Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! With Valentine’s Day coming up around the corner, this week we’re looking at favorite couples! I feel like I did something similar-ish not tooooo long ago, so I’m highlighting my favorites from books I’ve read fairly recently.
Arthur and Freddy (Less): Arthur Less feels silly for being so sad when he finds out his ex Freddy is marrying someone else…after all, they weren’t even ever really “official”. But as he remembers their time together, it’s more and more obvious how much he did actually love his lost flame.
Jessica and Marcus (Sloppy Firsts): We all have that one crush on the “bad” guy that we shouldn’t have feelings for at some point, don’t we? It’s satisfying watching that relationship actually come together and kind of work!
Bathsheba and Gabriel (Far from the Madding Crowd): Watching Bathsheba make bad decisions about dudes is so rough because the right one is right there and you’re just waaaaaiting for them to finally get together.
Maud and Roland (Possession): Like most nerds, the idea of falling in love while engaged in an intellectual pursuit is just impossibly romantic to me.
Nadia and Saeed (Exit West): These two young lovers and the journey they take is so deeply moving, even as their experiences change them in ways that put their future in jeopardy.
William and Katherine (Stoner): William’s life is so sad that even knowing his affair with his beautiful, smart colleague can’t last, I still found myself caring so much and wanting it to go on as long as possible so he has the chance for more happiness.
Lux and Joseph (Valley of the Moon): I liked the way Gideon built up the relationship between these two slowly and organically so that by the time they actually got together it felt so right!
Joe and Rosa (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay): I don’t entirely love how Chabon wrote Rosa overall, but I really did care about the relationship between her and Joe and wanted things to work out somehow.
Vasya and Morozko (The Girl in the Tower): One of the things I love about how Arden writes these books is that Vasya is deeply aware of how ridiculous the idea of an actual relationship between a teenage girl and an ancient death god is…but they’re so easy to get invested in!
Ifemelu and Obinze (Americanah): Rooting for these two to make it means rooting for someone who cheats on their spouse to end up with the person they’re cheating with…but I found their love story so compelling I couldn’t help it!