Happy Valentine’s Day (and happy birthday, Parenthetical)! In honor of the occasion, I give you five YA love stories guaranteed to make you feel all warm and snuggly inside:
1. Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare — When you think “romance,” you probably don’t think “Puritan New England.” But Blackbird Pond was the first love story that I was ever swept away by. Brave girl, cocky boy, detailed descriptions of pretty dresses, triple wedding at the end: what’s not to love?
2. Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan — Paul’s budding romance with the new boy in school is all snuggled up in a gay (in both senses of the world) suburban utopia, in which quarterback Darlene is the homecoming (drag) queen, and everyone gets to love whoever they want. It’s like a love letter to the future.
3. An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green — I just reviewed this, but as I said, it’s my new favorite book, so clearly it goes on the list.
4. Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier — Dimple swears up and down that she wants nothing to do with the nice Indian boys her parents pick out — until they introduce her to Karsh, and her white best friend Gwyn falls for him. This has more actual pain than the previous three (and more moments in which you want to smack the characters upside their well-coiffed heads), but that makes the happy ending all the sweeter.
5. Weetzie Bat, by Francesca Lia Block — My (otherwise awesome) YA lit professor in grad school enjoyed mocking the hippie-dippy ending of Weetzie Bat, but reading it always makes me feel like hugging everyone (because I, like Weetzie, am a giant hippie): “…[L]ove and disease are both like electricity, Weetzie thought. They are always there — you can’t see or smell or hear, touch, or taste them, but you know they are there like a current in the air. We can choose, Weetzie thought, we can choose to plug into the love current instead. And she looked around the table at [her family] — all of them lit up and golden like a wreath of lights. I don’t know about happily ever after…but I know about happily, Weetzie Bat thought.”
Plug into the love current today, y’all.
Question: What are your favorite happy-ending love stories?
0 responses so far ↓
1 Serin // Feb 14, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I
2 Serin // Feb 15, 2008 at 8:36 am
Sorry about that one. This is what I meant to say:
I The Witch of Blackbird Pond - I’ve not ever read the whole thing, to be fair. When I was in 4th or 5th grade we had a (male) substitute teacher who started reading it to us, but he used this screechy falsetto whenever a woman had a speaking line. It was horrid, and I never gave the book another chance. Seems like I’ll have to now, though, if it comes with your recommendation (and no screechy substitutes).
3 Serin // Feb 15, 2008 at 8:37 am
Sorry about that one. This is what I meant to say:
I love Weetzie Bat! I adore those books so much.
Also, I laughed out loud when you meantioned The Witch of Blackbird Pond - I’ve not ever read the whole thing, to be fair. When I was in 4th or 5th grade we had a (male) substitute teacher who started reading it to us, but he used this screechy falsetto whenever a woman had a speaking line. It was horrid, and I never gave the book another chance. Seems like I’ll have to now, though, if it comes with your recommendation (and no screechy substitutes).
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