Oh, the Books! Bookish Guides is our recommendation feature in which we choose a theme and highlight (primarily YA) books that we think are a match. If you are having trouble finding a book that contains a certain element and you want our help, or you just want to know what we’d recommend for general well-known themes, send us your request using the suggestion box on our Bookish Guides page and we may feature it on a future post!
February is typically related to romance (at least for Americans) thanks to Valentine’s Day being right in the middle, so we thought we’d present you all with a lovely little box of treats for the occasion! This was another one of Asti’s brilliant ideas, brought to life by Kelley’s 1337 Photoshop skills (okay, I may have gone a little overboard with the embossing effect, but I’m pretty happy with the end product!).
Our aim was to include a little something for everyone: hetero romance, LGBTQ romance, or paranormal romance (for those of you who prefer supernatural creatures to humans); all in a variety of flavors, er, genres. Each book features a relationship (whether established or not), but not every book featured is predominantly a romance. It’s just sort of a hodge podge of books featuring romances we thought you’d might like to check out, similar to a Valentine’s box of chocolates. Sample a few and let us know what you think!
Our Recommendations
We’re doing things a little differently this time since there are so many delectable choices in our fancy box up there. Instead of featuring personal recommendations, we decided to list out all of the books included in the graphic above with links to Goodreads and reviews so you can get more info about each one before giving them a taste. Oh, and those reviews we’re linking to? They are not necessarily our own! We’re sharing the love (it is Valentine’s Day after all, right?) and linking to positive reviews for the books listed by other bloggers, too.
LGBTQ Romance
(love between a boy and boy or girl and girl or something like that)
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sanez [review]
- Ash by Malinda Lo [review]
- Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan [review]
- If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan [review]
- Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters [review]
- Pantomime by Laura Lam [review]
- Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin [review]
- Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli [review]
Hetero Romance
(love between a boy and a girl)
- All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill [review]
- Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins [review]
- Divergent by Veronica Roth [review]
- Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell [review]
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green [review]
- Graceling by Kristin Cashore [review]
- Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers [review]
- The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski [review]
Paranormal Romance
(love with a non-human, could be hetero or LGBTQ)
- Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl [review]
- Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood [review]
- City of Bones by Cassandra Clare [review]
- Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor [review]
- In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters [review]
- Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater [review]
- Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz [review]
- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer [review]