When Romance Loses the Plot

Y’all… I need to get this off my chest.

I don’t know if it’s because my frontal lobe is developing prematurely, or if I’m simply outgrowing dark romance and novels with romance as the primary plot.

Or maybe I’m just not in the mood!

But I haven’t been in the mood for a couple of weeks now.

My first read of the year was How My Neighbor Stole Christmas by Meghan Quinn, and obviously, it was a Christmas romance. However, I enjoyed it because of the competitiveness between the main characters, and knowing about the everyone’s business in the town (so I love gossip, sue me!). But when it got to the ~steamy~ parts, I was just… bored. 

I was listening to the audiobook as I cooked/baked, my boyfriend unfortunately falling victim to hearing Storee and Cole get busy with a candy cane. It was just hilarious, but the chemistry? Don’t ask me where to find it.

I usually pick romances as a pallet cleanser after binging fantasy books, but lately they’re not hitting as they used to. I’m currently reading The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore and it’s not bad, but I can’t help but fantasize about Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas.

As I was miserably walking around the airport last night (God, I miss my boyfriend), I started listening to Lights Out by Navessa Allen and I didn’t get past chapter 2. This is all I had to say:

Lights Out by Navessa Allen


yk what it’s my fault.

View all my reviews

Instead of desperately jumping into other reads (which I kind of did in the past 48 hours), I thought: what if I try some fiction? It’s not my usual genre of preference, but I have to admit I’ve been drawn to it ever since I read Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Malibu Rising. If it has messy family drama, I’m all in. 

During my trip to Texas my boyfriend let me pick some books, honorary mentions being Franz Kafka’s diaries and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. The Hotel Nantucket I bought at Office Depot’s bargain books bin, and I’ve seen it so many times it felt like it was waiting for me to finally buy it. These were my picks:

Books in picture:

• Franz Kafka’s Diaries
• The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand
• Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
• The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

I don’t know if it’s the over-saturation of porn without plot on TikTok, but I think it’s time I return to my fantasy books and also explore the fiction genre beyond my academic assignments. My comparative literature professor was the one who recommended Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, and I ended up crying to my boyfriend about Gregor Samsa. “He was such a good man,” I would say. 

Don’t get me wrong, I do love a good romance story with well done character development (like Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez). But lately, it feels like the popular romances are written on a rush to get to the spicy parts. It’s not insta-love anymore (a trope I already hate), but insta-lust. So, in the meantime, I’m staying away from the #Booktok table displays in bookstores. Life is too short to not read books with characters you root for and love stories that make you smile to yourself like a dumbass whenever you think about it. 

I have a feeling 2026 will be a good reading year! 

- alondra 💌