Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels by Sarah WendellMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
As a relatively new reader of the genre I found this book helpful in giving me some background on the community (for good or for ill) as well as some starting points for authors to look into.
It was interesting to read the take on the history, although for a more in depth look I highly suggest going on a dive into the posts of Kelly Faircloth who has done some excellently researched work on the subject (https://pictorial.jezebel.com/how-har...).
The main problem that I found with this book was how dated most of it was. Published in 2009, nine years later there has been a lot of change in the genre and I found myself skimming a lot of things that are either common knowledge that I felt the authors spent too much time on, or things that no longer really apply. On the other hand, it is a really easy book to skim or pick up and put down as the mood strikes you. There are all sorts of different approaches the authors take to get their points across, games, cartoons, and a choose your own adventure section where in some cases some of the stories end in surprisingly bleak ways.
If you like the website Smart Bitches you'll probably not have an issue with the snarky tone, although it can get a little wearing in some places. However, the book does a good overview of the genre and jumping off points even if most of the information is presented with tongue firmly in (someone's) cheek. If you are trying your hand at writing in the genre you can use this book as a way to see some of the over-used tropes, etc. to be aware of, but beyond that and giving you other authors to look into, that's about it.
It would be interesting to have an updated version that addressed the increase in the LBGTQ stories and the like, but looking at current posts on the internet might be the way to go for that.
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