‘There is no shame’: The joy of reclaiming guilty pleasures | Canada Voices

Every month or so, a group of Toronto books fans come together. They might debate Ice Planet Barbarians fan theories over themed cocktails. They might answer trivia questions about dragon riders and healers in Rebecca Yarros’s blockbuster Empyrean series. Or they might go for a “walking book club” through a local park to discuss Carley Fortune’s latest romance release.

Whatever the activity, attendees get to be unapologetically enthusiastic about the genres they love – specifically romance, fantasy and romantasy books, plus their movie and streaming adaptations.

“We wanted to create a space where people can be 100 per cent themselves, get to be weird, awkward, obsessive – you can come in and you know there’s a group of people that accepts you for that,” says Simona Stallone, co-founder of The Book Girls Toronto.

Stallone, 29, a real estate agent, and Jess Sorrentino, 33, a popular trivia host, launched the group a year and a half ago after Sorrentino noticed that trivia players in the romantasy genre wanted to discuss book theories with neighbouring tables as much as they wanted to answer questions. “So Simona and I thought, why don’t we make an event where that’s the goal?” she says.

The Book Girls are mostly women in their late 20s and early 30s (with a few men in the mix, too). Sorrentino says people often sign up alone. “But then after the event, they’ll chat with somebody and they’ll say, ‘Hey, do you want to sign up next month together?’”

Abby McCulloch, 25, is a marketing professional and avid Sarah J. Maas fan who attends The Book Girls Toronto events. “I go to almost every one, because I love the community that they’ve created,” she says. “I’ve gone to most events alone, but you meet people along the way that are just so like-minded that I’ve ended up making a bunch of friends.”

Sorrentino says a main pillar of their events is to create safe, welcoming spaces where people can form friendships over shared interests – particularly those often derided as unserious, girly or guilty pleasures.

“It’s very intimidating to go up to somebody at a restaurant or at a bar and say, ‘Hey, do you like this? Do you want to chat about it?’” says Sorrentino. “Creating a space where that is the mission instantly breaks those barriers.”

Stallone notes that even though romance is the top-selling genre in North America, “because it is written by a woman, targeted to a woman and it is about romance, it is considered a ‘lesser than’ genre. If you tell somebody you read romance, they think it doesn’t count.”

At The Book Girls Toronto, “we’re through with that idea of like, ‘This is a guilty pleasure’ or ‘It’s a kind of embarrassing,’” she says. “There is no shame. We’re going to create a space where we can unapologetically like the things we like.”

Danielle Fuller, a professor in the department of English and film studies at the University of Alberta, says there is a long history of the literature that women consume being looked down upon.

“If you think of 18^th-century novels like Tristram Shandy and Pamela, they’re often to do with semi-scandalous things happening – gossipy and racy elements,” Fuller says. “Very quickly, women and novels somehow became associated together. Novels were seen as less intellectual. They were for pleasure and fantasy and not for learning or religious reflection.”

Fuller says that stereotype stuck over the years, lingering even now in the bias against book genres, movies, music and hobbies associated with women. “It’s bound up with all these other gender stereotypes of women not being as intellectual, women wasting time as opposed to doing something more worthwhile,” she says.

In recent years, Fuller says stereotypes around romance and romantasy being low-brow or trashy have been challenged, primarily owing to BookTok – communities on social media platform TikTok that publicly celebrate the books they love.

“Younger people have really been reclaiming [romance] as a genre and saying, ‘No, lots of us like reading this, here’s why.’”

Kiera Obbard, a postdoctoral scholar and adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo and lecturer at the University of Guelph, says she’s seen a big increase in women becoming more comfortable speaking about their interests.

“In the last few years in particular I think there’s been this push for nostalgia and reclaiming the things that we loved to do as girls,” Obbard says. “And I think this plays a really big role, especially for women in their 30s or 40s who are coming back to reading after a long time.”

On the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, Liane Goldhawk knows the call of nostalgia well. Through her company, Main Character Events, Goldhawk runs weekend getaways dedicated to the love of 1998 cult classic film Practical Magic. She says the idea stemmed from her own fondness for the film, which is about two witch sisters (played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman) navigating a centuries-old family curse. This year is especially significant with the film’s sequel, Practical Magic 2, premiering in September.

“I’m in my 40s, and the film is very nostalgic for me. We didn’t have a lot of movies about strong women back then,” says Goldhawk, who also runs a granola farm with her husband Chris. “A lot of us lean toward the witchy side of life when you’re growing up and finding out what kind of woman you want to be, so it stuck with me all the way from the 1990s till now.”

The weekends, which take place during the fall at resorts near Halifax and Ottawa, include activities inspired by the film, from crafts to cold plunges and sound baths in nature. The women who attend range in age from their 20s to their 70s, though all genders are welcome, Goldhawk says. They screen the film and Goldhawk invites a tarot practitioner who opens the weekend with a light-hearted icebreaker. “It’s a little bit spiritual, a little spooky, but also just really fun.”

She says that the weekends give attendees the opportunity to connect with new people about something they love.

“I’m neurodivergent and so I have a real hard time masking when I’m really excited about something,” says Goldhawk, who also hosts “readaway” weekends for book fans like herself. “It’s almost permission to let that come out, because you’re just as excited about this topic as I am. We feel safe with each other – you can be exuberant and not be afraid to be judged.”

It’s satisfying to see her guests immersing themselves in the books and movies they love, she adds.

“You get to be amongst your people,” she says. “Life is much better when you’re excited and talking to someone about something that you’re interested in.”