Stop doomscrolling and pick up a romance novel

The world is crazy, but we'll always have love stories

The news has been heavy lately. Actually, it’s been heavy for… I don’t even know how long. Each year, we’re living through an unprecedented event. Every day brings something new that chips away at our nervous systems and pushes us deeper into a state of collective fear and paralysis.

I stopped reaching for my romance books, something that brought me such joy, because I felt a sense of guilt reading about love stories with everything going on in the world.

But something shifted during this last wild news cycle. I was sitting on a plane, flying across the country, forcing myself to slog through a politically charged sci-fi novel that I thought I wanted to read. But my brain wasn’t feeling relief like it usually does while reading. My relaxing activity was actually causing my brain to spiral even more.

I’ve been toying with the idea of putting my political science degree to good use and writing my own political space saga one day. But in that cramped airplane seat, the story felt like a chore. Every twist of political intrigue reminded me how dark and exhausting the world could be—even on faraway planets.

As soon as I landed, I deleted Twitter (I refuse to call it the other name 🙄) and downloaded a stack of romance novels to my Kindle that had been sitting on my GoodReads back burner. It was a small act of rebellion, a refusal to let fear and anxiety dictate my every moment.

And in that moment, I remembered a few things:

• I have free will

• It’s not my job to save the world

• It’s okay to choose joy, even for a little while

That doesn’t mean tuning out entirely. I still have news push notifications to stay informed of what’s going on in my country and abroad. Caring about humanity is one of the most beautiful things we can do in a world that often feels unbearable. But it’s also okay to carve out time to nurture yourself, to seek solace, and to remind yourself that goodness still exists.

Romance novels and the promise of a satisfactory happily ever after have been doing that for me. On the surface, they’re about meet cutes, YEARNING, and yes, the occasional spicy bedroom scene.

But underneath, they’re about hope. They remind us that people are capable of goodness, that love exists even when life feels impossible, and that genuine, messy human connection is always possible.

Case in point: The Summer I Turned Pretty. I’ve been thinking about the finale for a WEEK. Every single piece of BellyConrad content that comes across my social media is an automatic like. Conrad bearing his soul, Belly finally giving in to what she’d wanted all along—it was exactly what I needed in that moment.

Even my husband got roped into Jenny Han’s universe, laughing and sighing at the right moments beside me. Moments like that remind me why romance is so deeply healing.

The Summer I Turned Pretty series finale

The genre is vast and endlessly fascinating. Paranormal romance? Check. Billionaire office romance? Check. Even Amish romance, which I discovered existed this week through listening to a podcast.

There’s quite literally a subgenre for every mood, every need, every moment when the world feels like too much. Sometimes just immersing yourself in a love story—one where someone chooses kindness, one where someone leans in instead of pushing away—can feel more revolutionary than reading another bleak news cycle.

We can’t ignore reality, and we shouldn’t. But carving out space for beauty, for hope, for love, is also radical. Life, even at its heaviest, contains moments that are pure and sustaining. Sometimes, that’s enough to keep going.

If you’re like me, constantly scrolling, constantly anxious, constantly feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, consider picking up a love story or watching one on TV. Let it remind you that people can be good and that joy exists.

The world is heavy, yes. But love is still good.