Some books ask you to brace yourself emotionally. Rom coms hand you a coffee, sit you by the window, and promise that however messy things get, someone attractive will probably say the wrong thing in a very entertaining way. That is a big part of why do readers like rom coms as much as they do - they deliver comfort without being boring, romance without becoming too heavy, and humour that makes the feelings hit harder, not softer.

Rom com readers are not here by accident. They know the beats. They can spot a fake-dating setup at twenty paces, sense a third-act wobble coming, and still turn the pages like their life depends on it. That is not because the genre is predictable in a lazy way. It is because a good rom com gives readers exactly what many of us want from fiction right now - emotional release, sharp banter, and characters whose love lives are somehow worse than our own.