![Senior Jett Mckinney stores all the clothes in his own room, with half of it stored in his closet along with his personal clothes, and the rest taking up space in his room.
“There’s been times [when] there’s so much clothing stored here and it gets overwhelming, so I end up having to sleep somewhere else in the house,” Mckinney said.](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DSC_0951-1200x800.jpg)
![Broadcast, yearbook and newspaper combined for 66 Interscholastic League Press Conference awards this year. Yearbook won 43, newspaper won 14 and broadcast took home nine. “I think [the ILPC awards] are a great way to give the kids some acknowledgement for all of their hard work,” newspaper and yearbook adviser Paige Hert said. “They typically spend the year covering everyone else’s big moments, so it’s really cool for them to be celebrated so many times and in so many different ways.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/edited-ILPC.jpg)
![Looking down at his racket, junior Hasun Nguyen hits the green tennis ball. Hasun has played tennis since he was 9 years old, and he is on the varsity team. "I feel like it’s not really appreciated in America as much, but [tennis] is a really competitive and mentally challenging sport,” Nguyen said. “I’m really level-headed and can keep my cool during a match, and that helps me play a bit better under pressure.” Photo by Kyra Cox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/hasun.jpg)
![Bringing her arm over her head and taking a quick breath, junior Lauren Lucas swims the final laps of the 500 freestyle at the regionals swimming competition on date. Lucas broke the school’s 18-year-old record for the 500 freestyle at regionals and again at state with a time of 4:58.63. “I’d had my eye on that 500 record since my freshman year, so I was really excited to see if I could get it at regionals or districts,” Lucas said. “ State is always a really fun experience and medaling for the first time was really great. It was a very very tight race, [so] I was a bit surprised [that I medaled]. [There were] a lot of fast girls at the meet in general, [and] it was like a dogfight back and forth, back and forth.” Photo by Kaydence Wilkinson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kaydence-2.7-23-edit-2.jpg)
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna.jpg)
The male protagonist runs through the airport, his feet pounding on the ground. Despite her small five-foot-three frame he can see her head weaving through the crowd, just out of reach. The overhead speakers call her flight and she lines up to board the plane. Just as she takes her seat and gives one last goodbye glance towards the city where she met the love of her life, a stranger slides into the seat next to her. He’s breathing heavily and she looks over at him in curiosity. Their eyes meet and they both know. They can’t live without each other.
This is the ending of many romance novels, and it is loved by authors because it’s a story wrap-up that leaves readers right on the edge of their seat, wondering if the promised “happily ever after” that comes from reading this genre will happen despite the impossible circumstances. Every year I read on average 36 romance novels and they all involve these “impossible circumstances.” Whether they are star-crossed lovers, friends, enemies, competing business partners, or two unlucky people that find themselves destined to be together, the couple in every book manages to end their story with a sky full of fireworks while they whisper to each other, “I love you.” However, not all these books are good books.
In my experience with most of the romance books I’ve read, I find myself hooked in the beginning, suffering through the middle, and ending up only mildly satisfied with the kiss at the end. But I don’t want to be mildly satisfied when I finish a book, I want to be grinning from ear to ear, blushing a little and celebrating the couple I just spent hours reading about. So what is a good romance book? The first key part of a romance novel, while it may seem obvious, is the two protagonists have to actually fall in love.
Sometimes you reach the end of a romance book and realize the two leading characters don’t know anything about each other. I mean I get the whole “love at first” sight thing, or “when you know you know.” My grandma proposed to my grandpa on the second date and they are still happily married after 50 years. My own parents met in January of 1997 and got engaged in that following April. But, for both my grandparents and my parents, they both had enough time to build their relationship and feel the chemistry. The time the two protagonists know each other doesn’t matter, but if there is no connection between them that I, as the reader, can feel, then the book is only getting a maximum of two stars from me.
Next, enemies to lovers is the only trope worth reading. I don’t want to spend hours reading about two friends that suddenly realize they have feelings for each other and now their world is going to end. Boring. Instead I want a prideful Elizabeth Bennet and a rude Mr. Darcy to transform into a dashing Westley and a beautiful Buttercup, who were willing to sacrifice anything for love like in the story of “The Princess Bride.” Lots of people prefer the trope created from “Romeo and Juliet,” where two star-crossed lovers will do anything to be with each other, but that’s way too dramatic for me. I’d much rather read witty banter between two sworn enemies that are falling for each other over hidden feelings and secret meetings.
If you’ve ever read a romance book or watched a romance movie, you’d know that this genre follows a very simple pattern. The two leads meet, spend time together, fall in love, then they fight and make up and their story ends with a kiss. The climax of these stories is when the fight occurs, which is always a misunderstanding that can easily be resolved if the two protagonists actually talked to each other about. But let me tell you, this fight can make or break a novel. Misunderstandings are what take the main couple from I like you to I love you because, according to every romance book, two people can’t realize that they can’t live without each other until they are torn apart. If this misunderstanding is quickly resolved, then the book feels like it’s missing a huge part of its story. People that read romance novels want to see the male protagonist running through the airport to stop the girl from boarding her flight; they want to see the two characters searching for each other and the moment when they decide to forgive each other after realizing they love each other.
I read romance books because I enjoy the fluctuation of emotions they make me feel. If a romance book isn’t full of undeniable chemistry, quirky main characters that claim to hate each other, and a very climatic fight, then it’s basically as exciting as the “It’s a Small World Ride” at Disney World. Super boring, very repetitive and also really annoying. If I’m reading a romance novel, then I want it to be a thrilling roller coaster ride that makes me grip the handles tight and triple check if my seat belts are buckled correctly. If you want to read romance novels but you don’t want to read a bad one, here are a couple of my favorites: “Cross My Heart” by Julie Wright, “Edenbrooke” by Julianne Donaldson, and “Listen to Your Heart” by Kasie West. Happy reading!
