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> I don't think you can characterize romance novels as being
> aimed at less proficient readers. Many intelligent, hyper-literate women
> either read them or have gone through periods in their lives when they
read
> them (and not necessarily when they were young, either).
That's neither here nor there, unless you'd care to assert that the
traditional Harlequin romance is extremely short and written at a
fifth-grade reading level for some reason OTHER than catching a mass
audience that includes many marginal readers.
That mass media attracts a mass audience that includes a broad spectrum of
individuals in no way implies that they aren't setting their sights on a
fairly low least common denominator, or that the bulk of their audience
might be near the low end of the spectrum.
> Moreover, some romance fans read so many of these novels in a
> month that they
> are probably faster readers than you or I. So, if reading
> speed is any measure,
> they would have to be counted as good readers.
The books are very short.
Now, just to make sure that everyone understands me, the romance genre is
very, very broad, with a huge number of subgenres. The books I homed in on
were ones like the traditional Harlequin Romances, which are very short and
simple. No doubt you can find books that are fully inside the genre at any
reading level you care to name, but they'll be in different subgenres from
the "read them like popcorn" lines.
