Lizzie the Librarian Reads Literature

I grew up in Fundamentalist, Evangelical Christianity. I was homeschooled by my parents, I went to church every Sunday, youth group two times a week, and attended Christian college. I didn't have any friends who weren't the same religion as me and I lived my life in constant fear that I wasn't living up to the expectations my parents, the church, and even God had for me. When I questioned things I'd been taught or failed to read my Bible regularly, the guilt ate at me and I was convinced I was going to hell and had never truly been a Christian. I used to pray every night on a loop for God to save me from hell and keep my family safe.  When I went to college, even though it was a Christian one, it was the first time I lived away from my parents. Even though I was still being taught the same damaging things I always had been, it was coming from different sources and I was able to parse through everything myself without the influence of parents, older siblings, and youth p...

 It's no secret to anyone who knows me that my favorite genre is romance. It's something I talk about constantly, something I read constantly, and something I always come back to if I'm having a bad day. Last year alone I read 38 romance novels, but even more which had a romantic subplot in it somewhere. It's rare for me to read or enjoy a book that has absolutely no romance in it, and this has been true since a very young age. But before we get into that, lets look at the romance genre and how it's become what it is today.  If you look back in history, the term romance novel was very different to what we think of today. You have your Greek romances, Arthurian romances, and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Romance could mean a tale of adventure with a brave hero on a quest; there might not necessarily be any love story involved. Think of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or the stories of Sir Lancelot. Sir Walter Scott was writing historical novels that were inspired b...