February 13, 2018: Love Freebie
I’m not a big fan of romance books. Occasionally I’ll pick one up, mostly just the ones by my friend Karen Barnett. Also I am not a fan of insta-love and love triangles which seem to be every where in the science fiction and fantasy that I normally read. But this being a love freebie I can go beyond romance books. So for this Top Ten Tuesday I’m going to focus on the most interesting and/or memorable relationships in books that I’ve read.
Listed in the order I thought them up, and no other. 🙂
Top Ten Six Most Interesting Relationships
- Culach and Mina – The Forth Talisman series by Kat Ross. This is at the top of the list because I just finished reading Nocturne and Solis by Kat Ross (read my Nocturne review here.) I enjoy the development of this relationship because it’s mature, not in an X-rated sort of way, but in a “we are both adults, we have storied histories, and this is a conscious choice we’ve made” way. It’s so refreshing to read a fantasy story that doesn’t have insta-love or a love triangle.
- Catherine and Heathcliff – Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I read this over a decade ago and it still haunts me. Poor Heathcliff. I still feel his heart break, but his revenge is pretty over-the-top. I know that this whole book is built upon love triangles, which I despise, but it is done in a masterful way. Most writers can’t even scratch the surface of Wuthering Heights.
- Aang and Katara – Avatar the Last Airbender. Yes, I know it’s a TV show, but since I have a graphic novel I’m going to count it. I love the slow burn that this relationship has. It’s obvious to the audience that Aang and Katara are meant for each other, but they are only kids and there is a lot of awkwardness and growing up to be done before they can realize their love. It’s great to watch their friendship mature and become love, after-all that it the best way to fall in love (at least in the real world.)
- Ruth and Boaz – The Book of Ruth in the Bible. I just finished reading the book of Ruth to the 7 year old (I’ve been working on reading the stories of women in the Bible to her.) This is one of the strangest love stories ever told. She is a poor widow women and a foreigner gleaning in his fields. He takes pity on her and help protect her. Then later she comes and sleeps at his feet, a very strange manner of seduction, and then he has to talk another man out of marrying her. It’s strange, but sweet as well.
- Hamlet and Ophelia – Hamlet by William Shakespeare. I almost called this Hamlet and himself, because Hamlet seems to love himself so much that he hates himself, but that’s a story for another list. Here I’ll talk about his relationship with Ophelia and how it all went wrong in a hurry. One day Ophelia is expecting to eventually be married to Hamlet and become the future Queen of Denmark, the next she being told to go to a nunnery and that he doesn’t want anything to do with her and then he kills her father. Talk about a bad break up. Poor Ophelia.
- Arwen and Aragorn – The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. It seems to me that when the age difference between lovers is something like 2600 years it just make the romance that much more interesting. That and the fact that they have to wait for about 60 years to do anything about their love. In a lot of books I read most characters can’t wait for 1 day, much less over half a century.
I tried really hard to get to ten this week, but just kept coming up blank. I even went back through a lot of my old reviews, and realized that most of the books I read don’t have anything to offer in this realm. (I also didn’t want to have repeats, eg fill the list with Shakespeare.) And I simply haven’t read a lot of the books on the lists of best fictional/literary characters.
So that’s it the top six most interesting relationships in books. What would you add to this list?