Hello!

Last week I finished listening to an audiobook that I started on January 9th – it took me three months to listen to ‘The Name of the Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss and even though I really enjoyed it, it was 28 hours long and the sequel is 42 hours long and I needed a little break before I jump into that.

So I was browsing the Audible Plus catalogue (because I don’t have anything in my current library that is also on my physical tbr and I am on the physical tbr grind) and I found a couple of titles by Ella Maise! I felt myself being really excited to read a contemporary romance as I feel like I haven’t read one for ages (it was February but it was one I hated so it feels like longer) so I decided to listen to ‘To Love Jason Thorn’.

I started listening to it on a 2 hour drive home from my mum’s house and in that two hours, I already knew I’d be rating this book three stars – there were cringy moments, the main male character gave me the ick a couple of times and it was friends to lovers (which I have since realised isn’t my favourite), the whole premise is that he’s an actor and she’s an author and he’s going to be in the movie adaptation so it’s super unrealistic anyways.

But that’s exactly what I wanted! I don’t want to be super emotionally invested in the characters – obviously I want to like them or I won’t enjoy the story, but I don’t want them to make my chest ache because I love them so much. I want it to be predictable, I want the male main character to be ridiculously unrealistic and clearly written by a woman, I want an easy cheesy romance!

And I ended up finishing ‘To Love Jason Thorn’ in five days. I’ve not listened to an audiobook that quickly since I was commuting two hours a day. Granted, I had a migraine and listening to an audiobook was the only thing I could do and I listened to six hours of this book in one day but I felt myself being drawn to it – I was choosing to listen to my audiobook in bed rather than my literary sci fi; I didn’t necessarily care about the story but I felt addicted to it.

It’s the equivalent of trash reality TV – the characters aren’t like real people, the world they live in is not a real world (‘reality’ TV is such a stupid name) but for some reason you can’t stop watching it.

And that’s okay!

I know some readers hate 3 star books because generally it’s the most indifferent rating – not ‘bad’ enough to give it a low rating, not engaging enough to give it a higher rating, super average – but I love them because they’re so easy, they’re palette cleansers, they’re not going to make my chest ache with emotional tension, I can binge listen and it doesn’t matter too much if I don’t remember all the details cos they’re not that complicated. Especially having just finished a long fantasy, a nice, quick, easy, cheese romance is precisely what I wanted and needed and it fulfilled the brief.

Sure, there are lots of books that I rate 3 stars that don’t feel like this – the ones that I was hoping for more from and didn’t like enough to give 4 stars, the ones that could have been really good but had aspects that made me feel icky, the ones that I liked some aspects but other aspects were really overcomplicated (Legendborn…?). But I feel like ‘super average contemporary romance’ is a sub-genre within itself and I’m here for it.

There’s a time and a place for more complex romance books that touch on more difficult topics and have characters that I feel really emotionally attached to, but there’s also a time and a place for the 3 star easy cheesy romance!

Please let me know what you think – what do you turn to for a palette cleanser? Do you like a 3 star romance as much as I do?

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx