When Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was adapted for Netflix in 2018, I ended up watching it three times on opening weekend alone. By the end of the summer, I had seen it about eight times. I loved the movie but a large part of my obsession was fueled by the conversation about it online, a conversation largely led by writer Bolu Babalola. A self-described “rom-connoisseur,” Babalola deftly identified everything about the film that had resonated with me: its playful and wholesome depiction of young love, and the agency it gave to its female lead. Babalola’s witty takes and deep appreciation for romcoms made me an instant fan, and I was more than excited to get my hands on Love in Color, her debut romance anthology that came out earlier this year. Full of Babalola’s trademark wit and humour, Love in Color is a collection of reimagined myths and folktales, and a fabulous addition to the modern romance canon.

There is an easily identifiable formula to the relationship building in Babalola’s stories. Her female characters are independent and self-assured. Her male romantic interests are charismatic and a little cocky but never arrogant or disrespectful. Almost all of the relationships are founded on “mutual respect” and “companionship.” In “Siya,” a story inspired by ancient Soninke legend, the title character is a skilled female guerilla commander who falls in love with Maadi, her commanding officer and right hand man. However, the story largely focuses on Siya’s skill and purpose—to overthrow her corrupt uncle and save her home nation. Though vital to the plot, the romance aspect is secondary to Siya’s pursuits. When their romance does come into play, it’s notable that Maadi is not intimidated by Siya’s power. Instead, his respect for her immense power is what makes their relationship electric. It’s certainly a departure from the premise of most romcoms—How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and The Proposal come to mind—where a woman’s ambition was usually portrayed as an obstacle to thriving romance.

Despite her valorization of Hollywood’s greatest romances, Babalola’s departure from the Hollywood formula makes it clear that her notions of romance are not founded in romcom tropes.  Her true source of inspiration becomes clear in the collection’s final story, “Alagomeji.” One of three original stories in the collection, “Alagomeji’” is based on Babalola’s parents’ own love story. In the story, Babalola weaves a brilliant tale of rich friendship that develops into deep romance: she tells of how they grew up a few streets apart in their native Nigeria and became close friends when they went away to the same boarding school. How they strengthened their friendship over their years before they ever became romantic. The story reads like a fairy tale—Babalola even refers to the pair as “Princess” and “Prince.” Yet despite its fantastical gleam, Babalola makes it clear that there is nothing unrealistic about aiming for that sort of love. Growing up, Babalola writes, her parents’ love was evidence of “laughter as a language and friendship as an active ingredient in true romance.” Perhaps because it is the anthology’s most personal, but “Alagomeji” is the warmest and most romantic story in the collection, and the one that I read with a perma-smile on my face.

Of course, like most modern romance tomes, Love in Color is not without sociopolitical commentary. Babalola’s refreshing take on power and love in relationships is an obvious response to the still commonly held view that women must make themselves secondary in order to find fulfilling relationships. But as a writer of the African diaspora, Babalola is also concerned with the racial and ethnic impact of conventional romance tropes. Love in Color’s blurb states that Babalola has “an eye toward decolonizing tropes inherent in our favourite tales of love.” The concept of decolonization gained traction outside academic circles last year, during the so-called “race reckoning” of Summer 2020. The term is a tricky one in that, depending on who you ask, it might mean tearing down every institution that was ever created since European explorers took to the seas, or it might mean increased representation of marginalized cultures and languages. Put simply, it’s not easy to define. What does it mean to decolonize our minds, to decolonize our language? In the case of Babalola’s collection, what does it mean to decolonize romance tropes? In Love in Color, Babalola offers two approaches. 

The first approach is her decentering of white and European stories. Although some of Babalola’s stories draw from Greek myths, the majority of the stories are rooted in West African folk tales, with other origin stories coming from Asia and Egypt. In both cases, her characters are largely people of color. Her retellings of  Greek myths like “Thisbe” and “Psyche” see the characters reimagined as Black or Asian. But even with this intentional casting of people of color, race does not define their identity. Instead, it is just another characteristic. The other way Babalola works to “decolonize” romance tropes is her lack of fetishization, especially of women of color. While Eurocentric romances of the past may have depended on comparing Black women to mocha lattes, not a single one of Babalola’s romantic interests resort to such debase characterizations of the people they love. In the instance that one character does compare his romantic interest to a cup of coffee (“hot, dark, sweet”), Babalola’s writing makes it clear that she is making fun of such comparisons rather than contributing to a tradition of fetishization.

Even so, with these changes, to associate one’s art with the work of decolonization is to take on a big responsibility. And while Babalola and her publishers are careful not to claim that the book is actually decolonizing romance tropes, even the suggestion that the book contributes to the work of decolonization may make readers a bit wary. Already some readers have commented that the lack of queer stories—“Nefertiti” is the only story that features a queer relationship—as a failing of the collection. And while that is valid criticism, I do believe that what Babalola has achieved is in no way insignificant, especially when it comes to the depiction of Black relationships. In a world in which most of the greatest fictional Black romances belong to nostalgia, it is thrilling to read the modern and sexy Black romance of Love in Color. While there may be a long way to go when it comes to dismantling the often patriarchal, Eurocentric tropes of popular romance, books like Love in Color are a reminder that we’re at the dawn of a colorful and expansive era of romance. And that’s enough to have me falling head over heels.