Romance is a billion-dollar industry. In 2016 these novels made up 23% of the overall fiction market, and they consistently out-perform all other genres. But while we’ve reclaimed the rom-com in film, these books are still often relegated to being “guilty pleasures” or considered “mommy porn.” This week we’re discussing these overlooked, often powerfully feminist books—that just so happen to have a happy ending.
Think back to some of the most romantic movies in recent memory. I’m sure a few titles come to mind: Me Before You, A Walk to Remember, Something Borrowed—the list goes on and on. And while these movies are different in terms of plot, they do have one commonality: They’re all actually based on romance novels. Yup: Before Shane West and Mandy Moore made you swoon in AWTR, their characters were just in the pages of Nicholas Sparks’ 2002 novel.
And there are more where these three came from. So many of your favorite rom-coms are actually based on these kind of books. The 10, below, are my personal favorites. Are they all traditional romance novels? No. But they all embody the core hallmarks of the genre: love, passion, and of course, sex.
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Christopher Rosa is the staff entertainment writer at Glamour. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrosa92.
