Favorite Literary Couples IV

It has become my tradition to celebrate Valentine’s Day here on the blog by posting my favorite literary couples in books I’ve read in the past year. I can’t believe this is already the fourth installment of this post! Kind of amazing to think that I’ve been doing this for that long. I always enjoy doing this because I love literary love stories and I even have fictional crushes (if you’re a fellow book lover, I’m sure you completely understand). So it’s nice to go through books that I’ve read and try to pick the couples that stood out for me. You can check out posts from years past through these links: 2010, 2011, 2012

Image from We Heart It

Mia and Adam from If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman – I was pleasantly surprised by how invested I was in Mia and Adam’s love story. I liked that they’re so different from each other – Mia is a classical music girl who plays the cello while Adam has his rock band – and yet they work so well together. Another aspect of their relationship that I love is how Mia’s parents are so supportive of it that Adam learns to care about them like he’s part of the family. It was so easy to fall into their story and I wanted to bang my head on a wall for waiting so long to read Gayle Forman’s books – although it was a good thing that I didn’t have to wait for a sequel and I got to read these two novels together (not like after I finished Just One Day and couldn’t wait to get my hands on Just One Year). I need to thank one of my favorite authors for pointing me in the direction of these books.

Leah and Grayson from Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols – I found out that Jennifer Echols can write a great slow burn romance when I was introduced to her writing through Going Too Far. Ever since I finished reading that book, I’ve been waiting for her books to live up to how much I enjoyed the love story in Going Too Far. That finally happened with Such A Rush with all the tension between Leah and Grayson. It took them years to finally realize that they’re attracted to each other and I had such a good time watching them circling each other, trying to decide what the next move should be. It was an added bonus that both of them are pilots because I think pilots are cool.

Beth and Lincoln from Attachments by Rainbow Rowell – Such a fun premise and a sweet romance! Even though the book was set in the 90s, I could relate to the story because of Beth using her work mail to chat with her best friend. I also found Lincoln to be a really nice guy and I thought his geekiness was cute. I loved that these two characters are close to my own age and all the characters in the book felt like they were just trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives, trying to make big decisions to take a step in the direction that they want to go. Seriously can’t wait to read Eleanor and Park, they sound like another couple that I could root for.

Jacqueline and Lucas from Easy – I think Easy’s love story appealed to me because of the college setting. And also because Lucas seemed like a typical bad boy when he’s really not. I’m a sucker for characters like that. Plus this relationship took time to form, both characters had to work through their own issues before they could be together. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that I’m not a fan of instalove.

Kami and Jared from Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan – Okay, so this might be considered cheating because Kami and Jared aren’t exactly a couple but what they have is even more intimate. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have someone in your head all of the time. I think that bond makes Kami and Jared unique and in tune to each other like no other couple could be (unless they could also read each other’s minds). So even if they’re technically not together as a couple, I’m including them in my list. Looking forward to the sequel (also known as the make out book)!

Oh wow, quite surprising that most of the couples in the list above are from contemporary novels. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been reading mostly contemps but it seems like I need to discover more fantasy couples in the coming year (feel free to give suggestions). And because I always have a hard time narrowing down my choices, here are the runners-up:

Harper and Travis from Something Like Normal by Trish Doller
Seraphina and Lucian from Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Violet and Martin from Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
Richard and Charlotte from Steel’s Edge by Ilona Andrews
Jasmine and Sean from Amplified by Tara Kelly

But wait, there’s more! The special mention award goes to:

Lizzie and Darcy from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries – I couldn’t talk about my favorite couples without mentioning these two. So these are characters from a web series instead of a book but they’re based on Pride and Prejudice characters so I think that still counts. In case I haven’t been talking enough about the LBD here (and in both Twitter and Tumblr), I just wanted to say that I like how they modernized the love story. It’s a slow burn romance and every episode with the two of them together is scrutinized in detail by fans all over the world. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out. I refrained from posting a picture of the two of them together because I don’t want to spoil the Darcy reveal for those who haven’t reached that part yet.

Those are my favorite literary couples from books that I’ve read starting mid-February last year. Who are some of your favorite fictional couples? ♥ Would love to hear about them! One sure way of convincing me to pick up a book is by letting me know that there’s a well-written romance in there.

Linkage:
My friend Heidi of Bunbury in the Stacks also talked about her fave couples

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

I know I’ve said this before but I love how hilarious Sarah Rees Brennan is. I follow her on her blog and Twitter and I think she’s really funny. I also know she has excellent taste in books, as proven by her Queen’s Thief Week guest post and by the number of recommendations that I’ve gotten from her. I’ve also enjoyed reading the first two Demon’s Lexicon novels (I know, I know, really need to pick up the third). So I was mighty curious when I first heard about Unspoken’s premise. I read this before leaving Manila a few weeks ago but because I’ve been having a reviewing slump, I haven’t gotten the chance to talk about it. Since it’s being released soon, I thought it’s high time I write a post about it.

Here’s the summary from Goodreads:

Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown — in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

Kami lives in a quiet little town called Sorry-in-the-Vale. She has a pretty unusual life for a teenage girl – she has a quirky family and a best friend who’s beautiful but anti-social. Add the fact that she keeps talking to someone in her mind and it’s not surprising that her classmates find her a bit weird. Here’s a nice little snippet early on that illustrates this:

“Kami had been hearing a voice in her head all her life. When she was eight, people had thought it was cute that she had an imaginary friend. It was very different now that she was seventeen. Kami was accustomed to people thinking she was crazy.”

I liked Kami right from the start – she’s smart, petite, partly Asian, dreams of becoming an investigative reporter and has a unique fashion sense that I envy. I feel like we’d get along if we ever met in person. She’s like a modern-day Nancy Drew or a Mary Stewart heroine. The connection between Kami and Jared just added to my curiosity – I wanted to know what was behind their ability to silently communicate with each other even if they’ve never met in person.

“If I wasn’t going to be a world-famous journalist and if I didn’t have such respect for truth and justice, I could be an amazing master criminal.”

Kami, as illustrated by Jasmin Darnell

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Kami and her interactions with Jared, as well as the rest of the characters in the books. I liked that we get to know the secondary characters really well even though the focus of the story is Kami and Jared’s relationship. There was a lot of banter in the novel, which I expected since it’s written by Sarah Rees Brennan. I’m usually not a fan of love triangles but I didn’t mind that Unspoken sort of had something like that. Just a heads up though, there’s a cliffhanger ending so if you’re the type of reader who doesn’t like that, it might be better if you wait for the sequel. Can’t wait to find out what happens next to both Kami and Jared! Unspoken is a really good read, I liked it even better than the two Demon’s Lexicon novels that I’ve read. Highly recommended so go and grab a copy when it comes out on September 11. As an added bonus, Sarah Rees Brennan released this prequel short story called The Summer Before I Met You.

Other reviews:
Book Harbinger
Random Musings of a Bibliophile
Cuddlebuggery Book Blog