……hey, I just want to make clear once more that I do not look down or think of these books in any negative way, regardless of some of the jokes I made! I am fully aware of the extremely sexist reputation these books unfortunately have… I am commenting this before even uploading the video so I haven’t seen any comments, but the last thing I want to come off as to anyone is another man ridiculing something made predominately by women, for women. I was curious, and I am glad to have scratched this itch… never again tho :\ (…maybe) lots of love, Happy V-Day 💟

"i've never read romance" oh so the masterpiece "get in my swamp" meant nothing to you...

LET PEOPLE BE ASEXUAL IN FICTION!!!!!

shawn: "I read classics" also shawn: *reads swamp and modelland* we love the range

It’s really refreshing to see someone who doesn’t want smut EVERYWHERE. I personally don’t enjoy it, I don’t like when the whole plot revolves around s*x and it feels like everyone in the book community just wants smut, smut, smut these days. I also found the dialogue in these books cringey and overall agree with your opinion.

The Goodreads updates where a cry for help tbh 😭

this explains your goodreads over the last week i just thought u were becoming a romcom girly

Watching you at Red White and Royal Blue saying the spice level was too much, and the next book being the Kiss Quotient, was hilarious and unfortunate.

i’ve been stalking your good reads i knew this was coming

lesbians>>>>>>>

Would’ve never expected THE shawn mccomb to be holding a contemporary romance?!!?!!?

I want to be a romance girly but subplot romance in fantasy books hit so much more

i need shawn to read SJM books because i feel like that would be entertaining.

Honestly being single is superior because you can’t be broken up with :) I’m okay I promise 😛

i love you mother shawn

Shawn reading crappy romance books? Its all we’ve ever wanted

romance as a subplot > romance as the main plot

“if there’s anybody that can fix a situation, it is lesbians” thanks for the shoutout

good romance book = this is how you lose the time war !!!! (sci-fi, time travel, beautifully written, short, queer……….. need i say more?)

now which geneva convention imposed this punishment on him

your thoughts on kiss quotient really moved me. i had issues with touch in the past and was with a guy in my early 20s. i was trying so hard to work through my issues and he told me one day "what's the point of you if you won't even put out? why should i still be with you?" it was one of the worst feelings in the world. hearing your thoughts on this book was so refreshing and eye opening. i tried to love this book because i thought it'd be a book i could relate to and feel seen in, instead it just felt really weird to me as well. thank you for sharing these thoughts!

knew something was fishy with your goodreads

God wherever you live is fucking beautiful

8:34 I love that this has the same tone as a dramatic monologue

we are married in my mind so happy love day, love ❤

The book covers are always giving " Middle school book fair" .

as a fellow elitist with an english degree, I am disappointed to say book lovers by emily henry does in fact eat

I read The Kiss Quotient about 2 years ago and I actually kinda thought the opposite of Michael, I really appreciated and found it refreshing how patient he was with Stella and how he let her decide their limits and what they do/don’t do whenever they’re together bc a LOT of romcom men are so hypersexual and selfish and gross and say the weirdest most power-tripped shit ever so for the MMC to actually put the FMC first and respect her was nice 🧘‍♀️🧘‍♀️

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever. It’s not really romance but it’s queer and the passion and obsession between the two main characters is amazing. Also no uncomfortable s*x descriptions!

I love this cult

i’ve never liked romance (and romantasy which is very popular rn either) but for a while now i’ve been really into danmei xianxia (gay chinese fantasy) and i think it’s the best thing out there currently that combines good writing, interesting plot & deeply romantic storylines .. i’m not sure if i’m not biased for whatever reason but it genuinely felt like a breath of fresh air

you forgot to mention ur Shrek fanfic romance.... u r a scholar

I don't gravitate towards romance a lot, but when I'm reading like a very dense fantasy novel I do like it when there is a romance involved to break up the tension a little. That being said, I hate it when serious books are too smutty? When I wanna read smut or just brainless fluff, I'll go to ao3 to get my fill. But when a book has a serious tone about politics or war or whatever, smut or cheesy romance always throws me off balance lol

maybe the real slow burn romance was between me and seeing you rate all of these on goodreads

12:23 that wedding description sounds like something medieval Europeans would write on bestiaries or tales of uncharted lands, some shit like that, helppp💀💀💀

romance is basically the least original genre because people go to it for the same experience over and over again.

I’m so glad you posted this video, I was craving the propaganda of the mccomb cult

romance recommendations: beach read & book lovers (both by emily henry)! pwmov is...very different from her other works 😭 i'd say that emily henry's best books focus primarily on women-their grief and relationships-and the romance comes secondary to that.

On a more serious note, I do want to get into romance! Maybe I just have to suspend disbelief and just give way to the delusion…🤔😩🤭

call me by your name (romantic and beautifully written), seven days in june (characters have a developed story on their own outside of the relationship), out on a limb (so wholesome), beautiful world were are you by sally rooney: some of my fav romances

Love is in the air

I love it when people who don’t like romance read it and hate it And I say this as a romance book reader that is literally all I read

Happy Valentines Gayyyy Shawnnnnnn

Its just crazy that the books that get alot of “hype”, i guess, play heavy into negative stereotypes, cringy lines, or unrealistic choices/decisions. Its hard for me to get into Romance novels without having to roll my eyes back. I blame miss girl Hoover for popularizing it.

shawn you’re literally glowing the entire video i loveeee

I'm living for this Shawn x romance crossover. I'm so sorry you had to go through all that for this video, I feel your pain

Every time I slip into depression you post a new video coincidentally and get me out of it again, thank you queen

romance books feel like a fever dream and i am so impressed at your ability to read some of these

This is how you lose the time war is my favorite romance & the best written book I've read ever. PLEASE READ IT. the writing is SO GOOD💕 😭😭😭💕

I can’t BELIEVE you didn’t mention the fact that red white and royal blue was originally Jesse Eisenberg/Andrew Garfield fanfiction

I really loved one last stop. Yeah maybe it's not as super realistic and some smut scenes were kinda weird but as a lesbian it means a lot to me to even have some kind of literature that's not straight and I really emphasized with the characters. I never sobbed so hard at a book and I love them both ❤

tbh the only reason i follow shawn's videos religiously is bc of the nature breaks ( his very humble personality aside). They are so beautiful and it motivated to go on a hike last week :)

ur legit my fave booktuber ur reviews always make my day

I love when Shawn shows a little bit of his life, like, the scenes where he goes to the forest with his dog are just beautifullll

I generally don't like romance, but I enjoy the very specific type where the romance isn't the main focus of the story, but it does make sense in the context of the story. So like Bridget Jones' Diary and Shopaholic. It's difficult to find these books in the massive ocean of romance though. The balance is hard to strike; often you'll have a story that's good, where the romance feels forced in, or you'll have an uninteresting story that obviously only exists to facilitate the (often very flimsily constructed) romance plot. I've really been on the lookout for romance books that sound like I would like them though, because I know they are out there, and I need palate cleansers sometimes, just some good clean fun happy ending stuff to balance out the dark and gritty depressing stuff I read the rest of the time 🤪 so if anyone reading this has suggestions, do let me know.

real (i haven’t watched the video yet)

seeing the freak out on goodreads -> this video is really something

“Unbelievably unoriginal and bland” is how I would describe all contemporary romance. I’ve read a few that I found cute, but the majority of them were DNF’d for me.

I never read romance (never will probably), but I loved this one! Oh and the contrast between the deep woods, sad piano and junk literature was evidence of your true talent!

26:12 I've never touched that book yet I felt all the betrayal and despear through those eyes lmfao Used to be a huge "romance reader" but I've stopped toward High School where I got more into thriller, Sci-fi, Dystopia, horror etc... So I wanted to read a little more romance in 2024. I've bought romance novels recommanded by booktok and I've never been more disappointed. It's not even romance it's just p*rn with a plot : the relationships are mid, sometimes toxic, and the main characters are insufferable most of the time, and the story doesn't make sense. Glad to see that I'm not the only one thinking that 😭

I knew this was coming - an avid goodreads stalker.

i’ve been waiting for you video this week!!

I was so excited for Red, White, and Royal Blue but then when i read it i realized the characters barely had personality then when they got together they somehow had less personality than before

i don’t even read romance but you and you’re editing skills are hilarious 😂

i'm also not really a romance person, but one book that i loved was "grandmaster of demonic cultivation" by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. it's chinese and has a lot of drama and plot and a touching gay romance, what else can you want? i wouldn't recommend reading the extra scenes if you don't want the spice though, they don't add anything to the plot anyway

You’re a brave soul venturing into the romance category

AAAAH so excited to see you absolutely shit on these popular romance books.

The way i saw your goodreads this week and just knew there was a valentine's video coming LOL loved ittt i like discovered your yt channel this week and i've been binging it like crazy HAHA they're just so entertaining to watch lol

shawns personality feels like the personification of the exquisite word ✨bingus✨

Shawna, you are so unbelievably smart and brilliant and superfragilistic and luminiferous and intelligent!! Romance is for crazy goofy silly girls!😝 You keep calm and carey (Mariah) on! #Intellectual4Lyfe😘💌💖😍

as someone who dabbles in romance books between heavier books to escape, i agree with your takes on RWRB and OLS. RWRB is so silly but its fun, the characters have chemisty and it's well written, and i love it for that. OLS was great untill the time travel thing was introduced, it's so under explored and absolutely ruined the book for me. my recommendations for romance books you might like better are The Charm Offensive by Alice Cochran, because there are other things going on apart from the romance that keep it interesting and honestly a bunch of reasons that I can't summerise here, just read the synopses :) Yerba Buena, The Killing Code and Last Night at the Telegraph Club are also all really amazing to me but probably because they technically aren't actually romance books in the traditional sence, definitely not romcoms but yeah there you go. great video shawn :)

was watching your goodreads in terror glad i can witness the journey

loved the outtakes at the end. please make that a recurring thing. please. and thank you.

Have you read tender is the flesh? It's horrific and beautiful. I've realized that 90% of romance books bore the life out of me....

ur skin is GLOWING

I need to see Shawn read some mafia romances

You explaining the plot of one last stop is my new favorite moment in human history. I am passing out of laughter.

Beach Read by Emily Henry is really good, you might like it, but it´s no "get in my swamp"

i am a romance book lover and I just have to agree with you in everything like you chose the worst books of this genre lol

it gives me so much satisfaction to see you hate the same books i do

I had a lot of fun with your video!!😂 It is difficult to find the romance book that suits you, I think it depends on each person and sometimes it's hard. What I read the most is romance, although old (very fan of classic books). I can recommend Gabriel's inferno by Sylvain Reynard, it has wonderful prose (it is a trilogy) they are books that deal with many topics such as literature, art, history and classical music, they are really interesting and the core of everything is love. I found them very entertaining and really enjoyed learning about different things.

Definition of Shawn : Cuz it's iconic, and LoVe to do iconic ✨shit✨

what will it take to convince you to read ice planet barbarians?

We appreciate your insights. You'll always have our support.

i need this as a series

'In Five Years' was a really touching romance book. I'm not a super big romance reader but I picked this one up on a fluke and found it to be a really interesting story and a pretty unconventional one. Does not follow the romance formula at all, and will make you cry for reasons you will not expect. It's quite existential while still being about all things love. I really related to the main character in a lot of ways I didn't expect. It honestly really kept me on my toes but isn't written at a breakneck speed. It's a book I still think about a lot for many different reasons. I think you'd enjoy it. There are also some kind of controversial things that happen but not in like a piss you off way but in like a oh man how would I approach that? Except one part that was like WHAT? so yeah please read that one it's also very short!! And has a pretty cover. and it's also really sad, which I've gathered is something you enjoy about books. (also I guarantee it will be better if you don't read the synopsis first!)

i’m so glad i’m not the only one who was completely unaware that one last stop was a mystery/supernatural (??) book and felt like it completely killed the vibe ….

as a non romance book reader, thanks for the reviews so i don’t have to pick up these books anytime soon i did read rwrb and enjoyed it a lot cos of the escapism it gave me

In 2023, I suffered from a mix of rabies AND brain rot (also medically known as depression), so to divert my mind from dark things I read a shit ton of romance books, and here are some I think you might enjoy…or more likely tolerate: Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake (!) The Seven Year Slip & The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston (these have a magical realism twist, but it’s done sort of well, plus the are no cringy sex scenes) My Oxford Year (sort of kinda doesn’t have the third act conflict + it doesn’t really follow the usual romance book structure) Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett (this is YA that has a very 2014 feel, but it’s good. made me miss my teenage years (I'm 20)) And one anti-romance: First Love by Turgenev

oh this is going to be such a disaster🤭

since you liked the roommates in One last stop, feel like you would like the ones in Honey girl as well, it's also sapphic romance but the romance isn't the only focus

I’m so glad you like RWRB bc it’s so good 😭

I love seeing an aussie with a tail! your dog is so cute ❤

My favorite romances: Alone with you in the ether Lie with me (I´ts literary fiction focused on a love story) Divine rivals (I´m a sucker for love letters) Love theoretically and The love hypothesis both by Ali hazlewood (i think she´s the only contemporary romance author i like)

im sorry the books weren't too entertaining for you, but this video sure was for me. the editing, your comments, i loved everything about it

i'd recommend something like stars in your eyes by kacen callender, where you get a little more emotional depth than a standard cutesy romcom. or maybe something like Big gay wedding by byron lane, a really fun book where the romance isn't really the center of the story but still is an important part (this one is similar to like schitt's creek). i've found that i'm personally not a romcom person either, they're just way too formulaic and corny - i enjoy more serious romances, more like litfic. try Shark Heart or something by sally rooney (can't remember if you've read her before)

istg shawn's reaction to the every book synopsis was SO SO FUNNY and REAL!!! HAHAHAHHA 🤣🤣🤣

i've been waiting for this one🤭

seven days in june is a romance that literally changed my brain chemistry its THAT good

You should read the queen of the night! It’s not necessarily romance or actually romance at all, but I feel like you would LOVE IT