The Importance of Plus-Size Inclusion in Romance Novels
I’ve always been a reader. Walking into a bookstore is filled with sense memory—the smell of new books, the soft music, the way my shoulders relax because I can spend hours browsing the endless possibilities. But as many readers do, I have had periods of voracious reading in my life, and periods where I haven’t read much for enjoyment for a variety of reasons. I was getting out of one of those life book slumps when I picked up Get a Life Chloe Brown, by Talia Hibbert, and something clicked in my brain—Ah ha here I am. Not only is it an incredible book, but it is one of the first times I read a main character in a book who was plus-size, like me.
(Writing Historical Romance for Today’s Reader.)
I grew up watching the characters who looked like me be the comedic relief or go through some sort of glow-up in order to gain love or someone’s attention. They were never the main character of the story as they were, plus-size and beautiful. Never seen as enough to gain their own story.
But the more I soaked up romance books and returned to my love of reading, the more I sought out plus-size romance books, books with main characters who were curvy, anything I could get my hands on. No one body looks the same; why should all our main characters in romance books? If romance books are the idealized version of life, and none feature someone plus size, what does that say to every plus size person, every person who has been plus size at some point in their life? Every person who doesn’t fit that specific mold? That they are not the ideal, not deserving of love, not someone worth dreaming about.
While I grew up always loving and proudly respecting romance novels, I did not grow up loving my body. I found plenty of characters I related to for other reasons, but the ones that looked like me, I can’t tell you how many TV shows and movies on rewatch have not aged well with their fat jokes. Worse are the things I internalized over the years, and have said to myself about my own body.
Writing Barely Even Friends, writing Bellamy’s point of view as a plus-size woman who feels secure in her body was a healing experience for me. I won’t pretend I suddenly feel changed and perfectly confident in my own body, but I also like to think that Bellamy is also a voice inside myself, a kinder voice, that has now gotten louder. Another voice on a growing shelf of voices saying you are worthy of being loved just as you are.
Showing body diversity only increases the variety, the representation on our shelves. Everyone’s experience of being plus-sized is different. Some people are comfortable in their skins, some people whether internalized or externalized deal with fat-phobia, no one book can encapsulate what it’s like in someone’s body, a brief glimpse for 300-ish pages. Readers—we deserve to see it all. To see ourselves loved for the things that maybe on our roughest days we don’t love the most about ourselves.
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I don’t pretend I broke new ground writing a plus-size romance, instead, I am honored to join the shelves of other plus-size romance books. To help change the narrative. To change the way plus-size people are spoken about, in the characters in our books. Fat-phobia is still incredibly pervasive in every inch of media we take in to this day, that I can play a small part in combatting that means the world to me. The way we discuss bodies needs to be changed (fat-phobia and body inclusivity aren’t the only issues, there are many more including transphobic language). Someone isn’t less attractive because of a number on a scale or the size of their pants, and they shouldn’t be made to feel otherwise.
This was also one of the reasons why my cover was so important to me, especially Bellamy’s appearance. I wrote a confident plus-size female main character. I wanted a reader to immediately pick it up and know, if nothing else, that my book features positive body representation. To walk into a bookstore and see a cover with someone who looks like them. Not only that but a love interest who was clearly attracted to them (sorry shameless plug but I adore my cover and that suspender tug).
Check out Mae Bennett’s Barely Even Friends here:
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I’m proud of my book, of how far representation has come, but there is still more work to be done. The best way to ensure we see more representation is to support the books showcasing body diversity.
Here are just some incredible romances featuring plus-size characters in 2024:
Only and Forever, by Chloe Liese (out now)When Grumpy Met Sunshine, by Charlotte Stein (out now)At First Spite, by Olivia Dade (out now)Blood on the Tide, by Katee Robert (out now)Conner, by Mary Warren (out now)A Little Kissing Between Friends, by Chencia C. Higgins (May 28)Triple Sec, by TJ Alexander (June 4)Curvy Girl Summer, by Danielle Allen (June 11)Heartwaves, By Anita Kelly (June 11)The Next Best Fling, by Gabriella Gamez (July 9)How to Help a Hungry Werewolf, by Charlotte Stein (October 1)My Kind of Trouble, by L.A. Schwartz (October 8)How to Get a Life in Ten Dates, by Jenny L Howe (December 10)
And of course, there’s mine Barely Even Friends which releases June 4.