| Summary: | This article explores the construction of the self in romance fiction written today and argues for a reading of romance and selfhood through a negativist lens, suggesting that romance is best understood as participating in the relational selfhood as the means by which happily-ever-afters are achieved. To that end, this article first surveys broad approaches to reader-centric scholarship of the romance from Janice Radway to the present and concludes that such scholarship understands the romance as working to build or construct a sense of social self for its characters and readers. This article argues that this understanding, while foundational to the field and useful in its own moment, face problems as the genre evolves in the present. Sketching some queer theoretical approaches to problems of identity from which this article takes its cues, this article then offers a negativist alternative. To that end, this article explores the negativist, disruptive potential for selfhood through romance fiction either disseminated on or written about the internet, and explores how the negativist lens evades the theoretical problems discussed earlier. Finally, this article concludes by offering a close reading of the 2020 novel The Love Study by Kris Ripper as a case in which a romance novel featuring the internet deconstructs its hero's selfhood to enable his happily-ever-after.
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