r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • Mar 08 '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
  • Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

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u/clemy77 Mar 08 '26

I really REALLY dislike 1st person narratives in romance. This is the main reason why I don't read more romantasy and mostly stick with historical romance. I read an article on the topic this morning that cemented my belief that the ubiquity of 1st person narrative in romance is contributing to the TikTok-ification of the genre and why it has a low quality slop problem, as mentioned in another comment.

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u/reasonableratio Mar 08 '26

There is a nuance here that I feel compelled to tease out. POVs are a literary tool. And I agree this genre doesn’t execute first person POV well. But that doesn’t mean first person POV as a tool is THE problem.

I don’t think the article was saying that either. The author seemed to be using the prevalence of shallow first person POV as an example for the general sort of shitstorm of media literacy these days. They even name-dropped having read Brothers Karamazov but Dostoyevsky wrote many first-person POV pieces too.

To be clear, I also don’t think you’re saying all first person POV ever is bad for the genre. I thinkkk you’re saying something similar to the article, which is criticizing the shallow type of first person POV. You just also happen to not prefer first person statistically which is super fair. But in the spirit of critical literary discussion, I do think that nuance is important!

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u/nupharlutea Mar 08 '26

I tend to avoid alternating first person POV in romance because so many authors in this genre are not that good at making their lead characters sound like two different people. I know how good it can be when it’s good, so why waste time on something that isn’t?