Book Genres that i’m still confused about

Helloo!

Truth be told, I only started to really see the larger broadcast of the different genres as I became a book blogger.. and yep, there’s definately still confusion for some of them!

Romance / erotica

So.. I thought every love story WAS romance.. but turns out it isn’t! I’ve recently found out that the relationship needs to be the plot line AND have a happy ending to be a ‘true romance’.

And erotica- now I do know the difference between erotica and smut, what i’m still confused about is how not all romances that contain some spicy inside isn’t eroticas??

Mystery / thriller

For the longest time I thought those two were interchangeable .. is it one of those “every thriller is a mystery but not every mystery is thriller” kinda thing? Because they sure comes together a load of times!

YA / Adult

Okay, *theorically* that’s not a genre. BUT what even is the split? At first I thought the age of the MC- but that’s not it.

It is kinda like other medias? E for everyone = MG, PG13 = YA & R = adult? But then- teenagers do need safe and healthy depictions of sex in novels.. so where do we draw the line??

As I started labelling my book reviews with the genres of the book, you can guess that’s kinda tricking me I’ll just settle for what Storygraph gives me.. which isn’t the same as GR sometimes!

And that’s only within the genres I like to read, there’s probably a few others that I don’t know very well.

Is there genres that still confuses you, Or that used to in the past?