The signs are all there.
Candy hearts, red and pink fluffy stuffed animals that sing “Love Me Tender” clog up the aisles at even the grocery stores.
Lists of correct spellings of classmates’ names come home.
The girls start to debate what they should get the guys they like since everything in the stores seems to be catering to them. (The answer: bacon roses.)
Boys look more nervous than usual.
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.
In honor of this day of love, we at Nerdy are wondering about the books that tell your favorite love stories.
Share your titles in the comments below!
The love between Augustus and Hazel in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars
A recent love story that I found very intriguing on a lot of levels was what emerged between Celia and Marco in The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. It was magical (on a few levels) and beautifully rendered by Morgenstern.
I loved that book and devoured it on the plane ride to and from NCTE this year.
I loved The Night Circus. The descriptions are gorgeous, and the love story is beautiful.
The first characters I thought of were Hadley and Oliver from The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. <3 that book.
It is sappy, but I love The Notebook.
Loved this too!
Cider House Rules, is one I read recently and loved the characters.
Adam and Mia from Gayle Forman’s If I Stay and Where She Went!
I second this one!
Ditto. Especially in Where She Went.
Oh I love these books!
“The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green…..I fell in the love with the characters in this book through the way they spoke to each other….absolutely beautiful dialogue!!!
Tale of Desperaux is my favorite. It has it all,love suspense, humor, good vs evil and a fairy tale. I can and read this book over and over.
Ann and Harris in Evening by Susan Minot is beautiful and sad all at once.
Bridges of Madison County
I second Michelle’s vote! The Fault in Our Stars is a modern day Romeo and Juliete. I also reccomend Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. Best love story EVER!
“Redeeming Love” by Rivers HAS to be one of the best written. I totally agree.
Hey, Hazel and Augustus were way smarter than Romeo and Juliette!
So many….Buffy and Angel gut me – every time. I know they’re not ‘book’ lovers…but someone had to write them into the existence. I also love Henry and Clare from The Time Traveler’s Wife and Katie and Hubbell from The Way We Were and, yes, Hazel and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars…my favourite couple from last year. I did a whole post about this very topic last February 14th.
http://theludicreader.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/lets-talk-about-love/
I love Henry and Clare from Time Traveler’s Wife, too. My all-time favorite book.
I bawled like a baby at the end of that book. SO good!
It’s an oldie but I love Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice
Another “ditto” from me. I had planned to post this, but had a feeling it was probably here already. I’m definitely Team Darcy.
I have to say, unrequited though it is, I’ve always loved Mrs. Dalloway – “What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa he said. For there she was.”
I love Tris and Four in the Divergent series. But also love Hazel and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars.
I’m going in a different direction with a picture book, Farfallina & Marcel by Holly Keller. Sweet, sweet love.
The first YA book that popped into my head was Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen. As I recall you had to turn the book upside down to get the story from the boy’s perspective. Adult, I first read Ever After by Thane as a teen and found it just as romantic on a 50th birthday reread treat
Oh, jeepers. So many! Jane Eyre (Jane & Mr. Rochester), The Fault in Our Stars (Hazel & Augustus), My Life Next Door (Sam & Jase), Flat-Out Love, Meant to Be, Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour (Amy & Roger), Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Karou & Akiva).
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice
ooh yes, they will always be a classic!
the first love story that made me honestly ache and cry was Lyra and Will in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman… I’m planning a post on them to celebrate Valentine’s Day! If this quote, from Amber Spyglass doesn’t wrench your heart, then I don’t know what will:
“Oh, Will,’ she said, ‘What can we do? Whatever can we do? I want to live with you forever. I want to kiss you and lie down with you and wake up with you every day of my life till I die, years and years and years away. I don’t want a memory, just a memory…’
‘No,’ he said, ‘memory’s a poor thing to have. It’s your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn’t know I could ever love anything so much. Oh, Lyra, I wish this night would never end! If only we could stay here like this, and the world could stop turning, and everyone else could fall into a sleep…’
‘Everyone except us! And you and I could live here forever and just love each other.’
‘I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again…;
‘I’ll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you…We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pin trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams…And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…’
They lay side by side, hand in hand, looking at the sky.”
The first couple who popped into my mind was Hazel and Augustus from John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Of course, every few years I have to reread Jane Eyre as well.
My sappy side says The Notebook. I’ll always love it. My fun side is screaming The Dot and the Line. Such a great book and so much fun to discuss.
The Love Dictionary, tells a love story in bits and pieces
As an adolescent girl I fell in love with a story called MRS. MIKE, by Benedict and Nancy Freedman. I have read it many times over the years. Teenage Katherine Mary O’Fallon travels from Boston to the Northwest Territory – then the wilderness of Calgary – to marry Sgt. Mike Flannigan of the Candian Mounted Police. Despite the help of her indigenous friend, Oh Be Joyful (has there ever been a better name?!), Mary O’Fallon struggles to fit into their rugged life. It is a love story, a pioneer story, a slice of North American history, and a tragedy, all rolled into one. I’ve laughed and sobbed many times over this wonderful story. And P.S. could not believe Calgary when I finally saw it as an adult. Grey, sprawling suburbs, rather than the northern wildnerness I’d carried in my mind all these years!
Thanks for bringing this up – I’m going to re-read this for Valentine’s Day. So happy to see it’s till in print!
I remember Mrs Mike! I still recommend that to some of my 8th grade girls. Wonderful story.
Loved Mrs. mike
Never read it but your description appeals to me on a number of levels, one being it sounds like an old-fashioned love story appropriate for my middle-school romantics! I am definitely going to get this and read it.
Oh, there are too many. Several were already mentioned, Pride and Prejudice, Fault in Our Stars, but I also really enjoy Beauty by Robin McKinley. I had forgotten that scene from Phillip Pullman. Wonderful.
HAZEL GRACE & AUGUSTUS!! I see it’s not original, but honestly, it popped into my head immediately. I know they are teenagers but I was more invested in their story than I have been in more “grown-up” books. They handled themselves with such “grace”; I don’t think the choice of Hazel’s middle name was an accident. I was never a fan of the name Grace until I read The Fault in Our Stars.
My most recent favorite is “Sea of Tranquility” by Katja Millay (http://book-lens.blogspot.com/2012/12/ya-fiction-best-read-yet.html).
I don’t particularly go for teen angst, and the dark, brooding and self-destructive characters aren’t usually my type. But in this novel, they work and they work extremely effectively.
Not a love story, but I love the blackberry kisses in Walk Two Moons.
Cop out! :^)
I just included that scene in my Favorite Kissing Scenes post. It is one of the best.
I have said for years that every 8th grade boy should have to read FLIPPED before being allowed to leave middle school. I make sure the ones I see in my “enrichment” classes get to experience this heart-warming story of what love really is all about – family, friendship and romantic. My second favorite is FLAVOR OF THE MONTH, a high school retelling of Cirono de Burgerac. As an adult, I go back each year at the beginning of December and reread or listen to WINTER SOLSTICE by Pilcher. If Edina and Oscar can fall in love in their twilight years, there is hope for eternal happiness! (MAJOR PETIGREW’S LAST STAND isn’t bad either!)
I can still remember where I was and when I read The Bridges of Madison County. The Boy on Cinnamon Street by Phoebe Stone and Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen are so heartwarming; when love catches you by surprise.
The Fault in Our Stars is far and away my favorite. Last lines of the book = beautiful.
Although not a love story, I love that Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione end up together in the Harry Potter series. Obviously I need to read The Fault in Our Stars.
I have a total crush on Ginny Weasley, so I echo Gigi. I also like Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, mentioned by many. And I appreciate that there is a little bit of romance in every single Tom Angleberger book–just enough to be interesting and realistic (everybody’s got crushes) but not off-putting for those confused/conflicted/curious middle grade boys.
As many have already mentioned, Pride and Prejudice. Also, The Book Thief is really a love story, isn’t it? I sobbed at the end. My husband asked me why I read “books like that” and I said “This is the good part!”
I’ll have to go retro here and vote for The Thorn Birds. Best love story of all time.
Most recent love entanglement I enjoyed was in Grave Mercy by R. LaFevers and agree with Randi M above on the romance of Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. Have to say I don’t generally seek out “romance” in my reading but enjoy the building of a good story between characters. Also, Graceling by Kristin Cashore.
Love Story of course, for all of us who were around in the early 70s…a memorable novel and a memorable movie after all these years…and, of course, Lara and Dr. Zhivago.
aww…. Forgot about Love Story. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
The romance in Megan Whalen Turner’s Attolia books. Which is as specific as I’m going to get to avoid spoilers.
I love The Time Traveler’s Wife.
I think this is my all time favorite love story and one of my most favorite books ever!
Logan Bruno and Mary Anne Spier. From the Baby-Sitters Club. True love, you guys.
Won’t You Be My Hugaroo? By, Joanne Ryder
CITY BOY by Herman Wouk — true classic. You feel the pangs of young love like no other book I’ve read. But it’s also deliriously funny. I might recommend this book more than any other. It is one of my favorites. Published as “grown up” book but a perfect read for middle schoolers.
If we are talking about the love story itself, I’d have to go old-school and pick the immortal Rhett and Scarlett in Gone With the Wind. If we are talking about a couple is is so in love it’s just adorable, I would go for Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man film series – my ideal for a married couple.
Anne of Green Gables – Anne and Gilbert, adored the stories/relationship. Ate those stories up as a kid.
This is mine too. When I tried thinking of love stories that have stayed with me, it was Anne and Gilbert.
Glad I’m not alone.
Oh, so many, but my most recent favorite – Victoria and Grant, from The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.
I loved this book!
My favourite literary couple is Sophie and Howl from Diana Wynne Jones’s How’ls Moving Castle.
Oh I loved them too!
I think my all-time fave has to be a double-header:Josef Kavalier and Rosa Saks, and Sammy Clay and Tracy Bacon, from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon. It’s such a great story of a great and true friendship, too. One of my all-time top ten books, period.
I also liked the story of Miles Vorkosigan and Ekaterina as it develops over two books from the Lois McMaster Bujold science fiction series about Miles Vorkosigan: Komarr and Diplomatic Immunity. There is also a short story about them, Winterfair Gifts. But to get the full effect you need to read the whole series, starting with Shards of Honor. The depth of character development over an extended series by a masterful author (this one starting with how his parents met!) makes it a very different experience from that found in a shorter novel. Plus, some of the scenes in Diplomatic Immunity had me laughing so hard I was crying! I’d love to hear if anybody else here is hooked on this series.
The love between leah and ethan in the angels trilogy by laurlee mc dainels!
I think my most recent would be Hazel Grace and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars. My all time favorite would be The Thornbirds. Sorry I can’t be more original, but so many great books were mentioned!
Lord Peter and Harriet Wimsey from Dorothy Sayers’ classic mysteries, and Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth from Jane Austen’s Persuasion.