Full disclosure, I fear I don’t have a romantic bone in my body. I actively avoid picking up anything “spicy”, meet-cutey, or romantasy (which is all the rage right now), and romcoms tend to make me give the screen a very long stink eye. But to be fair to myself, before you judge me too harshly, it isn’t for lack of trying. Earlier last year I thought to myself “hey, maybe you’re being a little too picky, why not give romance another try”, and I ventured out of my carefully crafted book and film mountain to see what was out there to discover in the pink, red, and heart shaped world of romance. I gave it fifty pages before my instincts kicked in, so one spite-read book with a sadly squandered premise later, I returned to my mountain sure in the fact that the genre just wasn’t for me.

That’s all to say that maybe I’m not the best person to come up with a Valentine’s Day related post. But time’s ticking and it’s only two days away so here we are, you and me, in between a rock and a Hallmark card shaped place. So, I hope you’re ready for a very sincere, from the bottom of my heart, extremely unconventional Valentine’s Day book and movie review where the most overdone romance tropes are turned on their heads. And hey, if you, like me, are tired of the parade of overwrought lovey-doveyness that springs up like weeds at this time of year, maybe these picks will be right up your alley.

I don’t think there’s anything more synonymous with romance than Romeo and Juliet. Yes, I know technically it’s a tragedy, but it’s still the lowest hanging fruit on the trope tree and a story that sits at the core of my checkered past with the romance genre. As a highschooler I valiantly fought the eyeroll at Romeo’s bullheaded impatience and the far too rushed declarations of love, but after stumbling upon Romeo and/or Juliet I finally felt like not being in love with one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays wasn’t too crazy of a take. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure, fix-it version of the tale that is in sore need of… well, fixing. But why just have one ending that does that for you when you can have hundreds? Ryan North’s trademark wit and wild imagination morph a dreary piece of literature into something full of surprises that you get to have a little say in. I don’t want to spoil most of the fun, but I can’t help but gush just a little over buff Juliet, mecha-battles (because who says Shakespeare can’t have a little bit of Transformers in it), and the emotion-fueled drama only fictionalized teenagers can create. The more paths I go through, the more I might just be converted into a romance lover after all.   

Though maybe you’re not that into the “com” side of romcoms. Maybe you’re more into the thrills of boy-meets-girl, boy-likes-girl, boy-crafts-a-picture-perfect-persona-based-off-of-girl’s-social-media-accounts-to-win-her-over…

You pulls you in just like that. Joe Goldberg seems like the poster boy of perfect, romance novel nice guys on the surface, until he meets Guinevere when she walks into his bookstore one day. A Hannah Grace style meet-cute quickly devolves into obsession as you go through Joe and Guinevere’s relationship through his eyes, which just so happen to be the eyes of a stalker. If you’re tired of the tried and true “love at first sight”, “bad boy redemption arc”, and any of the other well-trodden Hallmark movie romance tropes, Caroline Kepnes handles them with a deft balance of the superficial and a deeper, darker realism which will keep you hooked until the end. If you can’t wait to see how it all plays out though, you can check out You’s excellent television adaptation with the always charismatic Gossip Girl alum Penn Badgley stepping into Joe’s shoes. 

I may have exaggerated just a little when I said that I avoid any and all romcoms. There’s a few that have managed to sneak their way into my movie favorites, but maybe it’s because they’re light on the “rom” and the “com”. What (500) Days of Summer is, is a film of expectations versus reality. Expectation: Tom, a greeting card writer, loves love, so life is going to be the stuff of all the best romance stories. Reality: Tom meets Summer, and she’s nothing like what he’s planned for. It’s a movie that veers away from the honeymoon, rose-colored part of on-screen relationships and instead focuses in on the quiet, awkward, and clunky moments in between where things get lost in communication, and hindsight only makes that clearer. Boy does that hindsight come in swinging, and it doesn’t hold its punches.

I still think Tom would’ve fared a little better in (500) Days of Summer if he’d had a chance to walk a mile in Summer’s shoes and really understand her. It’s something that I never thought would end up in a romance movie until Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 film Your Name took that literally. In this body-swapping modern day fantasy flick, two Japanese highschoolers inexplicably begin switching bodies following a (gorgeously animated) meteor shower. Mitsuha and Taki must live their entire day as each other and only switch back upon waking up the next morning. There’s just one thing: the only way they can speak with each other once they catch onto what’s happening is through journal entries and cellphone notes, which include an extensive list of rules on how to not mess up their lives while the other is in control of it. It’s a premise that would go hand in hand with the common tropes of romcoms, but instead Shinkai has crafted a heartfelt, unexpected drama with surprising plot twists around the idea of star-crossed lovers. It is also the only film that I’ve seen make an entire video call of grown men cry, so if you feel like bringing out the tissue box this Valentine’s Day without reaching for your well-loved copy of The Notebook out, check out a copy of Your Name from our collection.

If I can’t entice you with a supernatural body-swap romance though, how about a supernatural body-hopping romance? Every Day takes “it’s what’s on the inside that counts” to heart. What if the person you liked was someone else, literally, every single day? What if the person you liked was a body-hopping entity that could be a classmate one day, your most hated enemy the next, and your best friend the day after that? Rhiannon is about to discover the answer to those questions when she discovers that one day her boyfriend isn’t quite the boyfriend she remembers, and though she can’t put her finger on it she likes him better that way. The book explores LGBTQ+ themes while doing away with surface level teen drama, instead asking big questions about attraction, consent, relationships, and the nature of love itself. While I don’t know if it comes up with any definitive answers, the psychological and sometimes moral issues the plot gets into is refreshing for the seriousness they’re handled with. If you’re like me and like your romance with a little bit of thought, there’s no better book to start your Valentine’s Day with.

That wraps up this dive into off-the-beaten path romance media. I guess it is true what they say. Life, or in this case romance booklists, is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get! With that very cheesy joke out of the way, I’m signing off, wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day in whatever way you like to celebrate it. Until next time!