Top Ten Favorite Romances

I completely forgot this yesterday. This is the Top ten Tuesday tag from The Broke and the Bookish.

I should specify that I don’t really read romance books, I guess, well, I read them, I just don’t seek them out. I don’t have anything against them, go ahead, they just don’t float my boat. So I’ve vaguely cheated and put in some books that have a very interesting love stories as a sort of side-story-thing. I’m so eloquent. They're in no particular order other than the order I remembered them in.

 It’s a  weird lovestory, because it seems like the main character (who doesn’t have a name), falls in love despite himself. He is an asshole and he likes to do drugs and he is selfish, and at the same time he tries so hard to help this woman he thinks is insane. He helps her sort of against her own will even though she obviously needs help.

 

I feel sort of like I’m cheating, because the story is really about war and politics and saving this little kid and fighting off evil, all kinds of fun stuff. The love story of Phèdre and Joscelin is just there in the background. And still you read this beautiful love story. They seem to fight it, and they have to fight for love. It is tough and it’s not something that comes easy. The fact that he falls in love goes against everything in Joscelin’s life and everything he’s trained for, and so it is hard for him. They are a sort of spectacular couple, and I really love the love story aspect. 

Deathless is a story from Russian folklore. It’s about Marya Morevna who lives in Russia with her parents and sisters. She sees a bird fall out of a tree, turn into a man and the man comes to their house and asks for her hand, the mom misunderstands and sends the oldest daughter with him. This happens two more times. Then an owl falls out of a tree without Marya watching and Koschei the Deathless comes and asks for Marya’s hand. Marya is taken to Koschei’s country to be his bride and also his destruction. It’s a very nice story and I like both of Marya’s love stories and the weirdness of the stories. Marya is a bit whiny and childish, but I still love her so much.

So this is actually a romance novel. Paranormal even. When I read the book it reminded me very much of the TV-show Supernatural when it was still awesome. The love story is between a boy and a ghost, which is fun. It was sort of slow and there was no insta-love. Cas is a very interesting character, he’s smart and the love story is just very weird and I like it. I particularly like that it’s obviously a love story that can never happen, it’s a boy, a real life boy and a ghost. That’ll end well.

Yes. Romance. The Night Circus was one of my favorite books of 2012. It’s a very beautifully written book about a circus that’s only open at night. In the background there is the love story between two magicians, Celia and Marco, who are the reason the circus was built. They are dueling each other to prove who is the best. Meanwhile, seeing the tents the other makes, they fall in love with each other. The love story is slow and they fall deeply and slowly in love. It sort of worked its way through the book and I love it so much.

Yeah, Hazel and Augustus are beautiful and believable and they’re so amazing. I love the story. I cried so much, I read it on a bus. I think I should read it again.

 

I was a bit annoyed with this book when I read it, because he keeps saying stuff he’s cut out of the book. The love story between Buttercup and Westley is funny and weird and they’re so odd. I love Inigo and Fezzik. I walked around for weeks saying “I don’t think that means what you think it means” and I still do. It’s a brilliant sentence. Buttercup is a bit childish and whiny and she seems to think she deserves love and Westley, but she is also willing to fight for what she wants. And they’re fun.

This is a book I read when I was like 16. When I was 14 I was at some sort of party, and I was annoying some adult, so he suggested I read this book, to make me go away I think. Anyway. It’s a Knut Hamsun book, a Norwegian classic from 1898. It’s the story about Johannes, the son of a miller, who falls in love with Victoria, the daughter of an impoverished aristocrat. Their love is doomed from the outset, and it doesn’t get any better. I read this book almost ten years ago so I don’t remember it all that well, but I loved it. It’s a very beautiful story about love that is eternal and sort of sadly doomed.

So, same series as the previous Kushiel’s Legacy, but the last three books are about Imriel and Sidonie. It’s a love story that seems to be doomed because Imriel is the son of the worst traitors in their country’s history and Sidonie is the princess, the daughter of the queen Imriel’s parents tried to overthrow. He is sort of disgusted by his own need to hurt people to be turned on. He is terrified of his heritage and what people will think. Sidonie is this amazing young woman who seems to have all of the responsibility of the world on her shoulders, and too much pressure.

Yeah, I needed a last one. Uh, I like the doomed love stories don’t I? Celia and Robbie are in love with each other, but Celia’s sister Briony misunderstands and accuses Robbie of something he didn’t do. Robbie is sent to war in WWII and the relationship between him and Celia has to survive through letters. It’s a sad book about a pair of lovers that will never get each other and it’s just very sad and beautiful.