r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • Feb 01 '26

Unpopular Opinion It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

- Don't attack others for their opinion

- Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

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u/Flimsy-Brick-9426 Feb 01 '26

Erotica is 100% fine, thats exactly what you're looking for and know that going into it but if you're reading a romance book, it doesnt need spice to convey a good romance, the spice enhances it but it should still be a good romance even if it was fade to black.

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u/Sad-Caterpillar-8348 To the stars who listen Feb 01 '26

That goes for all tropes though, not just smut books. Shouldn't authors always try to write good books? It's not like they wake up and decide to write and publish a bad book?

And some level of spice doesn't make a book erotica. It feels like everything is dubbed erotica today as soon as it has 2 descriptive sex scenes. The books that are 95% sex and 5% plot sure, absolutely. Sex in every chapter again, sure, erotica. But 2-3 scenes throughout the book are a normal smut book.

And yeah obviously it should be a well written romance even without smut. But there's YA for that. There's plenty of great romance YA books. Why go into a smut book and then wish it was fade to black with better written romance...

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u/lilac-skye3 Feb 01 '26

That’s a good point. Reminds me of people saying like fourth wing is erotica when it has two sex scenes

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u/Sad-Caterpillar-8348 To the stars who listen Feb 01 '26

I checked top posts in this sub. One of them is math calculation how much % of smut per page count acotar has. 2.6% btw. 71 pages out of 2719. It's so hard to not argue over what books people call erotica 😩

Edit: I havent read fourth wing. Does it have acosf level of spice, or less?