‘The Idea of You’ author, Robinne Lee, said the story isn’t a romance novel because those ‘have specific rules’
“Some readers were viewing this story about ageism, sexism, the double standard, motherhood, female friendship, agency, and the dark side of celebrity as nothing more than ‘fluff,’” she wrote for Time in a guest piece published on Thursday, May 2. “They focused on the love story and the sex to the exclusion of the other pertinent themes of the book. They called it a romance. It was not.”
Published in 2017, Lee’s The Idea of You revolves around Solène, a 40-year-old single mother who finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old frontman of a boy band called August Moon. Their rapid romance encounters obstacles stemming from their age gap, Hayes' celebrity status and Solène’s teenage daughter’s love for August Moon. The film, which stars Anne Hathaway as Solène and Nicholas Galitzine as Hayes, dropped on Thursday .
Lee compared the reaction to the novel to Hayes' own insecurities about calling his boyband. She went on to quote the book in the Time piece: 'We take art that appeals to women — film, books, music — and we undervalue it. We assume it can’t be high art. Especially if it’s not dark and tortured and wailing. And it follows that much of that art is created by other women, and so we undervalue them as well. We wrap it up in a pretty pink package and resist calling it art.
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