Adult romance books with cartoon covers: Why is this a thing?

Parenting is hard enough without books being something I have to worry about, too.

Hi cacti,

Imagine you’re taking your ten-year-old daughter out for a fun day of shopping, and her first request is to visit the bookstore. She’s taken an interest in chapter books, and she’s eager to get out of the kid’s section.

After a few minutes at the store, she runs up to you with an assortment of paperbacks:

Only one of these books is intended for kids/teens.

You look them over. They all appear to be romances, which is a little annoying, but they also look…youthful? The sporty one in particularly reminds you of “The Cutting Edge,” a PG-rated movie you loved as a kid.

So you start to recommend that one. “How about Icebreaker? I know a movie we can watch that might pair well with it, too!”

But then you flip through it, just to be sure.

“Gripping my panties on each hip, he waits until I nod before pulling…”

“WHOA, um, you know what…how about something else? Let’s see what this Algorithm one is about…”

The lead characters are at a bar. And they’re drinking. A lot. You spot references to Aperol spritz, Jameson whiskey, Bordeaux wines, Negronis, Cosmos, dark beer, light beer, …on and on! This is not exactly what you consider age-appropriate content.

You reach for your neck to clutch your invisible pearls. “Ehhh, maybe not this one either.”

Christ…maybe the third book will be OK? You get out your phone and furiously Google, relieved to discover that “My Mechanical Romance” is rated for teens and has a plot that highlights the under-representation of girls in STEM classes. Whew.

“Let’s get this one!” you shout a little too loudly. Finally, a cover that matches the content.

It happened to me

As you might have guessed, this happened to me. On one hand, I was thrilled that my daughter was wanting to read above her grade level. On the other, I was miffed. I’m not a romance reader, so I simply had no idea this trend was happening.

Yes, ideally, we don’t censor what kids read, but the reality is we need some guardrails, just like with all other media. Let me put it this way: If you saw a fifth grader at school reading a book with a more traditional bodice-ripper romance cover, would you really be OK with it? There’s a reason it skeeves you out.

And it’s not just the hard-core sex scenes in romances that are inappropriate for tweens, it’s the plot twists like getting shit-faced in a foreign city and going home with a stranger, consequences be damned. Adult readers know the risky behavior makes the plot fun, but, um, kids are just not ready to build that kind of vocabulary.

Apparently it’s all for the ‘Gram

When I researched why this trend was pervasive, a common answer was: Blame BookTok and Instagram. Bright, bold, illustrated covers “pop” and look more “aesthetic” on social media. They’re also far less embarrassing to take on a plane than a romance with Fabio’s unclothed torso on the cover.

They have non-threatening appeal, in other words. And what does that say about the genre and the largely female audience? As Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD, author of the new book Sexism & Sensibility put it:

“I appreciate the shift away from sexist, outdated imagery—hypersexualized women and dominant, shirtless men—that reinforced gender stereotypes, and allows for more inclusive representation. That said, there's something creepy about infantilizing or desexualizing women's sex lives. As a genre by and for women, you have to wonder if it reflects the regressive attitudes about women in this country.”

At least add an age rating on the cover

Unfortunately, despite these drawbacks, once publishers realized these covers are profitable (and cheap to produce with AI), they wring that sponge for all its worth: Now everyone is doing it.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, cartoon cover art is not the most pressing parenting issue on my plate. But that’s the thing: Before I encountered this problem, books were a “safe” space, wonderfully un-interactive. I don’t have to worry about a stranger instant-messaging her when she’s reading an analog book, for example.

Fortunately, there is a very simple solution to this problem, one that basically solves it at a systemic level for all book genres, and it can be done without a ton of expense or drama. Add an age rating system! We already do it with TV and movies and video games, why not books? A non-obtrusive “M” (for mature) placed on the bottom-right corner of Icebreaker’s cover would be a huge help to tired, overworked parents everywhere.