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Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture Hardcover – Download: Adobe Reader, March 31, 2016

by Catherine M. Roach (Author)

5 ratings

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"Find your one true love and live happily ever after." The trials of love and desire provide perennial story material, from the Biblical Song of Songs to Disney's princesses, but perhaps most provocatively in the romance novel, a genre known for tales of fantasy and desire, sex and pleasure. Hailed on the one hand for its women-centered stories that can be sexually liberating, and criticized on the other for its emphasis on male/female coupling and mythical happy endings, romance fiction is a multi-million dollar publishing phenomenon, creating national and international societies of enthusiasts, practitioners, and scholars. Catherine M. Roach, alongside her romance-writer alter-ego, Catherine LaRoche, guides the reader deep into Romancelandia where the smart and the witty combine with the sexy and seductive to explore why this genre has such a grip on readers and what we can learn from the romance novel about the nature of happiness, love, sex, and desire in American popular culture.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Indiana University Press
Publication date

March 31, 2016
Dimensions

6.2 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

9780253020444
ISBN-13

978-0253020444
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Maya Rodale
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Roach's Happily Ever After is without a doubt a methodological groundbreaker, and its effects will hopefully resonate throughout popular culture studies, fandom studies, and future approaches to other genres of popular fiction."

― The Journal of Popular Culture

Roach's attempt to do emotional justice to the genre should satisfy academics and fans alike.

-- Publishers Weekly

Review

Impressively smart...a lively and memorable read!

-- Eric Murphy Selinger ― Executive Editor of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies

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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0253020441
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Indiana University Press (March 31, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780253020444
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0253020444
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,586,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #920 in Feminist Literary Criticism (Books)
- #2,267 in Gothic & Romantic Literary Criticism (Books)
- #2,994 in Women Writers in Women Studies

Customer Reviews:
5 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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Karin Beery

More academic than expected

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2019

Verified Purchase

I thought this book would be a bit lighter of a read. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but still informative.

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

I applaud what Ms. Roach was trying to do, but found her style difficult to read.

Helpful

Sean Guynes

There simply is no better (academic) book on romance fiction

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018

I reviewed this for The Journal of Popular Culture, where you can find a fuller engagement. I'll quote from that review briefly here, since I think it's unfair that this book has one other, rather low, review.

To quote from my review: "Roach’s Happily Ever After is without doubt a methodological groundbreaker, and its effects will hopefully resonate throughout popular culture studies, fandom studies, and future approaches to other genres of popular fiction. Happily Ever After is ultimately an update of and a contemporary response to Radway’s Reading the Romance, in that it asks many of the same questions (Why do women read romances? Are they good for women?) but does so with the hindsight of three decades of scholarship—some of which, including queer theory, fandom studies, and popular romance studies itself, did not exist in 1984. Roach’s insights into romance fiction’s political potentiality (though not always its realization of such), her exploratory readings of individual novels, and her refusal to settle on an either/or approach to analyzing romance and its role in popular culture also ensure that Happily Ever After will have perhaps as great an effect in popular culture studies as Radway’s book did. Roach achieves what few scholars do: a book with appeal and import to both academics and the layperson, that truly embodies the necessary tension between fandom and the Ivory Tower."

There simply is no better (academic) book on romance fiction. And also, people, come on. It's from a university press. Expect that it will be academic in tone, but also know that this is a read I think many non-academic can get into!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sandra Falero

I loved this book and found it a welcome contribution to ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2018

I loved this book and found it a welcome contribution to my discussion of romances in my college pop culture course. It’s a welcome update to Radway’s work and the chapter I gave my students went over very well. They found it a very accessible read. A much needed insider approach!

2 people found this helpful

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