Hello, and happy Wednesday! This post is a few days late, but I’m really excited for this week’s topic. It was suggested by the wonderful Dedra @ A Book Wanderer, and is all about happily ever afters. I’d never put that much thought into happily ever afters before, so it was really fun to go through all of the prompts for this week. Since I don’t have much else to say right here, I’m going to jump straight into the post!

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and has been hosted by me since April of this year! Each Friday, there is a discussion topic for bloggers to write about. This week’s topic is Should all Romances have Happily Ever Afters (HEAs)? (suggested by Dedra @ A Book Wanderer), and that’s what I’m going to be writing about today.

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Do you like romances with happy endings?

I do! While tragedy-filled dramas and heartbreaking romance can be amazing to read, having happy books with happy endings is always fun.

I personally love books with happy endings. If I’m stressed or sad or overwhelmed, reading a happy book can make me feel happier! It also is nice seeing your favorite characters get the fun endings they deserve.

Do you think that all romances should have happy endings? Why or why not?

I don’t. While I do love happy endings, sometimes it just doesn’t work for books to have them. And sometimes, it makes more sense for books to end in tragedy or sadness. An example of this is They Both Die at the End, by Adam Silvera. This is the perfect book to use as an example because, well, I’m not giving away the fact that it has a sad ending. The title gives that one away.

But They Both Die at the End isn’t the only book where a sad ending works out. I’ve read a lot of books with sad endings, or only partially happy endings, and they can be really good.

I do think that it’s good to have a mix of happy and sad endings though, because if you only ever read books with sad endings, that’s not going to make you too happy.

What are some of your favorite romances with Happily Ever Afters?

So. I put this question in without really thinking about it, but after reading Dedra’s post, I’ve rethought if I should put a list of books with happily ever afters because of spoilers.

Do you think that telling someone a book has a happy ending counts as a spoiler?

I’ve thought about it for a while, and I don’t really have an answer. I think it depends on what a person wants to know before going into a book. Maybe they like knowing what kind of ending they’re headed towards. Maybe they want everything to remain a mystery.

I know that there are probably many different opinions on this, so I’d love to hear what you all think!

In the meantime though, I decided to put one book here, and talk about why it’s so important that it has a happily ever after. The book is The Henna Wars, by Adiba Jaigirdar.

A lot of the time, LGBTQ+ fiction is shown in a much more negative light. A lot of the queer media out there is sad, and negative, and ends badly for the queer main characters.

Positive representation is so important, and that is why The Henna Wars is such an important book. When the book came out in 2020, I remember seeing it marketed as “queer brown girls who get a happy ending.” And that’s what it is.

This kind of positive representation is so rare, but is so important. Fortunately, there are increasingly larger open spaces for BIPOC and LGBTQ authors in publishing, and to showcase that positive representation. But there still isn’t enough, and publishing is predominantly white and straight.

There is one very interesting article from the New York Times I recommend reading. It is a few years old, but has some really interesting statistics on just how white the book industry is.

It isn’t enough yet, but it is getting there. Each week, more and more books with positive representation come out, and more and more people are able to see themselves positively represented in books everywhere.

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Wrapping this up…

I didn’t anticipate writing so much about positive representation, but I did, and I had a lot of fun with it! I really would love to hear all of your thoughts about this topic, so please do comment below your opinions on happily ever afters, what counts as spoilers, and positive representation in fiction!

If you wrote a post for this topic, link it below so that other bloggers can read your post!! (You will have to click the blue button that says “Visit link party” to add your link!)

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Do you like happily ever afters? Do you think that books without a happy ending should count as romance? Do you think revealing a happy ending counts as a spoiler? Chat with me in the comments below!