Saturday, October 25, 2008

Romance Novels: How Early Is Too Early?

Right up front, I’ll make a confession. I personally am a hopeless romantic. Sometime ago, a friend asked me about my writing and reading. I had to admit that Christian fiction romance was what I was into. She agreed that it was fun to read, but then brought up an idea that I hadn’t thought of. She said that young girls may often have the ability to read at a higher level than what is generally expected of their age, or that young teenage girls don’t really have any “teen books” – novels that are written with their age in mind. Most “teen novels” for girls include some type of romance, which as my friend brought up, gets girls thinking more about crushes, dating, and romantic things all together. Her opinion was that girls today are as silly and immature when it comes to guys because they begin reading their mother’s romance novels at too young an age. To be honest, I thought she had a point. Yes, I am a hopeless romantic at age eighteen. I suppose that could be a bad thing, but the worse part of that is that I was already this way by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. So is it true? Do girls stuff their heads with too much romance at too young an age? When is an OK time for girls to start reading romance novels? Is the way girls are more flirtatious and the way they act around guys effected by reading?

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