A pair of women - a Mormon psychologist and a Wall Street Analyst turned author - desperately wanted to sell their non-romance books in a romance novel world. Clearly, they'd do better if all those darned women would just stop buying romance. How to accomplish that? Well, they came up with a bizarre theory - romance novels can be as addictive as pornography.
Yes, all of us deviant romance readers have been silently suffering under the weight of a horrific and dangerous addiction - reading romance novels. The diabolically deluded duo say that reading romance promotes dissatisfaction with your real life relationships and may even lead to an affair. But fear not, say the diabolically deluded duo - they have a plan. What is it, you ask?
To overcome addiction to romance, you should READ BOOKS OF A DIFFERENT GENRE. And again, what do the ladies who came up with the theory do? They write books. And what kind of books? Not romance novels. Yes, Virginia, these authors really did think women were stupid enough to fall for that load of self-serving swill.
Did anybody fall for it? Not so much. However, lots of folks had a really good time with the whole idea that romance is as addictive as porn. One of the best places to express pithy punditry these days is Twitter. The fiasco spawned its own hashtag, #romancekills. Below are some of my favorite tweets from that hashtag. I'm listing the author of the tweet as best I can tell - I've told y'all before (on the Marianne's Blog) that Twitter is the "Bing" commercial, on steroids. It can be hard to follow. If I've misquoted or incorrectly attributed anything, it wasn't out of malice. It was Bing-Bong Syndrome.
Check out these tweets and if you have a Twitter account (and you should) after you follow me, you should definitely follow every one of these folks! Now, without further ado - because I've a-done enough already - here are my personal favorite tweets from #romancekills. Enjoy!!
@ChristinaDodd: Every time a woman reads a romance novel, her lover dies…slowly, and with great pleasure.
@JoJosBook Corner: Woot Our she-army of oversexed females shall conquer the Earth. Men shall fear (and desire) us.
@TessaDare: Every time a bodice rips, a kitten cries.
@LimeCello: Know why Thomas Hardy wrote the original cliff hanger? He was reading a romance novel & couldn't be bothered to finish writing
@CourtneyMilan: Romance novels killed the radio store, and blamed it on video.
@LimeCello: You want to know why Atlantis is no more? Romance novels. Sorry archaeologists & historians
@PamelaCayne: For $19.95 I will cast out the romance reading demons from your soul, banishing the bodice ripping monkey on your back forever
@TallStoriesBook: "The Titanic hit that iceberg because the lookouts were too busy reading romance novels," - Amy Boggs
@TallStoriesBook: Jason Pinter : "the destruction of Alderaan was due to Darth Vader reading too many romance novels"