Book Review: Women,Violence and Postmillennial Romance Fiction

Women, Violence, and Postmillennial Romance Fiction examines the contemporary romance genre and the significance of its revival in the postmillennial period. Emma Roche analyses six popular North American and British novels: the Twilight series (2005–2008) by Stephenie Meyer; E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (2011–2012); Gone Girl (2012) and Sharp Objects (2006) by Gillian Flynn; Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (2015); and Megan Abbott’s Dare Me (2012). These novels were published between 2005 and 2015, each having a global reach and a wide audience. Moreover, all were written by women and primarily targeted a female readership. Notably, they all explore themes of gendered and sexualized violence against women, providing rich material for examining cultural imaginaries of sexuality and violence in the decade preceding #MeToo.

The book is structured into four main chapters, titled: (1) The Twilight of Postfeminism; (2) Fifty Shades of Neoliberalism; (3) Happily Never After, and (4) Hell Hath No Fury, followed by the conclusion.

In the introduction, Roche provides an excellent overview of postfeminism (which the author frames as a contradictory entanglement of feminism and antifeminist rhetoric) and its deep intersection with neoliberalism, presenting a strong and nuanced analysis of gendered neoliberal norms and their effects. She explores how a neoliberal framework facilitates violence against women in more sophisticated and subtle ways than in the past. Drawing on key references such as Rosalind Gill (2007) and Angela McRobbie (2008), Roche examines how central features of postfeminism – including the promotion of individual choice and responsibility, the emphasis on personal success, and the centrality of self-surveillance and consumerism – work to individualize women’s pain and suffering.

The entanglement of feminist values with conservative and traditionalist ones is particularly evident in Meyer’s Twilight series, Roche argues, as it illustrates how the rhetoric of choice makes women ‘wholly responsible for, because they have freely chosen, whatever befalls on them – even if that is the violence of men’ (p. 32).

Roche offers a compelling portrayal of patriarchy’s increasing sophistication. She argues that the interplay of postfeminism and neoliberalism sanctions gender-based violence, an aspect that has been overlooked. Building on this premise, Roche analyses the novels’ narratives and the protagonists’ behaviours through a Gender lens, addressing key issues related to violence against women, such as the perpetuation, persistence, reconfiguration and refinement of well-entrenched cultural traditions like the imaginary of the ‘ideal victim’, victim-blaming, and society’s fascination with representations of dead women.

Throughout the book, Roche compellingly explores common tropes such as the top girl, the cool girl, and the mean girl, illustrating how these deeply ingrained gendered stereotypes are revived reconfigurations of conservative women’s roles, now articulated within seemingly more progressive narratives, as exemplified by the novels of the corpus. The author’s approach is nuanced and attentive to the contradictions and tensions within and across the novels, resisting linear and totalizing explanations. In her analysis, she eloquently demonstrates the pitfalls and dangers of the dominant discourse of personal choice and how it ultimately obscures male violence against women. The author shows that while the romanticization of male violence is not new, it is now intertwined with contemporary cultural imperatives and dominant discourses of personal responsibility, individualism, and agency, which atomize women’s pain, veil its embeddedness in social macro-structures and facilitate victim-blaming attitudes.

Roche’s analysis is particularly compelling in her discussion of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (2011–2012), where she develops a critique of the way sexual consent is framed within postfeminism. She unpacks the multitude of restraints and regulatory practices embedded in Anastasia’s contractual relationship with Christian Grey – ranging from sleep schedules and beauty routines to dietary habits – arguing that the novel not only sanitizes these constraints through a grammar of choice but also frames them as empowering and pleasurable. Although, as Roche demonstrates, ‘Christian persistently emphasises Anastasia’s responsibility for consent’ (p. 56), her analysis of Anastasia’s dilemmas, pressures, and feelings of obligation reveals that her choices were deeply constrained. Saying no to Christian’s wishes and demands would come at a cost – likely provoking the end of the relationship. Roche powerfully illustrates how consent, along with the rhetoric of choice, pleasure, and empowerment, can be weaponized against women, evading deeper questions about the actual options available to them while also diluting collective demands for social change. In other words, supposedly liberating concepts such as consent and choice can perversely function as gendered traps, as it was examined in previous feminist critiques of consent (e.g. Gavey, 2005; MacKinnon, 2016) which could have enriched the analysis. In that way, Roche’s study corroborates and converges with a solid body of literature from different areas that have explored the limits and blind spots of consent, showing that fiction can provide interesting elements and layers to foster this debate. Indeed, E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy provides a powerful resource to explore crucial questions on consent: What does consent mean in patriarchy, when women’s choices are profoundly restrained? How does consent work to prevent sexual violence, if male domination is eroticized? Is consent, after all, another tool of patriarchy?

Minor additions could have enhanced the book’s depth, robustness, and readability. For instance, further details and background information on each novel could have been presented in a more systematized way, making it easier for readers unfamiliar with all the works to engage with the analysis. In addition, since the book explores representations of gendered violence, it could have expanded its scope by engaging with other bodies of knowledge. While the introduction includes some data on femicides and rape convictions, incorporating additional statistical data on violence against women – particularly sexual violence – could have offered a broader perspective on its prevalence and normalization. Furthermore, the analysis of memory loss, confusion, manipulation, and trauma concerning Rachel, the protagonist of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, could have been enriched through dialogue with empirical studies and feminist approaches to psychology.

The book’s concluding remarks offer an interesting addition to Roche’s research on postmillennial romance fiction. The author develops a critical reflection on postfeminism and popular feminism (the mainstreaming of feminism in popular culture), exploring their commonalities, as well as their differences. She argues that ‘it would be unproductive to totally dismiss popular feminism as nothing more than a modified version of postfeminism’ (p. 121). In this context, she examines the resurgence of feminism in recent years, highlighting major expressions of women’s collective and organized rage, such as #MeToo and The Women’s March opposing Trump’s election in 2017. #MeToo and its potential disruption of the gendered politics of neoliberalism is beyond the scope of Roche’s research, but her conclusion touches upon pertinent lines of inquiry and stimulates a broader discussion on these questions. It underscores the significance of #MeToo in rekindling the collective rage that fuelled feminist protests and demands of the 1970s and 1980s, reconnecting with the radical roots of a ‘sisterly’ feeling (p. 122) and challenging the individualistic framework underlying postfeminism. Overall, Women, Violence, and Postmillennial Romance Fiction is a well-written, well-structured, and well-grounded book. It makes a valuable contribution to feminist media studies, contemporary popular romance, and postfeminism, offering insightful reflections on the limitations of consent, choice, and empowerment.