Why I’m So Done with “Bad Boys” in New Adult Romances

Note: There will be spoilers mentioned below.

Anyone else just done with certain types of “bad boys” in new adult romances? I’ve decided to start something new on my blog called an opinion piece which targets issues I’ve discovered in literature and where I use a specific book (In this case After by Anna Todd) to demonstrate my point. I have come to believe that the propagation of certain types of cliched “bad boys” should not be romanticized; what are the damages of rationalizing behaviours that are demeaning, womanizing and, in the context of this piece, abusive? Please remember this is my opinion and you’re welcome to disagree!

Books are works of fiction but at their core, they can reflect the realities of society and therefore what we’re taught as “dismissible behaviour.” Therefore, I think it is worth discussing the impact of the cliched bad boy when they’re depicted in certain ways as media in all forms is such a huge influencer in our lives.

What is the New Adult genre?

The New Adult genre has been around for quite a while now; St Martin’s press first used the term in 2009. New Adult is a genre I have repeatably found myself drawn to over the years, and my interest in this genre – which includes more mature themes than the term Young Adult – started with Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster. I think I read this book perhaps six or more times; I loved it that much. This was, of course, before I became tired by the promiscuous hero coupled with the virgin heroine which was so rife – and still is – within romance. When I did a quick Wikipedia search on the term ‘New Adult,’ the authors listed whose works fall under this title: Jennifer L. Armentrout, Cora Carmack, Colleen Hoover, Anna Todd, and Jamie McGuire. I read the first few books of Armentrout’s Obsidian series before I gave up (aliens just aren’t for me, and I didn’t appreciate how the heroine wasn’t all that special compared to all her new friends).

Carmack’s Losing It series was a great blend of heart-thumping angst and comedy gold. Losing It, her first book in the series, was one of the first books to literally make me laugh out loud. I found the next book Faking It, a little harder to read since it came across as more serious and emotional as it addressed themes of unrequited love and not being someone’s first choice. Therefore, while addressing my love of the relationship-for-convenience trope, Faking It was the last book I read from the series.

Hoover introduced me to my love of the spoiler button on Goodreads and made me aware of what I would not like to read in my books. My tolerance for angst is quite low despite my teenage reading trends, and my ability to forgive is even lower. From what I’ve read online, Hoover has been praised repeatedly for her writing and her ability to create such emotional stories. Her stories are poignant but also emotionally heart-wrenching, which I don’t want to put myself through. Therefore, I’m quite content just reading the spoilers on Goodreads.

I have already declared my love for McGuire. The one author on this list that I have never heard of until recently is Anna Todd. 

Let’s talk about After by Anna Todd

The hype surrounding her book After (and now movie) is seemingly everywhere (on my favourite podcast, Directionally Challenged, advertising in the App Store and more). I was even more surprised to discover the book was published in 2014! What sparked my interest in researching After was Anna’s interview on Directionally Challenged. The questions asked by Candice and Kayla were very well-rounded, confronting the critiques of her work and its success (it has a couple hundred million reads on Wattpad!). Before I go any further, I have to be honest, I have not read After, but I feel compelled to comment on the interview and the many (good and bad) reviews I read on the novel. The book’s critique mainly revolves around the question: Is the relationship depicted in After one that teenagers/young (new?) adults should be romanticizing? This obviously is not directed solely at After, and I want to stress I really enjoyed what Anna had to say in the interview; her perspective of writing and creating a book with such a huge fandom was quite interesting.

Anna brings up one of the reasons she wrote After was because she had identified a gap in novels for teens. There were either YA novels that never ventured beyond PG (i.e. didn’t address the reality of exposure to sex, alcohol and drugs in teenage years) or the teens depicted in the novel were written as if they were the adults and had all the autonomy, money and maturity to deal with these issues, which – as Anna stated – resulted in very anti-climactic storytelling since everyone had their shit together. However, this is my first point of contention with Anna: her main goal is to write and create characters that are “real,” and what I took that to mean is her characters are on a learning curve, trying to learn what they want out of life, others and their own expectations. My point of contention is that in After, the characters demonstrate their “realness” or “learning curve” by being cruel.

One of my favourite reviews of After on Goodreads succinctly puts it: just because something bad happened to you doesn’t excuse abusive behaviour. I’ve read so many books where the main character has had a really shitty life, but they don’t use it as an excuse to belittle people or be cruel just because. I have read multiple romance books where betting on the heroine’s virginity is the main trope used, and while I do not – at all – condone such a thing, I think Anna didn’t realize for a trope like this to be used successfully (and I mean in a way that’s at least forgivable) such behaviour has to be anomalous for the character or at least a moral turning point.

One of the books I recommend below is Draw by Cora Bently, whose premise is the hero, Cord, taking the heroine’s, Saylor’s, virginity as part of a bet between his brothers when they were 16. This is a turning point in behaviour for all the brothers in that they acknowledged how fucked up it was and, furthermore, Cord and Saylor do not see each other for 6 years afterward. Hardin’s behaviour, comparatively, throughout After makes such a bet inexcusable because it’s not an anomaly in his behaviour; he didn’t get swept up by or peer pressured by “pack mentality.” His relationship with Tessa before she – and therefore the reader – is aware of the bet is indicative of an abusive relationship as his anger becomes more evident, and he continues to isolate Tessa and treat her like an emotional punching bag. I worry some readers will/are taking Anna’s desire to create “real” characters and her character’s subsequent behaviour to indicate what to expect – and condone – from boys (or girls) in high school and beyond.

Anna also brought up a really terrifying – for me at least – comment: no matter what she made Hardin (or at the time Harry Styles) do on Wattpad, her readers always found some way to get angry at Tessa; she’s too clingy, has too many expectations, etc. Now, remember that I haven’t read the book. Still, I spent quite a while going through spoiler-ridden reviews (and yes, I acknowledge that that doesn’t expose me to every nuance of the story). A common description of the relationship between Hardin and Tessa is that they fight, have sex and break up and repeat (and not necessarily in that order). The phrase “it takes two to tango” might be a cliché, but I do feel the need to acknowledge that Tessa is no paragon of perfect behaviour in the story before I delve into discussing Hardin; she did cheat on her really nice and sweet boyfriend. As a side note, I really hate how nice boys are often classified as prissy and prudish and are almost always described as boring. Why is it that romance never wants to romanticize a man that actually respects a woman? I digress.

Back to my point: The fact that fans get so adamant about defending the actions of a boy whose behaviour is consistently recognized as abusive (use of non-consensual force during sex, isolation, blame, jealousy, criticism, anger, control, alcohol to cope with stress and appears charming to others) is terrifying because it demonstrates the power of rationalization and how not all “bad boys” propagated in romance should be romanticized. Now, I’m sure a fan of After would be sure to point out that Hardin gets professional help. He had a rough past, they do actually break up, etc. The terrifying thing for me in this interview was that his behaviour was – unintentionally, I believe – qualified because he’s young. And this infuriates me because he’s a 19-year-old boy who, while young (and yes, shouldn’t have to have his whole life figured out), should AT MINIMUM understand the basic principles of respect. 

For people who identify the story as simply a piece of fiction, I agree to the extent that at the end of the day, Hardin isn’t real, so you shouldn’t take it personally. Anna’s example of this was a reviewer who vehemently hated Hardin but shipped Delena (from the Vampire Diaries). Anna was confused how this reviewer could hate Hardin but want Elena with Damon (who has done so many bad things, including murdering her younger brother–he came back to life, btw). However, the reviewer’s response was that Hardin was real and Damon wasn’t (because Damon is a vampire). Anna then went on to comment both characters are fictional and, therefore, are not real. But, I think the point – which Candice and Kayla did bring up – is that with vampires, you can excuse a hell of a lot more because there’s no basis for judgement of vampires in real life.

To explain: One of my friends seriously hates all vampires in TVD and The Originals because she finds they’re horrible people, but for me, the fact that they’re vampires and their food is human blood creates this moral “out” clause whereas a fan you’re like that’s horrible but forgivable. When writing contemporary romance, the judgement of heroes and heroines is so much harsher because their behaviour can be compared to the moralities of the reader and whether or not they would accept said behaviour in reality. Obviously, I wouldn’t be a fan of Hardin, and the more reviews I read, the more there appears to be a consensus in the mental, emotional and verbal abuse Hardin inflicts on Tessa. The book seems to rationalize the acceptance of a boy treating you like crap and a bystander culture: no one in Hardin or Tessa’s friend group acknowledges Hardin’s controlling, jealousy and/or anger issues. It also leaves quite a strong message to its readers that it’s acceptable to settle:

“Just because he can’t love you the way you want him to doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you with everything he has.” Liam says.

After by Anna Todd [Liam to Tessa]

While the above quote can be true, it can be a dangerous message: making Tessa (or any person) believe that she doesn’t deserve to ask to be loved the way she needs to be. From the sounds of this book, it sounds very anti-therapy, as if for life to be more “real,” someone has to suffer in their trauma and not make an effort to heal. Also, Hardin comes from quite a wealthy family, so they would be able to afford therapy (or any other help he needed), so why hasn’t his attitude been addressed?

After once again romanticizes the dangerous behaviour of significant others. The defence of Hardin’s behaviour is grounded in making his relationship with Tessa “realistic.” However, this creates a big assumption: people in real life should be given as many lee-ways as Hardin because that’s of course called eMpAtHy *please recognize the sarcasm*. Empathy, in this case, would be making Hardin realize what his behaviour is doing: hurting people. Helping him is not yielding to him but instead elucidating the dangers of his behaviour and getting him professional help in whichever capacity. Also, it suggests that Tessa having boundaries or minimum expectations for her relationship is demanding.

Does an unhealthy relationship make the story more real?

This whole rant really isn’t specific to After although it is my “case study” (principal example) for this essay, the podcast interview just made me want to write down these opinions, which I’ve had for a really long time. Revisiting my original question: Is the relationship depicted in After one that teenagers/young (new?) adults should be romanticizing? As she mentioned in her interview, I agree with Anna that censorship of material is quite a grey area. At the end of the day, all readers (I hope at least) recognize that this material is fictional. Anna even mentions some authors she knows who are mothers of three, married and write and read Stockholm syndrome dark romance books. So, who are we to judge? However, I believe there is a huge asterisk to this point.

To use Anna’s example of Stockholm syndrome dark romances (by the way, Stockholm syndrome is when you fall in love with your captor), these types of romances are premised by an illegal act the reader knows to be wrong: kidnapping, slavery, etc. Relationships, as depicted in After, for example, in which one of the main characters is a complete asshole, has been completely romanticized by popular media (movies, TV shows, novels, etc.): the bad boy, the dark, mysterious loner, the tall, dark silent type, etc. For years this attitude has been normalized by general society, and as a result, the behaviour is acceptable and not thought to be worth a warning flag. The warning flag in After is that Hardin’s behaviour doesn’t become better once he settles into a relationship with Tessa (in most romance novels, the guy finds his humanity once he gets a significant other); instead, it escalates to him taking out his issues on Tessa in forms of emotional, verbal and mental abuse. 

For a book that was liked by many people for, at minimum, its “realness,” I call bullshit (harsh but true). If you want authors who deal with realness in relationships, please look up Dreamland by Sarah Dessen, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, or The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson. Honestly, all books of Sarah Dessen and Laurie Halse Anderson are great at confronting the emotional distress that is common in teenagers and difficult family histories/traumatic events. Her characters aren’t cookie-cutter perfect either, but I’d definitely say they’re more YA since I do not recall any of their books having descriptive sex scenes.

For books that have emotional imperfections and sexy times, look at Cora Brent’s Gentry Boys series (warning: the Gentry boys are assholes, but they’re the type that apologizes and redeems themselves once they get into a relationship; although there is a bit of a learning curve), Sweet Hope by Tillie Cole, and the Unbeautiful series by Jessica Sorensen. There are honestly so many books out there that just do a better job at addressing difficult relationships (romance-wise and family-wise) without condoning abusive behaviour. 

Books I’ve Mentioned