Morgan Cogo ‘25, Entertainment Editor
Since TikTok regained popularity in 2020, many communities have formed—one of which is the book community, aptly named Booktok. Booktok has been a place for reviews, recommendations, and new authors to flourish; but, it is not all sunshine and rainbows in the community. A specific genre of books dubbed “dark romance” has rapidly gained traction, and the content and effects of these books are, at the very least, concerning.
Dark romance, though it is all fiction and people are entitled to like what they like, can be harmful to younger audiences. These books have moments that feature dubious consent, at best, and no consent at all, at worst. Many of these genre books detail harmful topics: kidnappings that lead to Stockholm syndrome, toxic “protective” male leads that are simply controlling, and in some cases, potentially violent physical and sexual abuse. All of these ‘tropes’ are meant to be seen as romantic and make the main male characters attractive.
For example, a book by H. D. Carlton, Haunting Adeline, features the protagonist Adeline Reilly as a young author who has recently moved into her family’s home in Washington State following the death of her grandmother. She is stalked by Zade Meadows, the leader of an underground organization, Z, which aims to end human trafficking. That does not sound too bad, right? Well, what if Zade Meadows—savior and stalker extraordinaire—was just as abusive as the men he claims to abhor? Throughout the novel, Zade’s obsession with Adeline gets dangerous—for instance, Zade assaults her multiple times, which is ironic because he is practically swimming in his savior complex. He supposedly rescues women and children from trafficking rings, which was just used as a plot device to characterize him as having a redeemable quality and for him to be ‘likable.’ Because he shows no kindness, no tenderness, and no charm in any way, the reader has to rely on the fact that the author established his supposed morality to find him the least bit likable. He is hypocritical, talking about how any guy who forces himself onto women or children deserves to be tortured. Meanwhile, here he is, going into this girl’s house, forcing himself onto her.
Many sexual assault survivors deal with guilt about their assault because they felt pleasured during the process. Arousal is not a form of consent; many people get aroused when their body experiences anything inherently sexual. She begged him to stop, talked about how it hurt, and he left her crying in a ball after he was done with her. And according to reviewers online, many people share this opinion: “He goes on and on about how those men should burn in hell for what they’ve done. Yet here he is casually and remorselessly stalking and abusing a girl in his free time. Nothing that came out of his mouth was swoony, hot, or sexy to me,” an anonymous Goodreads reviewer said.
These situations are perceived as desirable and according to TikTok commentators, it is “something I want to experience.” Many girls on TikTok refer to Zade Meadows as their ‘book boyfriend’ and how everything he does to Adeline is ‘so hot’, yet it is just assault hiding behind a thin veil of manipulation. Other viewers fail to understand how he turns around and does exactly what those men did to those girls, to Adeline, and how because he is the male main character, it’s romantic.
A sub-genre of dark romance is “taboo romance,” another form of the forbidden love trope that is far more harmful than Romeo and Juliet ever was. A good example of a taboo romance is Credence by Penelope Douglas. In a very short summary, Credence is about a 17-year-old girl named Tiernan who suddenly becomes orphaned, and since she is not yet an adult, is left to an estranged step-uncle. She picks up her life and moves to a remote location in Colorado with her step-uncle Jake and step-cousins Noah and Kaleb. Throughout the book, Tiernan is assaulted both physically and sexually, and she is groomed by her step-uncle and coerced into an intimate relationship with him. Kaleb breaks into her bedroom at night, forcefully holding her to the bed and writing a slur on her forehead. Many more horribly inappropriate things happen to Tiernan in this book, and while all of these events are taking place, she is underage and still in high school. This book completely romanticizes Tiernan being in a relationship with her uncle because “She has daddy issues and didn’t know any better.” Says an Amazon reviewer. From the first time she meets Kaleb, he pushes her against a car and kisses her forcefully. Holding her in place while she struggled to get away, and somehow this is the guy she falls in love with.
It is crucial to understand how detrimental these books can be to audiences. Showing women that controlling and uncaring men are desirable, opens the door for women to potentially fall into an toxic relationship while thinking of it as ‘romantic’. I am in no way saying that these authors are promoting assault with their writing, or they wish that on any of their readers, but we as a community must realize when ‘dark romance’ has gone too far. Both authors and readers have been guilty of glorifying these kinds of relationships and it has filtered through Booktok as a whole. Dripping through to romance, and romantasy, and normalizing these kinds of main characters. When it comes down to it dark romance is slowly becoming the new standard for book romance, and it’s a problem.
Lyon Life 