Trend?

I recently read two contemporary romance novels in which the main dudes (must I really call them “heroes”?) were recently released prisoners. Innnteresting. America has a huge prison epidemic on our hands, and yet I don’t really see this reflected in what I read.

Of course, neither of the guys in these books did anything really awful. In fact, one hadn’t done the thing for which he’d been imprisoned. How noble. The other guy was undoubtedly guilty, but his crime was too stupid to take seriously (he DOS-ed Twitter). I’d never really had occasion to think about what it would be like to date/marry somebody with a prison record. That’s something that must be disclosed on employment applications; you can’t vote for a certain amount of time; you face a certain amount of societal prejudice.

It’s not that I read novels expecting to find realism, but I was fascinated how a genre that is commonly held to be completely frivolous could handle such a sensitive topic in completely different ways.

FYI, the books were Julie James’ A Lot Like Love and Kristan Higgins’ Too Good to be True. Of the two, I preferred the latter, although both books were enjoyable.