Romance Me!

I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning (or any morning for that matter), but I remember strolling the aisles at the grocery store and finding Valentine’s Day candy available just days before Christmas. I was appalled. I really just wanted to get past one gift-giving holiday before the next one started screaming my name. While I enjoy the day, the flowers, and the chocolate, I do not like romance books. I’ll read them, but I won’t like them. But in the past year I have been tricked into reading a few romance books, and I loved them. So if you are like me and romance is not your favorite genre, give these titles a try.
If I Stay by Gayle Forman, which is being made into a movie, is about a snow day that turned family trip results in a car crash that kills an entire family. Except… seventeen year old Mia is not dead, but is in a coma. She has an out of body experience and watches the doctors and her loved ones interact with her unconscious body. The big question: should she return to her body and her boyfriend, with an unknowing knowledge of what damage her body and brain have suffered, or should she go and join her family in death? Just thinking about this book gives me goose bumps. I have never before read a book where I could feel the romantic pull between two people. You must put it on your list, even if you don’t read it for years, put it on your list.
If you are looking for another romance title, I was pleasantly surprised by Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth and the sequel The Dead Tossed Waves. Going in I knew I was reading a book about a zombie apocalypse, but I did not expect to find a story about being bitten and infected by the undead to be so eloquently written. And I certainly did not expect to find a love triangle mixed in with death, blood, and zombies. So if you’re not into romance, but need a little extra love this month, try these titles and check out the display of romance titles in the teen area.