Romance is My Anti-drug

Hey romance readers! 💕

It's time for ROUND FOUR of the Romance Readathon! I can't believe this has been going on for four years and we can celebrate the romance genre every February! For the entire month of February (1st-28th) I will read as many romance books as I can so join me in swooning over some fictional characters 🥺

If anyone wants a challenge, here are this year's reading prompts:

read a romance that's been on your tbr the longest

read a romance with blue or purple on the cover

read someone's 5 star favorite romance (you could ask a mutual or stalk someone's goodreads/storygraph 👀)

read a romance that features a wedding

post a book poll on tumblr and read the romance book that wins!

Please feel free to double up on prompts, no problem!

Use the hashtag #rr2025 for all posts related to the readathon. This can be your TBR, a book review, rant, reading update, absolutely anything you want.

mr collins. buckle in for some one-sided conversations on the grandeur of pemberley and how there is but one estate only marginally finer, he thinks you will no doubt agree, which can only be, of course, rosing’s park, which can be viewed by his own very humble abode

[Darcy:] “Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?” [Elizabeth:] “Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet, for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.” [Darcy:] “Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?” “Both,” replied Elizabeth archly; “for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.” “This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,” said he.

It's also pretty funny, because I suspect Darcy is thinking of this sort of thing in a later conversation at Rosings:

Elizabeth is in a one-sided-enemies to lovers story. The book from Elizabeth’s point of view: Darcy: [compliments her] Elizabeth: This man is insulting me. Darcy: [gets up his nerve and asks her to dance after she makes a big deal of liking dancing] Elizabeth: He is trying to make me feel uncomfortable! Darcy: [tries to make conversation about something he thinks she is interested in] Elizabeth: I’m not sure what his angle is, but it must be awful since he said that one unflattering thing about me to his friend in a conversation I eavesdropped on! And also, hot!George says he’s an ass, so clearly him being nice to me must be nefarious!!!

they all have the same desire, they all desire for someone to Want it, for love to not be an accident or something that happens without recognising it, they all have the overtones desire of wanting someone to deem you worthy of love, to see you and meet you and know you and Want to love you, to make that choice and stick by it because loving you or being loved by you is something so deeply worth it and fulfilling and moving and powerful that they Want it, in their soul they crave to love and be loved

they're such varieties of the basic desire to be wanted

they say these things and they mean "love me because i am lovable" not "love me because you find me desirable/you have realised you already do/you want something from me" etc

it's "love me because i am me and you are aware of that" and it's something you can just scream to someone when you can't find another way to say "i am choosing to love you because loving you is something i want to experience no matter the outcome"

Having heard the day before in Milsom Street that their elder brother, Captain Tilney, was expected almost every hour, she was at no loss for the name of a very fashionable-looking, handsome young man, whom she had never seen before, and who now evidently belonged to their party. She looked at him with great admiration, and even supposed it possible that some people might think him handsomer than his brother, though, in her eyes, his air was more assuming, and his countenance less prepossessing. His taste and manners were beyond a doubt decidedly inferior; for, within her hearing, he not only protested against every thought of dancing himself, but even laughed openly at Henry for finding it possible… Catherine, meanwhile, undisturbed by presentiments of such an evil, or of any evil at all, except that of having but a short set to dance down, enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.

Henry is a second son, and not only that, his brother is HOT. Smoking hot, and from what we hear of him later, pretty charming, though not funny charming. Catherine takes one look at him, is like, “Well, other people might think he’s handsome,” and then focuses on Henry.

How often has this happened in Henry’s life? Is the usual way of things that a girl dances with him, finds out who he is and tries to trade up for his brother, Isabella-esq? I can see that happening to a second son, a mere clergyman A LOT. But the thought doesn’t even enter Catherine’s head, she’s all about Henry. She’s loyal, she’s disinterested, she’s not a mercenary. How gratifying it must be to be her first and only choice!

Unabashedly horny romance novel covers are back baby!!! Nature is healing :)