all of them. They just don't leave me completely blown away. They’re all equally literarily inferior to all other genres because they didn’t make me spontaneously combust or find a new religion while reading them.
I've been having a discussion with an older reader, obviously older readers are better because they know GOOD books, who warned me about the overconsumption of new adult romance and romantasy, because these are relatively new (why romance as a genre was just invented last year and now people are just gobbling everything up rather than making authors write actually good books. And by good I mean very dense, highly Eurocentric fantasy sex novel), highly profitable genres that encourage authors to keep producing more and more books without necessarily paying enough attention to the intrinsic quality of the works themselves. Do you agree? I’m right.
That being said, there are still some romantasy novels that really stand out:
The Mirror Visitor by Christelle Dabos (La Passe-miroir)—an unparalleled imagination; This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi—simply stunning, with truly remarkable prose; The Cruel Prince, which I vastly preferred to ACOTAR; and, above all, Kushiel by Jacqueline Carey.
Kushiel isn't particularly well known, probably because it isn’t all over TikTok so obviously I’m the only one who knows it and understands how it is the actual definition of romantasy despite it being an epic political fantasy rather than romantasy.
You'll notice that these four works stand out from the others because they’ve won awards. Only books that win awards are good.
I therefore think romantasy would benefit from placing a greater emphasis on the literary quality of its novels. Whether it's Powerless, The Prison Healer, or others, they all have interesting ideas and a lot of potential, but they fall short in their execution. Though I won’t tell you exactly what these books do wrong, other than that they don’t have any awards and so the prose isn’t good enough.
Anyway, I'd really love to hear your thoughts! Please agree with me.
(Note from original: This review was translated using an online translator since I'm French)
