Hi guys!
I'm looking for some novels (preferably novel series) that explore healthy couples—romances like Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable in Kim Possible (season 4), or Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in Amazing Spider-Man (JMS-era).
That is, romances that have the following:
- Friendship slowly developing into love over time.
- Preferably, long-term friendships becoming relationships through shared experience and devotion.
- Once together, they should be together permanently and the love should be mutual.
- Limited to no sex, at least at the beginning of the relationship
- They should be cute and wholesome (e.g. sillily going on a date to an ice cream parlor, buying things for each other, and cuddling as opposed to focusing on each other's sexual parts and just trying to have a good time)!
- I'd prefer that there be no sex for the first few years of the relationship, or at least that the focus not be on that.
- No drama! Just couples trusting and loving one another, as they face the rest of the world!
- No swearing or vulgarities! I really hate that stuff.
Do more books like that exist? (Or TV shows/movies?) Thanks!
by hanman453
2 Comments
The “Awaken Online” series has this. First few books are great, but it gets stale in my opinion.
*YA*
**The Mediator series** by Meg Cabot.
6-book series about a teenage girl who can see ghosts. She and her mom move across the country & there is a nice, hot teenage ghost who lives in her new room. Fun stories & the romance is the subplot of the series.
**The Princess Diaries series** also by Meg Cabot
Much much better than the movie. Trust me. These were the first books I ever read that address mental health in girls. Really complex relationships and friendships. There is drama in these books, but it’s pretty realistic. I promise you’ll get happy endings.
*Adult*
**Funny Feelings** by Tara Dewitt
One-off book, not a series. A young female comic meets a retired comic who is a single dad, and he becomes her manager. Their friendship develops over years & she has a special, maternal relationship with his 7-year old daughter. It’s honestly really touching, and was my favorite romance read this year.
There IS sex in this book, but it is very intimate and plot-driving – it’s not erotica/raunchy/overly done. I think it’s one fully open-door scene, and then one descriptive scene. It gives you the same feet kicking feeling that the first kiss does in a YA novel.
**The Shepherd King duology** by Rachel Gillig
If you’re into fantasy. This was such a fun little duology. Really worth reading. The first one is good & the second one is even better.