Romance of the Last Century – Book Review Insights

The romance genre in books has evolved with each generation that passes by. There is a significant difference between books that were authored in the 1900s and 2000s. These changes are motivated greatly by societal norms as well as the popular culture in that era. 

The last century had very high volumes of books about romance that even ended up being screenplays at cinemas as modern-day movies. What were the key highlights of this century where love was in the air?

The late 1900-2000s romantic genre

Towards the end of the 1900 century, romance was starting to slowly lose the audience’s interest given everything that was going on. With technological advances in other fields, some authors did not find writing a romance book interesting. However, that trend soon corrected since, in the early 2000s, there were newer romance releases.

It is worthy to note that the writing style adopted in this era was not the regular kind you would have found in a library in the mid-1900s. Perhaps this development was due to the reformed education system that led to modern literature as we know it.

Educational curriculum using romance novels

Although the reformed educational systems proliferated the globe, higher education institutions still used romance novels and memoirs from the 1800s to the 1900s. Having romantic literature to conduct research on when working on a degree has advanced courses such as the English major, Creative Arts, and so forth.

Since at a university or college, you have to scrupulously research before writing a book summary, it broadens the skillsets of students undertaking that assignment. Writing an assignment on a romance novel can come easier than writing a Brave New World summary since the latter may not invoke deeply seated emotions such as love. 

Book summary or essay references are a great way to get your creative juices flowing and come up with a brilliant piece of writing.

Popular culture differences in this genre

There have been some pop-culture differences in the romance genre. In the past century, authors did not mind wearing their hearts on their sleeves; hence their characters were mostly optimistic lovers. There were some challenges in their novels that each student writing a paper on a 1900 romance book has to explain. 

However, it differed from the cynical and nihilistic relationships portrayed in novels such as John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Also, 21st-century students are doing career studies in school, which makes it easy to convert novels to movies. The lesson that most authors learned due to pop-culture adjustments is writing books that could easily be converted to thriller movies.

Romance genre forecast

The romance genre in books and movies is yet to have a declining audience statistic. You can definitely see this when reading seemingly platonic books or watching different genres of movies. These commonly have excerpts of some romance. This depicts that this genre might be growing. 

Modern books like 50 Shades of Grey also indicate that the romance genre might only be just getting more explicit than in the past century. Summarizing books similar to that might be hard to do at college, which is why students might be writing summaries of older literature. This could be happening until there’s a writer that authors a book “safe for work” but interesting enough and with enough academic rigor to write a good summary.

Best romance books

If you are looking for a book that your class could review, there are a lot of interesting novels from the 1800s till the present day. One of the most popular is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It is set in the 1800s, where a wealthy man (Charles Bingley) moves to a different part of the country and is thrilled to meet Elizabeth, a protagonist at Netherfield. 

More recent novels include Me Before You, The Fault in Our Stars, The Duke and I as well as many more works of art. Depending on your preference, you can check the different subgenres available under the romance genre.

Conclusion

The romance genre has taken very long strides, and the pop culture of the different eras it has survived had a significant impact on it. Be that as it may, the 1800s and 1900s really shaped this genre and established it to what is available today.

At the same time, pop culture has improved the romance genre by allowing it to be screened at movie theaters and even streamed to personal devices. Also, there is a wide variety of ways you can entertain yourself with this genre, including movies and eBooks that are available more conveniently.