Top Ten Favourite Couples

It’s been a while since I wrote a list post, or took part in a blogging meme, but I’ve been feeling a craving to do so lately. I really enjoy doing monthly wrap-up posts, however they don’t give me the opportunity to revisit older reads and talk about them.

So I’ve decided to resume Top Ten Tuesday (now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) for a while, and we’ll see where that takes me!

Top Ten Favourite Couples In Books

Way back in the day, I did a ‘Top Ten Favourite Romances‘, and I would stand by the recommendations in that post. But reading it again led me to take a different direction with this post. These are favourite couples, and although most of them are all successful romances, some of them do not have the healthiest, most long-lasting relationships, but they’re favourite couples for what the characters learn about themselves and the world!

1. Lexi and Aidan in Unconventional, by Maggie Harcourt

Starting off with a properly cute, romantic couple! In Unconventional, set at a series of conventions run by Lexi and her father, she meets Aidan, a new author. They have several awkward further meetings, and eventually that awkwardness turns into LURVE. As it should.

2. Tuesday and Jackson Griffith in My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend, by Eleanor Wood

Tuesday, a blogger, is invited into the world of troubled rockstar Jackson Griffith, but it’s not as glamorous and romantic as she expected…

3. Nina and Jamie in Love Song, by Sophia Bennett

Another properly romantic one – this was my second favourite book read in 2016. The story of Nina, an aspiring photographer who gets the opportunity to go on tour with the hottest boyband in the world, was unputdownable. The romance is a slow-burn, like all the best, and I could honestly drop everything and read it again right now.

4. Steffi and Rhys in A Quiet Kind of Thunder, by Sara Barnard

This is the cutest book I have ever read for a book club, honestly, although it covers a lot of serious stuff, the central couple themselves are sweetness personified. We found it unanimously adorable as well as really informative about selective mutism and deafness.

5. Sam and Hannah in Lobsters, by Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison

This book is hilarious and delightful and pretty much everything goes wrong on the path to love, which makes it even more joyously funny.

6. Monty and Percy from The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, by Mackenzi Lee

Another book in which everything goes wrong on the path to love, except that it’s pretty much always Monty’s fault. He’s terrible and you love him for it.

7. Mary/Persephone and Felix in Following Ophelia, by Sophia Bennett

Clever but naive Mary, who becomes a pre-Raphaelite muse in order to escape the tedious life of a servant, but discovers that the artists are largely broke, selfish self-promoters, and have no idea what it’s like for girls. Will Felix come through in the end and redeem himself? I’ll leave that to you to find out.

8. Starr and Chris from The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas

As anyone who’s read this will know, Starr is an extremely awesome young woman, and Chris doesn’t stand in the way of that, though he has to learn some (often very funny) lessons along the way.

9. Susan and McGraw from Giant Days, by John Allison et al

One of the most entertainingly antagonistic couples in fiction, they’re determined to hate each other at the start of this series set at Sheffield University, but happily it doesn’t last, though the antagonism lives on!

10. Jo and Jake in Split by a Kiss, by Luisa Plaja

Okay, I’ll be upfront in this one. Jo is kissed by Jake and splits into two versions of herself in separate timelines, one who pushes him away and another who becomes his girlfriend. Things don’t go smoothly for either version of Jo, and Jake is not a good boyfriend – but their relationship teaches her an important lesson.

And that’s it for now! I’ve tried to focus on UKYA in this list, but a couple of other things have snuck in. Have you read any of these books? Would they make it onto your list?