\n<\/p>\n
The Idea of You<\/i> author, Robinne Lee<\/strong>, has something to say about the film adaptation of her book.<\/p>\n \u201cSome readers were viewing this story about ageism, sexism, the double standard, motherhood, female friendship, agency, and the dark side of celebrity as nothing more than \u2018fluff,\u2019\u201d she wrote for Time <\/i><\/a>in a guest piece published on <\/i>Thursday, May 2. \u201cThey focused on the love story and the sex to the exclusion of the other pertinent themes of the book. They called it a romance. It was not.\u201d<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cRomance novels have specific rules, and my book did not follow them. But it was labeled and categorized as such.\u201d<\/p>\n Published in 2017, Lee\u2019s The Idea of You<\/i> revolves around Sol\u00e8ne, a 40-year-old single mother who finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old frontman of a boy band called August Moon. Their rapid romance encounters obstacles stemming from their age gap, Hayes\u2019 celebrity status and Sol\u00e8ne\u2019s teenage daughter\u2019s love for August Moon. The film, which stars Anne Hathaway<\/b> as Sol\u00e8ne and Nicholas Galitzine<\/b> as Hayes, dropped on Thursday (and aged up the daughter).<\/p>\n Lee, also an actor, told Time <\/i>that when she started writing The Idea of You<\/i> in 2014, she \u201cdidn\u2019t plan on writing something that was revolutionary or controversial,\u201d adding, \u201cAs someone who was in that age range and who should have just been hitting my stride in my professional life as an actor, I was seeing the sudden shift in parts available to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee compared the reaction to the novel to Hayes\u2019 own insecurities about calling his boyband. She went on to quote the book in the Time<\/em> piece: \u201cWe take art that appeals to women \u2014 film, books, music \u2014 and we undervalue it. We assume it can\u2019t be high art. Especially if it\u2019s not dark and tortured and wailing. And it follows that much of that art is created by other women, and so we undervalue them as well. We wrap it up in a pretty pink package and resist calling it art.\u201d<\/p>\n