every love story in literature, tier-ranked

I'm not gonna lie to you I'm a little bit confused as to how it can possibly be Valentine's today already when it feels like February literally started like five minutes ago but here we are it's the Valentine's Day special baby because I thought while everyone else is out being wined and dined and falling in love with real people we can fall in love with fictional characters instead so let's talk about books today I am going to be tier ranking books that feature a love story so that means these books will not just be Romance Books the criteria here is that the main driving narrative focus and question should be will they end up together and the book should focus on a couple this does not mean the love will always be healthy some of these are toxic and doomed and cruel but we're here to talk about how good the books are not whether the couple in that book are like relationship goals that's not the point so let's get into it and tear rank all of the love stories in literature that I have read and hopefully you'll find an amazing new book that you can pick up so here is the table firstly let's go through my categories I've named these after iconic quotes from love Island because that just felt right to me so the lowest of the low is this book gives me the ick that means that I am repulsed by it I hate it I despise it I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole next we have I licked her tit or whatever this is a quote from the most recent series of Love Island where basically someone essentially cheated on their partner by licking someone else's boob but then he just kind of like feigned indifference over the whole thing by being like yeah I just lit a tit or whatever and so I thought that would be the next ranking this is for books that I'm like a bit indifferent about you know then we have a hot new bombshell enters the Villa this is for books that I liked just I just liked them they were fine next up we have Fanny flutters these are books that got my heart racing a little bit this is an iconic Maura Higgins quote who at this point is honestly a National Treasure this is for books that set pulses racing and then the top category the top tier is all my eggs are in one basket and it's this one having all your eggs in one basket in like love Island lore is when you are committed you've probably confessed Your Love after knowing them for only five days and you would do anything for them so these are my top rated books with love stories in them so let's go starting us off with a bang because there is a lot of banging in this book It Happened One Summer this is going into Fanny flatters this one is steamy and sexy and hot okay I there I said it it's a romance book where like At first I found the characters horrible and awful but the character arcs are so great it's basically about this like spoil socialite who gets arrested and then her dad as punishment basically sends her to this fisherman town and she falls in love with a human vessel this man and it's honestly really sweet and endearing um but also hot as hell so that's going in Fanny flutters next let's do this book that I've actually literally just finished this morning this is alone with with you in The Ether I was so pleasantly surprised by this book I can't even tell you it was so brilliant I honestly think it's going up to the top spot because it is so poetically and lyrically written it feels like every sentence has been really carefully considered it's a great premise basically these two people meet and they decide to have just six conversations and they just have this connection and this Bond and I honestly just thought it was gorgeous I love all of the little metaphors um the discussions about bees um it's really sweet it's really sweet and we do get some birds and bees too do yourself a favor and read this book that's an act of self-love this Valentine's Day promise me I'm kind of just plucking at random here let's go with it they both die at the end not gonna lie to you this might end up in the bottom tier because this book had so much potential to me it was such an interesting premise like people who have found out they have 24 hours left to live and then it just descends into this is really Naf love story and and like the couple the way that they talk I just didn't really find that believable it sounded like they were NPCs in a video game rather than actual teenagers conversing for me this book was all potential and disappointment so it gives me the egg although there is a prequel which I probably will read because I'm intrigued to see what else um the author does with the world that they built if this book asked me on a date I would politely decline next we have honey and spice I read this for The Tick Tock book club and honestly I didn't love it I felt like it was kind of confused about who it was aimed at it was like a very American narrative set in an English setting and like at times it seemed to be aimed at an adult audience and then other times it seems to be aimed at a very immature audience so there was just this real weird disconnect it's about this radio host who is like warning all the girls at her University against this guy and then she kind of falls in love with this guy after they have a fake dating um little situation there's this big Grand gesture at the end which I honestly thought was so cringe-worthy and like these two characters were supposed to be cool but I honestly was like this is not for me so I'm actually debating saying gave me the egg no let's go with I'm indifferent to this book because there were nice elements to it and Bobby babalola is a talented author speaking of talent let's go with Open Water this is the most Exquisite love story ever it's about this man and his relationship with being black in Britain his relationship with himself and his masculinity but also a relationship with a woman and there's music just soundtracks this book in such a stunning way I underlined so many lines in this book like my hand was aching by the end of it from literally underlining all my favorite quotes because there was so many um and I cannot wait for calebra Zuma Nelson's next book which is coming out this year I think he's a really exciting emerging author and the fact that this is a debut is outrageous because it's just so good it's also all written in the second person which I thought was really interesting I made it much more Vivid it's literally like someone is talking directly to you and I thought that was a really intimate and interesting experience as a reader so I like this book a lot now let's go with the AI who loved me I don't know what I was going through my head when I started reading this book I'm pretty sure I was like out on a dog walk and I the audiobook I was listening to ended so then I went on to Audible and just listened to the first free one I found and this was so stupid that it has to end up in that bottom tier I'm sorry about it if this was the love Island Villa this book would be dumped in episode one Heart Stopper of course is a wonderful book it's got to go right up there the whole series is so precious and tender and sweet I know that some people say it's a little bit of a straightforward and basic love story but that's kind of the point I think it's very endearing I also think it's necessary to have this book in the kind of Canon of why a romance because of the way that it depicts such a diverse group of young people and yeah it's just heart stopping but also heart warming Memorial by Brian Washington a is good but I was waiting for it to be great there are some beautiful lines and it's an interesting idea so it's basically about this gay couple and one of them finds out that his dad is seriously unwell so he flies to Japan to go visit his father just as his mother is on her way to visit them so his boyfriend and his mom end up living together that Dynamic is super interesting the dynamic of the couple is also very interesting because they have this kind of open relationship and their relationship is sort of beginning to crumble as well but for me it was just like solid it was okay it wasn't incredible the same I think goes for the night circus I did enjoy this book but I felt like it needed to pick which lane it was trying to be in and run with it because I felt like it was trying to do a couple of different things and then ended up just being a little bit flat at the end it's about these two people who work as circus and the descriptions of their like tricks and the circus itself are just enchanting and so magical so those are worth it but I felt like the love story was a little bit underwhelming shall we say and there was no big confrontation which I felt like this book needed to elevate it a little bit Book Lovers I feel very indifferent towards I know that people worship the ground but Emily Henry walks on but something about this book just didn't really pull me in the prologue is great because it's basically acknowledging the romance genre and talks about its place within that genre and I liked how self-aware it seemed like it was going to be but me the romance just was like a little bit dull I was just like I need a little bit more than this so I was not a lover of this book unfortunately I just feel kind of meh towards it you know I think it's meant to be kind of shit's creek Vibe I've never seen shit's creek but it definitely put the in shit's creek I can't say that another Emily Henry book is people we meet on vacation I feel the same way about this one I don't know maybe it's something about Emily Henry's writing that doesn't necessarily connect with me specifically but I always think they're a bit surface level and predictable so this is basically about these two people who used to go on holiday all the time and then they had this massive Fallout they decided to go on one last trip together and of course they realize they're in love this is not a smash this is a pass this book however is a smash a totally unique book is this is how you lose the time War this is one of those books where I was completely and utterly baffled for the first like two-thirds of this book because it's a really bizarre concept so basically it's about these two beings which are communicating from opposite ends of a Time War but the most special part about this book is that they write these letters to each other and over time you see their relationship develop and the writing is so Sublime it is beautiful and for that reason I honestly think it's got to go at the top because this book has really stuck with me and that's why I wanted to talk about love stories in literature that aren't necessarily straightforward romance books I want to talk about those as well um but this is one of those really precious books that belongs in that top spot all my eggs are in that basket and they are ready to hatch normal people by Sally Rooney of course has to go up there too although this is sad at times and frustrating at times I think that the miscommunication and the way it's presented is so accurate to the way that real people do misunderstand each other and how you can being a right person wrong time situation at multiple points during your life and how relationships fluctuate and change and develop and I just think the characters of Marianne and Connell are perfect I actually went to Trinity College Dublin uh this week to get an award and I was just walking around the whole time like don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it but every part of me wanted to be like I feel like I'm a normal people it was really cool so I was living my Sally Rooney dream but before I move on to the next book I wanted to let you know that today's video is brought to you by the loves of my life Squarespace Squarespace is the ultimate platform for building a website for your online brand there's amazing marketing and analytical tools you can see what people are enjoying that you're uploading and therefore make more of that content there's these amazing templates which can help you get started and then you can customize absolutely everything on your website to make something that is completely and utterly your own I would highly recommend using the blogging feature because I think that a Blog can help your audience to get to know you a little bit better and see behind the scenes and break down those walls those boundaries between business and customer and so if you are looking to build your website use this as a Valentine's Day treat to yourself because you can head to squarespace.com column for a free trial and then use the code Jack Edwards squarespace.com Jack Edwards to get 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain this Valentine's Day I didn't get you a bouquet of flowers I got you a discount code baby and you're welcome so thank you so so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video and now on to the next book good intentions I feel a little bit indifferent towards again interesting premise it's basically about this couple where the guy is dating a girl from Sudan and he's kind of embarrassed to tell his family that he's dating someone from Sudan so it's really interesting because it's about racism within a relationship and being ashamed of a partner and how that can affect both parties and there's this one amazing passage where um kind of the climax of the book happens and that was really powerful but overall the book just kind of goes round and round in circles and is so long-winded to get to that point so I think the author had good intentions but poor execution unfortunately okay in the words of lizzo it's about damn time let's whack a Colleen Hoover book in the list Now reminders of him by Colleen Hoover is honestly not that bad you won't be surprised to hear this from me but I honestly think that people give Colleen Hoover way too much flag like she honestly is a completely fine writer she makes writing accessible um her stories are relatively straightforward but if they connect with people then they're important sure this story isn't completely profound but it's well told um I think Colleen Hoover is a good Storyteller reminders of him is basically about a woman who comes out of prison after essentially accidentally killing her boyfriend and in trying to reconnect with the daughter that she has who she's never really met she falls in love with her boyfriend ex-boyfriend's best friend so anyway I don't know why my brain was glitching so much just trying to explain the plot of this book but I do think Colleen Hoover lacks a little bit of nuance sometimes and she kind of uses these ideas like an ex-prisoner as a narrative device rather than kind of unpacking what that experience would have been like but you know what with these books I feel like you know that Tick Tock sound that's like I am cringe but I am free I feel like that's her and honestly I'm gonna put it ends with us in that category too I think that it's okay I think it's all right um there are some really stupid moments though actually I feel like that might go into the category below just because there's elements like writing letters to Ellen Degeneres and there's just some silly things in this book which kind of irks me a little bit so okay that's actually gonna go one category down lie with me however is absolutely stunning it's this really tender story of a first love that didn't work out and grown old and still thinking about that person and being reminded of them and the last page of this book had me bowling oh my gosh it is so beautiful now the OG writer of love stories is of course Jane Austen and so persuasion for me has to go into the fanny flutters category because this book has one of the most gorgeous Declarations of love in existence the best ever be written you pierce my soul I am half Agony half hope like who is writing like that these days honestly Jane Austen was in a league of her own let's actually go through Jane austenburg's because like Emma is such a wonderful book and it's kind of about the one character of Emma but there are lots of love stories kind of within that novel but I think Emma is one of the best characters in English literature and then Pride and Prejudice for me is like it's okay it's not my favorite of hers but um it is still a banger if I don't have you unfortunately was one of the most forgettable romance books I've ever read and so it has to go in the kind of like indifferent category for me Yabba Buena 2 is really dull I actually think yeah the weather might even be like gives me the egg because this book was such a disappointment such a letdown for me if I was dating this book I would ghost it like Casper one last stop by Casey mcquiston I liked this book I feel like it could be here there's this really Rogue scene where two people have sex on the New York subway which altered my brain chemistry because that is such a strange thing to write in a book so maybe it might find its way in there actually but the book is basically about a woman who is stuck in time on a subway so she's been like Frozen in time and then our main character falls in love with her on her Subway Journeys however the other thing I will say is is that this book also depicts platonic love in a really endearing way like the friendships that the main character forms in her apartment in New York City are so special and really empowering and you know I think that means it can go up a category yeah I I liked that depiction of friendship as well because often friendships are the great love of your life speaking of loves of your life the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo this is a book I genuinely recommend to anyone who is trying to get back into reading more because it's excessively written the story is fascinating the pacing is great there's twists and turns the great love story in this book is beautiful and the scene where someone wins an Oscar and tells someone else not to chip their tooth has stuck with me forever so that's a great moment that's a great line it's a great scene and so this book can be seen right at the top right at the top the island of missing trees is a fascinating book because it's about a love story but also about domestic politics so it's set in Cyprus and we have a Turkish cypriot and a Greek cypriot who fall in love in a kind of like Romeo and Juliet forbidden romance kind of way we get scenes told from their perspectives from the perspective of a fig tree that is in the restaurant where they meet and also from their daughter and I felt like elif shafak is a very talented writer so I like that one the kiss quotient is an interesting book this is about a woman who hires a male escort basically to help her to learn more about sex and it's very sweet it also features great representation of someone who's neurodivergent which is quite rare in this genre so I think it belongs up there now let's get on to some books that boil my piss honestly I I'm getting mad just seeing them in there firstly Bridgeton the Duke and I AI now listen I thought series one of Bridgeton was like pretty good and that led me to reading the book and this book is terrible it's badly written for a start the author uses all these like Rogue obsolete words in the first half she's like trying to emulate Jane Austen's writing style and doing it like a parody and then in the second half of the book she just completely stops doing that and writes in the most basic prose you've ever read in your whole life so that lack of consistency was so jarring to me there is a hugely problematic scene in this book with no redemption or remorse I feel like there are a lot of weird undertones in this book which were rectified by the TV show but the book itself is terrible this is the Great British rake off and no one's getting starbaker next we have the love hypothesis I thought this book was so stupid and that just took me out of the narrative completely it's about a student who falls in love with a professor at her University like she's an adult but the whole dynamic between them feels so forced and weird and some of the scenes that are set up are just so ridiculous that it's hard to really be rooting for them yeah I don't know what blackmail this author has over book talk but I don't know how this has been recommended so much and speaking of which in a similar vein the Spanish love deception now the main deception here is people saying this book is good because what the hell was that bestie honestly it's so awful it's enemies lovers but there is no real reason for them to be enemies they're just like mad at each other for no reason right from the very first line we know exactly what's going to happen because it's made so abundantly clear that honestly I've had more tension with a bowl of soup like this is just not engaging at all they do the like fake dating thing where she takes him to a family wedding pretending to be her boyfriend and suddenly this man can speak a little bit of Spanish she's been watching like three episodes of Dora the Explorer he can go hola amigo and she's like wow he's so caring suddenly I don't hate this man I just thought this was so dumb I'm sorry about it you made a fool of death with your beauty now if you're using a Florence in the machine lyric as your title you know I'm gonna buy a book it discusses the death of a partner and dealing with that grief in a very interesting way it then moves on to being about falling in love with the father of the person this woman is dating and that's wild so honestly there's twists and turns in this book and I was in it for the ride red white and royal blue I think is is very sweet it kind of reads a bit like fan fiction about a fictional prince of England and a fictional son of the president of the United States and how they foreign I think at times it was a little bit simplistic sometimes the stakes were so low because you knew everything always just worked out a little bit too conveniently and as a result the tension kind of just dies a death but it is a good book and I did enjoy it another Casey mcquiston book um this one I just finished this is I kissed Shara wheeler and this one was just a little bit boring to me and I didn't really think there was much point to it yeah I honestly think it might end up in the bottoms here for me it's about this like popular girl at school she's prom queen who goes missing after kissing a bunch of people and basically sending them on this wild goose chase to find her and it just goes on and on and on and the conclusion isn't really that interesting or satisfying you know I was not that into this one the hating game I feel nothing about the one thing that intrigued me is the fact that the character has a collection of Smurfs and I just felt like that wasn't unpacked enough like I wanted to know why does she have these Smurfs like which Smurfs does she have which is her favorite one like honestly The Smurfs were the most interesting part of this to me and I felt like that needed more attention but maybe that's just personal feedback I don't know I think I felt like this one was just aggressively average call me by your name is going right to the top look this is not a healthy relationship but the yearning the descriptions of lust and desire are just so Exquisite like you can feel the passion pouring off these pages and that like obsessive intoxicating love I think is so fascinating to read about so yeah call me by your name I thought was stunning on the other hand we have Rodham this was traumatizing sickening made me consider therapy this is Hillary Clinton fan fiction essentially Lee I feel like I got tricked into reading this by a book club that I joined and yeah horrible there's a scene about Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton having sex and he's like playing a saxophone naked it's just so unnecessary I think that's the main word I would choose I was just like why did this ever get published you know like what was the need to publish Hillary Clinton fan fiction like why did we need that I won't be reading any more politician fan fiction thank you very much as if that didn't go without saying but anyway the song of Achilles holy moly holy shlokes one of the most beautiful love stories of all time I think Madeleine Miller came she conquered and she left no crumbs not even a morsel again this is one of those books where the ending is just like devastating and crushing and exquisite this book is a heart-shaped balloon blown up with so much care and consideration and love it's so beautifully crafted you just get completely absorbed into this love story you feel every emotion that they're feeling and yeah I can't recommend this book highly enough Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a toxic Love Story it's basically about this woman who is British living in New York and falls in love with a guy called Frank and then they marry so that she can get a green card and that rushed wedding basically just like ruptures their lives and impacts everyone around them and it Spirals and it destroys them but the writing is so good there's also great peripheral characters in this book there's some brilliant one-liners and again this is one of those books where I underlined so much the course of Love by Elena baton I thought was kind of just dull it's also annoying basically he is like a philosopher like psychologist and he talks about these this couple who are basically like falling out of love the author like breaks the fourth wall and interjects and gives like an analysis of what's happening when it's kind of obvious he's like this omniscient David Attenborough figure like trying to narrate what is going on and explain it um and it's annoying it's really genuinely annoying so yeah sorry the course of love is not for me not good my policeman by Beth and Roberts is an interesting love story because it's a love story kind of between three people but two people who are in love with the same person one of those lovers is a man one of those lovers is a woman and they're both in love with the same guy and this had me hooked I think it's really captivating there's great twists and I feel like there's some Nostalgia attached to this for me because it's set in Brighton soon which is where I kind of grew up so yeah I do love this book acts of desperation is a great title for this book because it is kind of set in two acts the first half is about this obsessive passionate um one-sided love and being utterly infatuated with someone and then in the second half she is kind of trying to push that guy away and it's destructive listen I support women's rights I also support women's wrongs and that is why this book is a hot new bombshell I thought it could have done more but I thought it was interesting definitely really fascinating and so it deserves its spot right there seven days in June is so great and will leave you thinking about it for many many more days and many many more months than just seven it is so realistic you really feel every single emotion every single heartbeat every single heart flutter it's about a second chance at love after like 15 years separated and these two people realize that they're both writers and they've essentially been each other's Muses the whole time and it's very special um seven days in June is great if this book was a box of chocolates I already every last one and now we're finishing off with two Classics firstly Jane Eyre this is of course an iconic bug and it would be an injustice to put it any lower than that and then North and South for me I think is such a brilliant novel I think it's so underappreciated it's about a change in Britain there is beautiful symbolism but the love story is also really endearing and I liked it a lot so that is my finished ranking of all of the love stories in literature that I have read and sometimes adored Happy Valentine's Day thanks for coming on this little literature date with me let me know what your favorite love story in literature is in the comments section down below and I'll be down there looking for some more recommendations because I love reading about love thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video the link is down below and you can like this video If you enjoyed it you can subscribe for more from me all the best stay in touch have a wonderful day and I'll catch you very very soon bye-bye

Channel: Jack Edwards

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Id: ZQR_XKw6kmM

Length: 28min 27sec (1707 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2023