colleencat's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Interesting perspective on Romance fiction blended with personal memoir.
pagesforsanity's review against another edition
2.0
This was definitely a different book than I was expecting. I was intrigued that a male author who specializes in intense researches would take on romance novels.
I am an avid romance reader and just found myself frustrated with this author's viewpoint. I don't feel this was a valid interpretation of what readers are looking for out of romance.
I did appreciate the attention that was placed in this work, but overall it did not work for me.
Thank you Double Day and Netgalley for the arc of this in exchange for my honest opinion.
I am an avid romance reader and just found myself frustrated with this author's viewpoint. I don't feel this was a valid interpretation of what readers are looking for out of romance.
I did appreciate the attention that was placed in this work, but overall it did not work for me.
Thank you Double Day and Netgalley for the arc of this in exchange for my honest opinion.
balletbookworm's review
2.0
meh to blah. Steinberg has done some research into how the romance genre works, the tropes, and some of the writing groups and conventions. Woven into this is Steinberg's own story of learning to write romance, particularly the emotional connection between the characters that underpins every book in the genre.
However, the "here is how the romance industry works" feels very cursory. It's not a grand tour. He hits 50 Shades, but goes no further down that rabbit hole. He cloaks a lot of insiders in the genre with false names, including a prominent publisher (I'm fairly certain I know who that publisher and editor is) and while he quotes panelists, he rarely names the speaker (and those panels aren't secret or anything, they can be fact-checked). He spends a lot of time talking to cover model CJ Hollenbach and with a ghost-writer, but that doesn't really move the book along. And while he has his reasons for gravitating to the Amish romance subgenre (it has to do with being raised Orthodox Jewish, and the similarities between the two religions, and ALSO the garbage reason that Jewish romance isn't a thing *eyeroll so hard because racism*) his insistence on that genre also seems to cut his exploration of the whole genre short. (And despite Steinberg's presence at the 2019 Rita awards and some discussion of the major push for inclusion in those awards, he seems to miss a lot of big things that went down in the genre.)
When I got back into reading romance in 2012 I read something like 170 romance novels that year and BARELY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE. I feel like I did more of a grand tour.
However, the "here is how the romance industry works" feels very cursory. It's not a grand tour. He hits 50 Shades, but goes no further down that rabbit hole. He cloaks a lot of insiders in the genre with false names, including a prominent publisher (I'm fairly certain I know who that publisher and editor is) and while he quotes panelists, he rarely names the speaker (and those panels aren't secret or anything, they can be fact-checked). He spends a lot of time talking to cover model CJ Hollenbach and with a ghost-writer, but that doesn't really move the book along. And while he has his reasons for gravitating to the Amish romance subgenre (it has to do with being raised Orthodox Jewish, and the similarities between the two religions, and ALSO the garbage reason that Jewish romance isn't a thing *eyeroll so hard because racism*) his insistence on that genre also seems to cut his exploration of the whole genre short. (And despite Steinberg's presence at the 2019 Rita awards and some discussion of the major push for inclusion in those awards, he seems to miss a lot of big things that went down in the genre.)
When I got back into reading romance in 2012 I read something like 170 romance novels that year and BARELY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE. I feel like I did more of a grand tour.
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