Under Your Scars
Under Your Scars
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Background
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, sexual harassment, emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, and death by suicide.
Genre Context: Dark Romance and the “HEA” Mandate
Many readers of modern romance anticipate “Happily Ever After,” sometimes shortened to an HEA. This could also be a “Happy For Now” (HFN) ending, wherein the novel at least ends on a positive note between the two romantic leads. The HEA promises that despite any turmoil, the central couple will end the story in a stable, optimistic relationship. The dark romance subgenre pushes conventional boundaries by exploring taboo subjects like stalking, captivity, and dubious consent, often featuring morally gray or villainous protagonists. While these narratives are intense, they typically still adhere to the HEA mandate, delivering a conventionally happy ending as a reward for the characters’ emotional and physical trials.
Under Your Scars deliberately subverts this foundational genre requirement. The author explicitly labels the book a “romantic tragedy” in the front matter, signaling a departure from the expected HEA. This classification situates the novel within a literary tradition where love stories are destined to end in sorrow, akin to classics like Romeo and Juliet. The narrative defies the romance genre’s promise of an ultimately uplifting conclusion by culminating in a tragic and unfulfilling ending. This subversion is a conscious artistic decision meant to demonstrate that love and suffering are inextricably linked, and a happy resolution is not guaranteed.
Cultural Context: BookTok Virality and “Touch-Her-And-Die” Tropes
The rise of BookTok, a community of readers on the social media platform TikTok, has deeply impacted the publishing industry, with its influence credited for significant spikes in book sales. This phenomenon has been particularly beneficial for self-published authors of dark romance, a genre that thrives on the platform. Under Your Scars gained immense popularity by leveraging viral BookTok trends, specifically the “billionaire romance” and “stalker romance” subgenres and the “touch-her-and-die” trope. Examples of billionaire romance novels include Twisted Love by Ana Huang and the Dreamland Billionaires series (The Fine Print, Terms and Conditions, and Final Offer) by Lauren Asher, while Lights Out by Navessa Allen and Haunting Adeleine by H. D. Carlton are both popular examples of dark romances with stalkers as love interests.
However, the “touch-her-and-die” trope is one of several specific archetypes within the broader romance or romantasy genre. These can include broader dynamics like “enemies-to-lovers” or very specific occasions like “only one bed” that the protagonist and her love interest are forced to share at some point, sparking intimacy. The trope in Under Your Scars features a hyper-possessive male protagonist who reacts with extreme violence toward anyone who harms or threatens his love interest. Christian embodies this trope through his violent alter ego, the Silencer, who brings violent retribution on any man who harasses or harms the main character, Elena. Christian’s actions, such as giving Elena a bracelet that doubles as a panic alarm and GPS tracker and admitting he watched her through her window, align perfectly with this popular trope within the genre. While the trope elicits questions about control, agency, and power, the trope allows the male character to demonstrate his love for the protagonist.
Authorial Context: Ariel N. Anderson and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Ariel N. Anderson is a dark romance writer from Texas who has penned numerous self-published titles, including Under Your Scars, the Echoes of Eternity duology, Entombed, and The End Unseen. She writes in the author’s note that between her first and second manuscript for Under Your Scars, her father died by suicide. She states, “This book is a direct reflection of the darkest part of my life” (463), and the protagonists experience depression, grief, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. The front matter includes the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and a pledge that “a small portion of the net royalties from all Ariel N. Anderson titles are donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention” (ix).
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1987 by a group of families who had lost loved ones to suicide. Its stated mission is to “save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide.” The AFSP achieves this through funding scientific research, offering educational programs, advocating for public policies related to mental health, and supporting suicide loss survivors. Under Your Scars engages with the AFSP’s mission on both a textual and paratextual level. The novel’s engagement with the AFSP provides a lens through which to understand the story as an exploration of the destructive impact of death by suicide and a tribute to the importance of prevention and support.
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