Are romance novels of today still allowed to be bodice rippers, or do publishers not allow this sort of romance genre to exist anymore?
Last Updated: 25.06.2025 08:43
Charlotte.
But I can assure you that those books were definitely ‘bodice-rippers’, made popular from a small community on the social media app ‘Tiktok’. This community is referred to as ‘Booktok’ - and you can often find trending books on there ranging from adventure and fantasy to containing the most outrageous content.
Whether they’re allowed, I’m not sure.
The content in some of these Booktok books (particularly what people tend to refer to as ‘dark romance’ books) are a lot more outlandish and innapropriate than any of the romance novels from the past that I’ve read. And not only is the content much more NSFW, but it’s also much more accessible for younger kids - they can download it from online websites, and even when shopping in store, these books do not tend to have any age restrictions placed on them.
But they definitely do exist. I worked as a part-time cashier a a bookshop during my freshman year in university (partly how I came to love reading in the first place). You would not believe the amount of times that I’ve seen children picking up the most horrendously inappropriate books and getting their parents to pay for them. I, of course, could not say anything (as part of my job policy).