Books like Harlequins: is it a good metaphor?

[englishhobby]

While reading about the problem of the decrease in reading I came across such a sentence: People love reading books like Harlequins, which cannot offer us any interesting problems to consider.

Do you think a native speaker of English could have written such a phrase? Is it understandable?

 

[emsr2d2]

As it stands, I can't see any grammatical errors. However, without knowing what "Harlequins" is supposed to mean, it's not possible to say for certain that the sentence is OK.

 

[Raymott]

"Harlequin" is a publishing company, related in some way to Mills&Boon. They publish "romances" - love stories. Girl meets Man; some perceived problem prevents them from getting together for 196 pages; then the problem is resolved - Girl gets Man.
http://www.harlequinbooks.com.au/

 

[MikeNewYork]

I am used to seeing that as "Harlequin romances" rather than "Harlequins".

 

[Raymott]

Do you think a native speaker of English could have written such a phrase? Is it understandable?

By the way, it's not a metaphor. Yes, that is consistent with a native speaker's sentence. Yes, it's understandable if you know that 'Harlequins' are a type of book; otherwise it's probably not. I suppose it's rather like a reference to reading Penguins.

 

[emsr2d2]

I prefer to eat P-P-P-Penguins. ;-)