Is queer romance the “it girl” of literature right now?

After Crave released “Heated Rivalry,” based on Rachel Reid's novel of the same name, viewers and fans couldn’t get enough of seeing these two hockey players kiss. 

The show follows two professional ice hockey players, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, as they navigate their rivalry on the ice and what it means to fall in love with each other off the ice. 

The show did incredible numbers, reaching a huge audience and creating a massive fanbase, causing readers to pick up “Heated Rivalry” and then the rest of the Gamechangers series, Reid’s interconnected MM, short for Male/Male,  hockey romance series in which Hollander and Rozanov’s love story was created.  

After the show's boom, it seemed all anyone in the online book space could talk about was queer romance. 

Queer romance novels began to truly have their moment in 2020, and the numbers are still getting higher. In 2021, the NPD BookScan said that 850,000 LGBTQ+ romances sold at traditional book outlets, more than double in 2020 and a 740% increase over 5 years. 

“Red, White and Royal Blue,” a novel written by Casey McQuiston released in 2019, is cited as being a turning point for the genre, gaining massive popularity alongside novels like Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. 

The audience of queer romance has expanded. Queer people aren’t the only ones reading these love stories. 

Readers don’t have to identify with the main couple’s sexuality to feel interested in the plot or characters.

Straight women especially make up a massive amount of Reid’s “Heated Rivalry” fandom, saying that women feel represented in the love story. The novel and TV show break restrictive sexual dynamics, removing women from the harmful male gaze. 

However, reviewers and readers are noticing some negative patterns within the book space. 

Readers are noticing a lack of lesbian, trans and bi-poc queer book recommendations and hype. 

LGBTQ+ books also face book bans in the United States and are being pulled from library shelves. 

According to PEN America, 2,532 books were banned from July 2021 to June 2022; of those books, 41% featured LGBTQ+ themes. 

People have also shared that they feel like these romances are fetishizing and objectifying gay sex and love rather than celebrating it. 

These male characters are often reduced to an erotic spectacle, with some critics saying that some gay romances target themselves to an audience of straight women intentionally. 

Critics say gay romances are often packaged as a fantasy of two men to straight women and remove the characters' queer experiences. 

In the Gaytherapyla article, “Heated Rivalry: A Gay Therapist’s Take on Romance, Fetishization & Visibility” the author, Ken Howard, says it isn’t the characters’ gay lives that are being consumed; it's the fantasy version of their gayness that’s being consumed. 

Howard also questions what it means when straight women become the primary consumers of gay romance. 

“Is it admiration, is it projection, is it fetishization, is it appropriation? The answer may be: sometimes all of the above,” said Howard. 

Despite these cons, the boom of LGBTQ+ literature and media in general is a big step in the right direction. 

With book bannings and laws like Florida’s "Don't Say Gay,” gay media needs to be pushed out now more than ever. 

Whether it’s two male hockey players in “Heated Rivalry,” the son of the king and son of the president in “Red, White and Royal Blue” or two professional female soccer players in “Cleat Cute,” all walks of life should be picking up queer stories.