The Power of Escape in Dark Times
A COURT OF THORN AND ROSES and the Romance/Romantasy World
For our latest episode of “The Beautiful and Banned,” I had the best conversation with
from Romancing the Phone (you should subscribe right now) about A Court of Thorn and Roses. These wildly popular books are banned from school districts in the entire state of Utah—which is also the place that has the highest number of people searching for the title on Google—as well as lots of other places in the US.Insiders call the series ACOTAR, and Alyssa and I discuss BookTok, the rise of Romance and Romantasy, why this series in particular is so threatening to people who want to censor books, as well as some missteps the publisher made in the beginning (these are definitely not books for 11-13 year olds, as they were originally marketed!).
Alyssa, an Austin friend whose work demystifies BookTok, is so brilliant, and I loved getting to pick her brain about what is happening in our country right now and understand the latest trends in publishing. This is definitely a conversation you want to listen in on!
Here are our questions for discussion:
Are you an ACOTAR fan? If so, what do you like about the series? If not, what do you find problematic? We can agree we don’t want the books banned and also…have some thoughts. (Bonus points if you bring up bear attacks or Chapter 55.)
Are you Team Rhys or Team Tamlin?
If you do not want to weigh in on THIS particular love triangle, are you Team Gale or Team Peeta? Team Edward or Team Jacob? Defend your choice with at least one sentence—or just leave it there, chaos agent that you are.
In the show notes, we list some favorite romance and romantasy books—feel free to drop your recs below too!
For an upcoming episode, Christine and I will discuss Notes of Native Son by James Baldwin, so read ahead with us!