Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
Hello there. This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is Top Ten Books That Would Be On Your Syllabus If You Taught X 101, and I decided to go with YA Romance. I picked ten different 'kinds' of romances, that aren't necessarily my top favorites, though. I hope this is okay and not bending the rules too much.
The Insta-Love
First off, something I do not recommend including in your book: Insta-love. It's extremely annoying most of the times and tolerable at best. The book I chose for this is Ignite by Lily Paradis. On page 7, the main character has already fallen madly in love with a random guy she just met, who made her loose the ability to speak and think. Oh, how I hated that. But to be fair, the book got better after that, so if insta-love is something that doesn't bother you, you should consider picking it up.
The Love Triangle
The Love Triangle
Another classic in YA romance and another thing I recommend you avoid: the love triangle. I don't think anyone actually likes these, but I, for one, don't particularly hate them. They can be done well, in a way that doesn't bother me. As an example, I have chosen a series where I actually enjoyed the love triangle: The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare.
The Slow Burn
Maybe this is just personal preference, but something that is all too rarely done in my opinion is a good slow burn romance. It's the exact opposite of the aforementioned insta-love, where the characters develop feelings over time rather than at first sight. If you are interested, I would recommend I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios, a wonderful example of slowly developing love story.
The Drama Queens
While they're mostly annoying, overly dramatic love stories can be entertaining sometimes. One of the examples where all the drama, and I mean there is a lot, didn't even bother me is Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire. I guess you'll just have to make me ship the characters so hard that I can overlook all the drama and just want my happily ever after.
(I cheated a little because Beautiful Disaster is very clearly a New Adult book, so don't read it if you're not ready for that!)
Hate Turns to Love
You know when you hate someone with all your heart but for some reason you end up falling in love with them? Yeah, me neither. Even though I don't think it will ever happen to me, I love reading these kinds of stories. A good example would be the Shatter Me trilogy by Tahereh Mafi.
The Heartbreaker
Love is beautiful and usually it's a happy thing, especially in books. But then there are the ones that leave you crying, like full-out sobbing. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, for example. I seem to like torturing myself, because these kinds of books usually win me over easily. I guess, any book that makes me feel such strong emotions deserves to be a favorite.
The Pretended Romance
As far as I know, this only ever happens in books too, but I kind of really love it. You know, when there's some weird coincidence and the characters end up in a fake relationship that then somehow turns into a real one. My YA example for this would be To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han and, if you'll allow me to cheat again, Faking It by Cora Carmack is a great New Adult example.
Forbidden Love
Sometimes love isn't easy. For example, when you fall in love with the 'wrong' person, someone you should never have fallen for. Your predestined enemy. Someone from from the wrong social circle. Honestly, there are too many examples. The one book I would recommend for this kind of romance is The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski.
The Unfortunate One
Sometimes, everything works out perfectly for the characters and the happily ever after comes so easily, thanks to lots of lucky coincidences. And sometimes it really doesn't. You know, the ones where everything goes wrong, that keep you on the edge of your seat because of a thousand of misunderstandings and unlucky events. Like with Allyson and Willem in Just One Day by Gayle Forman.
The Perfect One
Finally, if you just want to get the whole romance part perfectly right, you should have a look at the always wonderful Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Not only are the characters perfectly imperfect, their friendship and later romance develops naturally, without the help of any lucky but unlikely coincidences that for some reason keep bringing the characters together.
What books would you suggest for any of these categories?
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