How Romantasy Seduces Its Readers
From Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker
May 14, 2026 · 51 min
About this episode
The episode explores the rise of the romantasy genre and its appeal to readers, particularly in the context of social media influence.
A few years back, novels classed as “romantasy”—a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”—might have seemed destined to attract only niche appeal. But since the pandemic, the genre has proved nothing short of a phenomenon. Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series has repeatedly topped best-seller lists, and Rebecca Yarros’s 2025 title “Onyx Storm” became the fastest-selling adult novel in decades. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by their fellow New Yorker staff writer Katy Waldman as they delve into the realm of romantasy themselves. Together, they consider some of the most popular entries in the genre, and discuss how monitoring readers’ reactions on BookTok, a literary corner of TikTok, allows writers to tailor their work to fans’ hyperspecific preferences. Often, these books are conceived and marketed with particular tropes in mind—but the key ingredient in nearly all of them is a sense of wish fulfillment. “The reason that I think they’re so powerful and they provide such solace to us is because they tell us, ‘You’re perfect. You’re always right. You have the hottest mate. You have the sickest…
People in this episode
Host: Vinson Cunningham
Guests: Naomi Fry, Alexandra Schwartz, Katy Waldman
Topics covered
- romantasy
- book trends
- reader engagement
- wish fulfillment
- BookTok
Keywords
- romantasy
- romance
- fantasy
- BookTok
- best-sellers
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The New Yorker
Books & works: A Court of Thorns and Roses, Onyx Storm
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