The Summer of Broken Rules

The plot of the traditional romance novel focuses primarily on love and conforms to two major conventions. The first convention is that, while there can be other plots that develop around the central relationship, the primary conflict must focus on the developing romantic relationship between the protagonists of the story. The second convention decrees that a work of romance fiction must have an optimistic ending. While this often takes the form of the proverbial “happily ever after,” even an unconventional romance novel is expected to end on a positive note rather than a sour one.

Adherence to such time-honored conventions does not mean that romance fiction lacks tension, however. On the contrary, the genre employs a wide range of well-known tropes designed to create various plot developments, from tense, emotional incidents to humorous moments that border on absurd. For example, one of the most well-known tropes of contemporary romance fiction is the “only one bed” trope, in which the couple is forced into a situation, usually a hotel room, in which they expect two separate beds but are compelled by necessity to share a single bed, often giving rise to all kinds of shenanigans. Another common trope in contemporary romance fiction involves the “third act breakup,” in which an unexpected plot twist results in a breach of trust that causes one of the two protagonists to temporarily cut the budding relationship short, usually toward the end of the story. Inevitably, the climax of the story will result in the resolution of tension and the resumption of the romantic relationship.

While The Summer of Broken Rules exhibits many of the key traits of the traditional romance, it also manages to display aspects of innovation that challenge the standard tropes in unexpected ways. A key example of this occurs when Meredith and Wit share a single bed out of choice rather than necessity. Although Meredith has two beds available that are not Wit’s bed: her own bed and the bed Claire used to sleep in, she chooses to sleep in Wit’s bed for the majority of the novel, and the reason has more to do with her grief over Claire’s absence than her delight in Wit’s presence, although that too plays a role. Additionally, K. L. Walther completely avoids the standard “third act breakup” by creating a situation in which both Wit and Meredith know from the beginning that they will be going separate ways when the week ends; thus, the novel contains none of the typical miscommunications or moments of surprise tension that usually come with a breakup.

Despite such plot points that break with tradition, however, the influence of these conventional patterns still positions The Summer of Broken Rules firmly within the romance fiction genre. Although the budding relationship between Wit and Meredith is secondary to the novel’s primary focus on processing grief and loss, it still dominates many aspects of the narrative as the two protagonists explore just how far their relationship might progress within the confines of the week. The story also delivers the expected “happily ever after,” for they finally manage to resolve all the practical challenges that stand between them and reunite a year later after successfully developing a healthy long-distance relationship.