We talk a lot about the responsibility authors have when they write dark romance, and especially pitch-black romance. There should be trigger warnings. The genre should be clear. The reader should be told what kind of content they are about to walk into so they can make an informed choice before reading it.
And yes. I agree, but when are we going to start talking about the reader's responsibility?
Because somewhere in this, that has to exist too.
If you normally read self-help, romantasy, contemporary romance or maybe smut where what you're really looking for is some extra spice, and then you decide to pick up something that is very clearly labelled DARK ROMANCE or PITCH BLACK, surely some of the responsibility is on you to actually find out what the fuck you are about to read?
And especially if you open the trigger list and already think... yeah, no, this probably isn't for me.
Why do you keep reading?
That is the part I genuinely don't understand with some people.
Because then suddenly, you're on TikTok, Instagram or sitting in a live absolutely trashing the book, the author and sometimes even the readers.
"How can anyone like this?"
"What is wrong with people who read this?"
"Nobody should ever read this book."
Wait a fucking minute.
You had the information and still you decided to continue, and now everybody else is the problem?
You are allowed to hate a book if no one told you that before. I genuinely do not care if you give it one star. Every book is not supposed to work for every reader.
But there is a massive difference between saying, "This book was way too dark for me and I hated reading it," and deciding that your reaction is somehow the universal truth about the book and everyone who loves it.
Because do you know what you might actually be sitting there making fun of?
Someone else's life.
The thing you're calling sick, disgusting or completely fucked up might be very close to something someone watching you has actually lived through.
And maybe, for the first time, that person can approach something similar through a story while still having control over it.
They can close the book, stop, go back, skip something, get angry or even recognize something.
Maybe they get to think – Fuck, Okay. I'm not alone.
And then they open social media and somebody is sitting there laughing at the exact thing they just recognized in themselves, telling everyone that people who love that book must be sick.
Where did the respect go?
And where the fuck did basic human compassion go?
I'm not saying everyone who reads dark romance has trauma. Of course they don't. People read it because it's exciting, dark, sexual, fucked up, intense and because they like the thriller aspect or simply because dark fiction is their thing.
The point is YOU DON'T KNOW why the person next to you is reading it, you haven't lived their life.
And this is also why the whole moral panic around dark literature annoys me so much, because apparently darkness comes with one very strange exception… àFantasy.
Darkness can be almost anything in fantasy.
Murder. Torture. War. Manipulation. Abuse of power. Sexual violence. Entire kingdoms being destroyed. Morally grey men who have done enough shit to spend several lifetimes in prison.
And then he is "complex." He is "morally grey." We talk about his trauma, his childhood, his motives, why he became the person he is.
Fine.
Now remove the dragon and give him a car instead of a sword. Put him in a city that looks like ours and put ROMANCE on the cover and suddenly some people seem to lose the ability to understand that they're still reading fiction.
Now the woman holding the book has to be analyzed.
"How can she like him?"
"Does she want a man to treat her like that?"
"It's dangerous for women to read this."
No… I can read about a man doing something completely fucking insane and think, if a real man did that to me, I would run in the opposite direction and still love the fictional character, It really isn't that complicated.
I know what consent is. I know the difference between fantasy and reality. I don't need a dragon standing behind him before my brain understands that I'm reading a book.
But there is another part of this I've started paying attention to, and that part isn't really about books at all.
It's about human behaviour.
I honestly don't care much about the person who says, "Nope, that genre isn't for me."
Fine, go read something else.
What makes me curious is when somebody gets so fucking angry about what OTHER adults read that it turns into humiliation, threats, harassment and trying to control what complete strangers are allowed to enjoy.
At that point we're not just talking about a book review anymore.
We're looking at behaviors, and behavior comes from somewhere.
Nobody is born with a ready-made list of which people, sexualities, books, political views or ways of living they are supposed to hate.
We are shaped by our families, society, religion, culture, politics, experience, everything we've been taught is right and wrong, everything people around us called normal and everything that has happened to us along the way.
Trauma and fear can shape us. Shame, ignorance, morality, the need to fit in, group pressure and our own experiences can shape us.
That does NOT mean I can watch someone screaming about a book on TikTok and say, "You have trauma."
No.
That is not how psychology works. But I'm also not going to pretend people just wake up one morning with an overwhelming need to control complete strangers for absolutely no reason.
And that's where I think about the wall.
People build walls around themselves for all kinds of reasons. Fear. Shame. Old experiences. Identity. Values. Things they don't want to look at in themselves.
I don't know what is hiding behind somebody else's wall, and I'm not going to pretend I do.
But when that wall becomes so fucking thick that you need to scream at, humiliate or threaten other people just to defend it, I become a lot more interested in the wall than I am in your book review.
Because we're also shaped massively by what society expects us to be, and I think a lot of people go through life without ever stopping to ask where their own values actually came from.
What is a good woman supposed to want?
What should a relationship look like?
Which fantasies are acceptable?
What's disgusting?
What's normal?
What am I allowed to say out loud if I still want to fit in?
And when you've lived inside that mold for long enough, I imagine it becomes pretty difficult to even see that there is any mold anymore.
You just think… This is me, and that's one of the things I fucking love about literature.
A book can rub against something inside you, and it can make you stop and think, "Why the hell did I react so strongly to that?"
It can make you realize that something you thought you wanted isn't actually what you want at all, or the complete opposite.
It can show you something about yourself you had never even considered before, but that requires being willing to be curious about yourself. And sometimes it is a hell of a lot easier to scream at everybody else.
The louder you scream, the less likely anyone is to come close enough to start asking what is actually behind the wall.
There are extremists everywhere too. Dark romance included. Of course there are.
There are extremists in religion, politics, feminism, fandoms, kink, gaming, fantasy... everywhere, but the problem is that extreme people are usually the loudest.
The completely normal person sitting at home reading their fucked-up little book, closing it afterwards, making a coffee and continuing with their perfectly ordinary life isn't going viral.
So, a handful of people end up representing everyone, and eventually we end up right back where we started.
Responsibility.
If we expect an author to take responsibility for telling you what is inside their book, then you as the reader also must take some responsibility for what you choose to do with that information.
The author can put in a lot of trigger warnings in the book for you,
The author can write DARK ROMANCE or plaster PITCH BLACK across the entire fucking cover in neon letters.
The author still cannot stand beside your bed and tell you -
"Hey... this one really isn't for you. Put it down." That part is yours and if you decide to read it anyway, of course you're still allowed to have an opinion afterwards, make sure to tell everyone on booktok, Instagram, friends, bookclub that it is YOUR opinion and not the only opinion everyone should have just because you were not the intended reader for that book.
You haven't lived everybody's life, and you don't know what everybody else needs from a story. So, hate the book if you want, skip the trigger warnings for the thrill and get a feeling of awesomeness. But be very careful “when you realize that the book was not for you” to shame and trash the authors and readers for your stupidity and lack of responsibility.
You should have enough self-awareness to say - "This book wasn't for me, but I understand the readers that love this one, it’s just that I can’t connect to this." “For me this one was to dark for ME” Instead of - "Nobody should ever pick up this book and read it." Because you are not everybody, and you don’t have the right to shame for fame, likes and followers.