Essay Bundle: How Romance Books Can Be Impactful

An analysis: Just As You Are By Camille Kellogg

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to convert people into liking the romance genre, if it's not for you, that's totally fine. I just don't want people to randomly assume things or tease people who do like it.

I read Just As You Are by Camille Kellogg the better part of a year ago, and the themes in the book still resonate with me so much. So, naturally, as I attempt to explain my thoughts on why we need to take the romance genre more seriously, I immediately thought of this book.

Just As You Are was published in 2023, and is a lesbian contemporary-romance stand-alone. The basic plot is that it's a modern day retelling of pride and prejudice with a gay twist. The main character, Liz Baker, is in her mid to late twenties and works as a writer for an online queer magazine in New York. For those who are curious, the love interest is named Daria and is the new investor for the magazine, but I'm not focusing much on the romance aspect of the book today.

Just As You Are actually is a huge inspiration for why I started doing this, as the same message I am trying to send was so perfectly written by Camille Kellog, as well as other important reminders for the average person.

The first repeating detail I'd like to note is Liz constantly is shifting between having a "feminine" identity or a "masculine" one. No, she's not trans, and no she's not claiming to be, either, she just realistically doesn't know which gender roles fit her.

Sometimes people want to wear a beautiful dress with lots of tulle and have blush on their cheeks one day and want to wear jeans and have short hair the next. Again, it's not a sub-plot or anything, but as a teenager who's now old enough to try to figure out her own identity. . .there was power in it being mentioned. There is always power in an author saying "hey, it's ok if you go through this, too".

Along with questioning how she wishes to be presented in this modern-day society, Liz also struggles with how she wants to be presented as an author. One of the sub-plots is that Liz wants to publish her own book, and she wants it to mean something. In most of her thoughts about it, she pictures her debut novel being a professional, deep piece of literature on what it's like to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community, but every time she tries to write it, she's too casual, or pressures herself so much she gets writer's block.

A pivotal moment for all of the plots in this book is when Liz starts writing the next installment of the fake blog she kept up years ago. The blog was about a lesbian in college. Just that. Liz would explore her characters' mundane life from classes to slightly out there romances and scandals.

"When Liz finally checked her phone, it was almost two hours later. She couldn't believe it. She'd been having so much fun, she hadn't noticed the time passing. It was so easy to slip back into Colby's voice, so easy to think up hilarious misadventures for her to have. Normally Liz felt discouraged when she'd stop writing, never sure if or when she'd start again, but today she felt energized." –Page 203

I think this passage hits so hard for me, as a writer. Even when you love what you're writing, the fear that you won't be able to get back into that groove soon always fills me. After the positive experience she had, Liz writes more of the blog. "It's been nice, actually." She says on page 220, "To remember that writing can be fun."

This is one of my favorite messages of the book. How Liz gains enough confidence from writing how she wants to deal with the stress of the plot's climax and bring us to the falling action of the book. It ties together with the main theme: something doesn't have to be what society deems as "deep" to have impact. Liz was hurting her relationship with her writing and creativity by trying to give the world what we think "deep" is, and it was only when she just had fun with it that her mission was accomplished. Daria entered some of Liz's blog posts to a competition that offered a scholarship to the winner for them to take a writing program. Liz becomes a finalist in it, and when Darcia explains why she did it she says: "And I also felt like you needed some external validation that your writing could be fun and still be meaningful."

I think the quote on its own is powerful enough, but if you read the book, it will become even more achingly perfect when the quote becomes the final step for a full circle. Earlier in the plot, Daria comes off as this snooty corporate person who judges Liz because she's the one who writes online quizzes and sex toy reviews. When Daria questions why her articles are important to the magazine Liz replies: "Not everything has to be about capitalism. Some things have intangible value. Like a website where a college kid who has no idea how to be a lesbian and thinks she's a complete freak can read a guide to having gay sex instead of having a panic attack before her first date because she never got queer friendly sex ed. Or dumb quizzes that let her see the fun in queerness instead of feeling like it's something shameful." –Pages 63-64.

Of all the strong paragraphs in the book, this one is my favorite. Remembering the passage when Daria says the quote I mentioned above truly hits harder than any other message explored in the book.

I could go on for days talking about the meanings in this book, but I'll leave you with the core one I'm gently twisting in a different way:

Romance doesn't have to not be a fluffy, cute book to read on a rainy afternoon for it not to mean something. Everything has value. Every writer will subconsciously add important themes in their writing based on the world around them, and you can easily find those meaningful topics if you want to. And if you don't want to be all philosophical when you read your books, the vanilla, light topics and cute moments between characters? Those impact people. They make people smile when they have a bad day, or remind them of their own life and give them a sense of gratitude.