Dark Romance - Books we (mustn't) Pass By
For some time now, the young adult and new adult genres have been flooding the book market, including the dark romance genre. In view of the overwhelming (sales) success of Lyx, an imprint of Bastei Lübbe, almost all other major publishers have jumped on the publishing bandwagon with their own imprints. Since 2024, there has been a huge hall at the Frankfurt Book Fair dedicated to the genre and its young readers. Books that belong to this category are easy to recognise: Elaborately designed covers, colour sections, playlists and detailed trigger warnings are part of the necessary inventory; they are collected by their readers like works of art.
Despite the apparent variety of subtypes - romance, college, sports romance, suspense, dark romance, etc. - the content of the books is also easy to recognise, because ultimately they always tell a story that cannot be surpassed in its simplicity: a young woman falls in love with a tough guy with a soft core and does everything she can to win him over, which she ultimately succeeds in doing. Before that, at best he only criticised and annoyed her, at worst he bullied and stalked her and at worst he locked her up, tortured her, penetrated her with various objects and forced her to have group sex.
In this seminar, we want to think about and discuss why we should not simply pass over the last type described, "dark romance", with an ironic smile, but rather examine and scrutinise it and its fascination for
young women, also with regard to which - seemingly completely outdated - role models it conveys and which contemporary desires it corresponds to.
Speaker: Ulrike Schrimpf
The webinar is organised by the Brandenburg Specialist Unit for Archives and Public Libraries in Brandenburg and is aimed at staff from Brandenburg's public libraries. Online access will be sent via the relevant mailing lists of the target group.
If you are interested in the event and have not received access, please contact us.
