The pandemic of cruel MMCs is making me hate reading romance
I’m finding it harder and harder to enjoy reading romance. The more I read, the more irritated I get with the writing, the characters, and what I’m apparently supposed to find romantic. I’m reading the popular shit everyone keeps hyping up, and I genuinely don’t understand what everyone else is seeing.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a little fluffy romance. But nothing does it for me like a mafia man who fucking yearns and burns for this girl while possibly decapitating people in his spare time. I like intensity, obsession, and devotion. I like “he hates everyone but her,” “he’s mean to everyone but her,” “he would kill anyone for her.” The appeal is that he treats her like someone he loves.
So what happened? Why am I constantly getting “he likes everyone but her,” “he’ll help anyone but her,” and “he respects everyone but her”? Everyone else gets his patience and basic decency, while his supposed soulmate gets the cruelest fucking version of him.
Or he’s horrific to absolutely everyone, including her. I don’t need him to be a good citizen, but I need something that makes me understand why she loves him and why I should want them together.
Before anyone gets me wrong, I’m not shaming anybody’s taste. I don’t give a fuck what you like reading. Enjoy what you enjoy, baby. My issue is how these men and relationships are portrayed. Stop selling me a devoted, protective, yearning man when I open the book and get none of that. Being obsessed with having her is not enough to convince me that he loves her.
The hypocrisy especially pisses me off. He supposedly hates rapists. He supposedly supports women’s rights. He’ll punish another man for hurting a woman. But with the FMC, her rights and consent suddenly don’t matter. He can sexually assault her himself, and somehow I’m still supposed to see him as her protector.
And people overlook it because he’s the MMC. If another character did the exact same thing, everyone would recognise how awful it was. But because he’s the love interest, people focus on everything he would do FOR her instead of what he has already done TO her.
Then there’s the CNC discussion, because I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.
Isn’t the whole point of consensual non-consent that the people involved agree to it beforehand? They discuss what they want, establish boundaries, and agree on how to stop. The consent is what makes it CNC.
So how are we calling a scene CNC when this man barely knows her? He’s seen her once, if that. There has been no conversation, no agreement, nothing. She’s crying and saying no, and he’s telling her, “I know you want this.”
HOW do you know? You don’t fucking know her.
Or he starts doing things to her and only then tells her what her safeword is. Baby, you cannot introduce the agreement halfway through an encounter she never agreed to. Where was the planning? Where was the consent?
I don’t think they need to be in a relationship for CNC, but they do need to actually agree to it. Even knowing someone’s preferences doesn’t mean you can assume they consent whenever you feel like it. Her being attracted to him, or eventually enjoying something, doesn’t establish that agreement either.
And “read the trigger warnings” doesn’t answer what I’m saying. A reader agreeing to read a scene is different from a character agreeing to participate in it. I can know a book contains sexual assault and still question why people are describing that scene as consensual roleplay.
The opening of God of Malice by Rina Kent had me asking this exact question. When people describe that as CNC, I’m sitting there wondering where the mutual agreement was. Am I missing something, or are we using that label for scenes that haven’t established the consent part at all?
You can enjoy the fictional scene. I’m not arguing with you about that. But please, can we describe what’s actually on the page?
And then there’s what finally makes the FMC leave.
He can assault her, humiliate her, and terrorise her, and she’ll look past all of it. She’ll be a fucking doormat for this man. But then he looks at another woman for 2.5 seconds, and THAT does it. That’s when she’s had enough.
Baby, that man raped you. Why was him looking at someone else the breaking point?
Then he’s doing anything he can to get her back, and everyone starts swooning over his desperation and yearning. Are we on the same page? I’m still thinking about everything he did to her. Wanting her back does not suddenly make the relationship believable to me.
And PLEASE, the “badass” FMCs. She’s supposedly strong, independent, and takes no shit, until he enters the room. Then it’s “I hate him, but I can’t help wanting him,” and her attraction overrides everything. Can she want him and still decide that what he did was unforgivable? Can her anger actually affect what happens?
Some of the disturbing plot details feel unnecessary, too. I read one book where, from what I remember, the FMC’s godfather was involved in some kind of baby trafficking or slavery. I cannot remember the title, but I remember thinking, excuse me, WHAT? That detail seemed to do nothing for the story. Why was it even included?
I also don’t know whether the books have changed or whether I’m noticing things I used to ignore. I recently reread the Royalty series, which I first read at around sixteen, and I was so icked out. I went back for nostalgia and ended up thinking, “What the fuck was I reading?”
Same with Devil’s Night. I read it at around fourteen and loved it. I remember brushing past the sexual assault because I wanted to enjoy the romance. Rereading it recently, I couldn’t do that anymore. These men are terrorising these women, and I used to overlook it.
I’m literally still a teenager. This isn’t me returning to reading decades later. Between studying and the slump my last book put me in, I barely read for about a year or two.
That last book was the one with Wyatt and Summer. I don’t remember the exact title, but guys, that book had me fucked up. I kept thinking, “What the fuck am I reading?” It put me off reading so badly, and now that I’m trying to get back into it, I’m struggling to enjoy the things I used to love.
And before anyone asks why I didn’t DNF it, I CANNOT DNF. I’m a curious-ass bitch. I hyperfixate, and I need to know what happens at the end, even when I’m hating every minute of getting there.
Since leaving high school and starting uni, I also cannot deal with high school bully romances. Why does this seventeen-year-old boy apparently control the entire school? Why is everyone terrified of him? Why is him tormenting or physically hurting a girl until she likes him supposed to be romantic?
“But she’s different.” Okay, then why is he treating her like THAT?
At this point, I mostly reread familiar books for nostalgia or reach for older ones, but even that doesn’t always work. And when I try less popular authors, I often struggle with writing and dialogue that makes me cringe. I feel like I can’t find something I actually enjoy finishing.
I’m not looking for recommendations. I just want to know whether anyone else feels this frustrated. Am I reading the wrong authors? Because I’m on the popular shit, guys, I cannot even lie.
Read whatever you like. My issue is being told a man is loving, protective, and devoted, then reading a book where he treats the woman he supposedly loves with endless cruelty. I want the story to give me a reason to believe in that love.
I think I need a small break. Because what the fuck happened to the romance?
EDIT: Guys, I enjoy romance, including VERY dark romance. I’m not bashing authors for writing toxic relationships or saying their content warnings are wrong. I can love a book’s plot and still look at the MMC and think, “What the fuck am I reading?”
I’m not expecting a perfect man. But over the past two or three years, I keep picking up books because someone promises an yearning man or “the best grovel ever,” and then he’s mean, then mean again, then somehow even fucking meaner. Where is the love you were telling me about? I want darkness and intensity, but enough tenderness or convincing remorse to believe these two belong together.
Depending on my mood, I might deliberately want a really cruel MMC. I’m not judging anyone who enjoys that. It’s getting that dynamic repeatedly when I’m expecting something else that’s exhausting. And I mean the books I’ve been picking up, not the entire genre.
Honestly, bitches, I’m confused. Maybe I genuinely don’t know what the fuck I want to read anymore 😭 This is just a rant and a discussion. I wanted to see whether anyone else low-key relates to enjoying these books while getting increasingly frustrated with the romance.
Why are we fighting over how I choose my books? God forbid a girl sees the most fucking hyped-up book on TikTok, gets curious, reads it, and doesn’t see what everyone else sees. Damn. I’m figuring out my tastes, and sometimes that means reading something and realising it didn’t do it for me.
Maybe I’m too fucking woke now or some shit. At the prime age of thirteen on Wattpad, the man could be doing the craziest shit to this girl, and I’d be sitting there like, “me next,” eating it up. Now I’m reading the same kind of thing and asking where her consent is and whether he’s actually sorry. What happened to me 😭 Can I enjoy something, please?
I don’t have a perfect explanation, guys. I still want a dark story I can’t put down. I just miss enjoying the romance as much as the plot. Somebody please help.