u/bookanim3s

i might get some heat for this take, but i feel like the romantasy/ fantasy genre has SERIOUSLY declined in quality writing.

i want to preface this whole thing by saying that if you like it, READ IT. i am not here to discuss whether books are bad or not. I just feel like the commercial side of the genre is now targeted toward marketability over originality. it feels like the publishers are chasing whatever went viral on booktok/ bookstagram instead of investing in stories with distinct voices/ plot.

romantasy has become insanely formulaic, pretty much. and because of that, many books feel interchangeable. the same brooding mmc, the same ‘morally grey’ fmc, the same enemies-to-lovers banter, the same plot, and even scenes that feel a little too familiar from other series.

now, i’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum. i can get behind a formulaic plot if the rest of it is well written and fleshed out. the unfortunate thing is that they aren’t (and before i get yelled at, two things can be true at once: a book can be entertaining, but not well written. like how tv shows have bad acting but you can’t help but love the show). too many of these books are less thought out than the fantasy books/series that inspired them. the prose is weaker, the characterization is shallower, the worldbuilding is…severely lacking, and the editing is nonexistent.

my issue isn’t that books are inspired by other books, though, because I know that every author is inspired by something. my issue is that when these books are starting to feel like they have no creative identity of their own. like, specifically with romantasy/ fantasy, you can do ANYTHING you want to. the sky is the limit and yet we still choose the same plot, the same characters, the same dynamics.

if I can point to the protagonist from series A, but trace the romance dynamic to series B, the magic system to series C, and specific scene structures to series D, then at that point the book just starts feeling like a collage of tropes and quote farming.

i fear tiktok and social media are heavily to blame, but i also think authors deserve some criticism when their books feel too derivative or underdeveloped. also, at what point do we turn to the PUBLISHERS? they deserve a lot of that criticism too. they are the ones deciding which books get picked up, edited, marketed, and put on shelves. if we constantly get books that feel rushed, repetitive, or like they needed another round of editing, then it begs the question on why publishers are more focused on chasing the next cash grab/ trend instead of publishing the strongest stories.

what do you guys think? have you felt the same? do you feel opposite? i’d love to discuss this.

So I (26F) am engaged to my fiance (29M). We’ve been engaged for about a year and a half, and we are planning a wedding for October 2026. His mother, him, and myself are in an argument at the moment about a bridal shower because they both feel I HAVE to have one and I do not want one.

For context that is relevant overall: I moved from my hometown to his hometown a few years ago. All of my friends and family are 3-4 hours away by car. He is VERY family oriented, as he has a very large family with loads of cousins and aunts and uncles and whatnot. They get together constantly for holidays and reunions and all of that. I, on the other hand, have a very small family and we’re not particularly close aside from my immediate family (mom, dad, sister, brother), but even then I only see them 1-2 times a year since I moved. We never celebrated holidays or any of that growing up.

Because of that, I have never really seen the appeal in large gatherings, as I am quite introverted and for lack of a better term, shy. I don’t enjoy making small talk with strangers. I don’t like being the center of attention. I didn’t have a grad party + bday parties because of it. My fiancés family is the opposite and likes to celebrate anything and everything.

When we got engaged, I was quite vocal about not wanting to do the big wedding thing, as it’s expensive and I know I wouldn’t enjoy a day where I am literally the center of attention. It’s draining to think about. My fiancé and his family are the ones who wanted a big wedding celebration and I decided I could suck it up for a day and do the big thing. The wedding is going to be decently large, about 150-170 people from his side and about 20-30 from my side.

Now for the problem: His mom is trying to plan a bridal shower for me. I had said I didn’t really want one (as I don’t like parties centered around myself and having people sit and stare at me while I open gifts). She wants to invite like literally every woman from their side of the family to this thing, including people I don’t even talk to/ have never met.

His mom is HOUNDING me for a date for a bridal shower, but it seems that any dates that I have available, my mom or my sister or my friends can’t make it because they have other things going on. I was getting all stressed out about trying to figure it out, but then I was just kind of like ‘I don’t even want one, so why am I stressing about this?’ I mentioned to his mom that there isn’t a weekend that matches up for my side of friends and family, and her response was ‘well, if they can’t make it, then they can’t make it’

I felt this was really off putting because I thought that a bridal shower was supposed to celebrate me (the bride)? Why would I want to celebrate with a bunch of people I barely know while MY people can’t even be there? I expressed again that I didn’t even want to have one and she got kind of upset and then just started saying that I HAVE to have one.

Well, I told my fiancé that I felt like his mom was getting annoyed or something with me because she was acting a little cold toward me after I mentioned not having one at all, and he pretty much agreed with her that I need to have one because of gifts/ his mom has already been putting things together and things like that. They’re both making me feel…guilty for not wanting one?

I’ll admit that after my fiancé agreed with his mom, that I sort of snapped out on him because I didn’t even want to have a big wedding in the first place, and yet I’m the one who’s doing a majority of the planning, and I feel like I’m not being heard and what I want doesn’t matter here. It’s feeling less like a wedding to celebrate us and more like something for HIS family, if that makes sense? I told him that if he and his mother want me to have a bridal shower so bad then they can plan one and have it themselves since it was clear what I wanted wasn’t even being considered.

Now, I feel like I’m overreacting about the whole thing because of how I blew up at him about it and how adamant they’re being about having one in the first place. I just feel like I have BEEN compromising about a lot for wedding stuff anyways, and it’s like what I want isn’t being considered.