There is a reason romance novels sell so well. Many (not all, but many) people enjoy stories of love and lust, especially when there's a happily ever after (a.k.a. HEA), or a happily for now (a.k.a HFN).
In that vein, I had a hard time not dropping all of my holiday weekend plans to read all of the romance/sexy YA books I selected. I couldn't resist the first, which I got from my local library:
Perkins, S. Anna and the French Kiss. (2010). New York, NY: Dutton Books. Sweet, sexy, real.
Anna is spending her senior year of high school at an exclusive Parisian boarding school. She has a crush on her new BFF, who happens to be a gorgeous French/British/American boy with a volatile girlfriend. Fighting their feelings and the urge to act upon them is a carefully choreographed dance which plays out beautifully. Loved it!
I have wanted to read this for awhile, and grabbed it off the library shelf too:
Revis, B. Across the Universe. (2011). New York, NY: Penguin Group.
I have not heard any details about Across the Universe, other than that it is amazing. Reading the jacket copy reveals that it is about a girl who is to be cryogenically frozen for 300 years but is thawed fifty years too early and wakes up on a spaceship. She is not sure whether or not she can trust the boy who seems to be helping her. The cover shows the two of them face to face, suggesting a strong romantic thread. The first chapter is riveting as it describes the process of first her parents, and then her, being frozen. So far, I have resisted reading further.
Lastly, I cannot resist including one of my favorite YA romances. Yes, it is cliched. I do not care:
Meyer, S. Twilight. (2005). New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company.
Twilight was a tour-de-force when it was published ten years ago, and remains one of the most popular paranormal romances this century--perhaps of all time. It is the story of Bella, a young woman who falls in love with a "good" vampire, one who hunts animals instead of humans. While the story is far-fetched and the writing excessively verbose, I cannot think of a series that I found more engrossing. And I have read a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment