Abstract
This case study examines quotes from romance novels uploaded and ’liked’ by users of Goodreads.com ; these are fragments of text that engendered high engagement in readers. I analyse the ten most popular quotes from each of the top-ten books on four popular Goodreads romance lists. The most common quote type is direct speech by the hero — often a declaration of love— suggesting the romance genre’s predominantly female readership values (perceived) insights into the male psyche and celebrates (fictional) men unafraid to verbally express emotion. By contrast, more of the quotes from heroines are internal monologue than direct speech, often showing them working through emotional issues that had been barriers to finding their happily-ever-affer. In conclusion, I use my findings as a pilot study to explore the usefulness and limitations of Goodreads quotes as a dataset for future research on readers and emotion.
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