Top Ten Book Boyfriends of 2011

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Top Ten of 2011, a fab­u­lous week of look­ing back at the best of the best this past year, is hosted by Lisa from A Life Bound By Books, Rachel from Fik­t­shun & Jaime & Patri­cia from Two Chicks on Books and Jes­sica from Con­fes­sions of a Booka­holic.

Ah Book Boyfriends. What’s a good book with­out some­one to swoon over?!

With­out fur­ther ado, and in no par­tic­u­lar order, here’s my Top Ten Swoon­wor­thy Guys of 2011. Enjoy.

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1) Andrius Arvy­das from Between Shades of Gray

I fell com­pletely for Andrius. The romance in this book is right at the begin­ning, under­stated and frag­ile, and all the more poignant because of how com­pletely ordi­nary it is in the midst of unimag­in­able con­di­tions and ter­ri­ble danger.

The scenes between Andrius and Lina were per­fect, mak­ing me smile despite how upset­ting the story became. Also, he gets her a book for her birth­day. In a Siber­ian Work Camp. And leaves lit­tle mes­sages for her inside.

‘Andrius began to meet me in the ration line. I chopped a lit­tle harder, hop­ing the day would move faster. I washed my face at night in the snow. I tried to brush my teeth an comb through my tan­gled hair.

‘So, how many pages have you smoked so far?’ his voice whis­pered behind me.

‘Almost ten,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘You must be nearly flu­ent in Russ­ian by now,’ he teased, pulling on my hat.

‘Peer­estan,’ I said, smiling.

‘Stop? Ah, very good. So you really did learn some­thing. What about this word — krasivaya?’

I turned around. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You’ll have to learn it,’ said Andius.

”Okay,’ I said. ‘I will’.

‘With­out ask­ing your mother,’ he said. ‘Promise?’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Say it again.’

“kra­si­vaya. Really, you have to learn it on your own.’

‘I will.’

‘We’ll see,’ he said, smil­ing as he walked away.’

~ page 235

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‘Hello Lina. You’ve got­ten to page 278. That’s pretty good!

I gasped, then pre­tended I was engrossed in the book. I looked at Andrius’s hand­writ­ing. I ran my fin­ger over his elon­gated let­ters in my name. Were there more? I knew I should read onward. I couldn’t wait. I turned through the pages care­fully, scan­ning the margins.

Page 300: Are you really on page 300 or are you skip­ping ahead now?

I had to sti­fle my laugher.

Page 322: Dombey and Son is bor­ing. Admit it.

Page 364: I’m think­ing of you.

Page 412: Are you maybe think­ing of me?

I closed my eyes.

Yes. I’m think­ing of you. Happy Birth­day, Andrius.

~ page 303

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2) Kent McFuller from Before I Fall

Kent is adorable. And totally sexy. And has green eyes (it’s a weak­ness okay!) Lauren Oliver is very good at writ­ing some near poetic sen­tences and there are plenty of tingly and intense scenes between Kent and Sam to enjoy.

‘I’m so lost in fan­tasy about Kent that his actual appear­ance seems like a dream or wish­ful think­ing. He’s wear­ing an old cor­duroy blazer with patches sewn onto the elbows like a deranged — and adorable — Eng­lish teacher.’

~ page 263

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‘He bites the edge of his lip — the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I think he might be ner­vous. His eyes are flit­ting over my face and then away and each time they land on me it feels like the world is falling away and it’s just the two of us in the mid­dle of a bright, green field.

‘You didn’t miss any­thing in math,’ he says and I rec­og­nize a Kent McFuller bab­ble com­ing on. ‘I mean, we went over some of the stuff from Wednesday’s home­work because some peo­ple were, like, freak­ing out about the quiz on Mon­day. But mostly every­one was a lit­tle bit antsy, I think because of Cupid Day, and Daim­ler didn’t really care that -’

‘Kent?’

He blinks and shuts up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Did you send me this?’ I hold up the rose. ‘I mean, is it from you?’

His smile gets so big it’s like a huge beam of sun­shine. ‘I’ll never tell,’ he says, winking.’

~ page 264

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3) Varen Nethers from Nev­er­more

Usu­ally depressed, all-in-black, wears-more-eyeliner-than-I-do types don’t tend to bring on the swoon for me, but I think Varen may just be the excep­tion. Can you say sex­ual ten­sion!? I’m not even really sure what hap­pened in the last 3rd of this book, I’m just des­per­ate for more. Varen is sur­pris­ingly sweet once he starts to trust Iso­bel and let’s just say, he can bring me ice cream and quote Edgar Allan Poe to me any time he likes.

‘He hes­i­tated. Then, after a moment, she felt him slide nearer, caus­ing every one of her sense to become ampli­fied. His shoul­der brushed against hers, ignit­ing a trem­ble that run through the length of her, and she tried to hide her shak­ing hands by grip­ping the sides of the book. He began turn­ing pages once more. She could feel the move­ment of each sheet with her entire frame, first as it lifted, then as it set­tled on the other side.

At last he stopped, and she stared down at the printed col­umn of words, unable to com­pre­hend a sin­gle one. His hand, warm and steady, wound its way around hers, wrap­ping it like a spi­der would its prey. She sur­ren­dered it to him, unable to watch even as his thumb traced the place, just above her knuck­les, where he had once writ­ten his num­ber in deep violet.’

~ page 291

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4) Ale­jan­dro Fuentes from Per­fect Chemistry

Speak­ing of sex­ual ten­sion. Alex is your typ­i­cal bad boy, insanely hot, in a gang, rides a motor­bike, is fiercely loyal to his fam­ily and delights in mak­ing Brit­tany as flus­tered as pos­si­ble.  And is, of course, an utter sweetie under­neath. Slightly cliche? Yes, but a hell of a lot of fun.

‘There’s some­thing that’s been nag­ging at me all day long. As long as I’m here with him, I might as well ask. ‘Did we kiss last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it wasn’t mem­o­rable because I have no rec­ol­lec­tion of it.’

He laughs. ‘I was kid­din’. We didn’t kiss.’ He leans in. ‘When we kiss you’ll remem­ber it. Forever.”

~ page 142

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5) Eti­enne St. Clair from Anna and the French Kiss

I could quote the whole book because I loved pretty much every scene between St. Clair and Anna. Stephanie Perkins writes the kind of dia­logue and scenes that just bring on the but­ter­flies and make you grin like an idiot. St. Clair is pretty gor­geous with scruffy, soft hair and a crooked smile.

‘We are still hold­ing hands.

Okay, we should let go. This is the point where it would be nor­mal to let go.

Why aren’t we let­ting go?

I force my gaze to the Grand Bassin. He does the same. We’re not watch­ing the boats. His hand is burn­ing, but he doesn’t let go. And then — he scoots closer. Just barely. I glance down an see the back of his shirt an crawled up, expos­ing a slice of his back. His skin is smooth and pale.

It’s the sex­i­est thing I have ever seen.

He shifts again, and my body answers with the same. We’re arm against arm, leg against leg. His hand crushes mine, will­ing me to look at him. 

I do. Etienne’s dark eyes search mine. ‘What are we doing?’ His voice is strained.

He’s so beau­ti­ful, so per­fect. I’m dizzy. My heart pounds, my pulse races. I tilt my face towards his, and he answers with an iden­ti­cal tilt toward mine. He closes his eyes. Our lips brush lightly.

‘If you ask me to kiss you, I will.’ he says.

His fin­gers stroke the inside of my wrists and I burst into flames.’

~ page 311

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6) Will Kil­lian from The Ghost and the Goth

Will’s not really a goth, he is reserved, has nat­u­rally dark hair, pale blue eyes and hap­pens to be able to talk to ghosts. He’s totally endear­ing and though he bick­ers pretty much con­stantly with Alona, and calls her out on her bitchy com­ments, when it comes down to it, he’ll do pretty much any­thing for her.

”You said some­thing not nice about my shirt. So say some­thing nice instead.’

She arched an eye­brow. ‘About that shirt? Impossible.’

I sighed. ‘Fine. It’s your fate. If you want to spend the rest of your time -’

‘You have nice teeth,’ she blurted out. I stared at her.

She lifted a shoul­der. ‘What, I have a thing for white, even teeth, okay? It’s not a big deal,’ she said, shift­ing her arms across her chest.

‘Nice teeth,’ I repeated slowly.

‘I would have said you have a nice smile, if I’d ever seen it to know,’ she snapped, and I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh.

‘It’s not that funny,’ she mut­tered when I dou­bled over, my sides aching. She was right. It wasn’t that funny, but it was the last bit of ridicu­lous­ness that broke through the ten­sion I’d been car­ry­ing around inside me since yesterday.

‘Straight and white teeth are a sign of good health,’ she per­sisted. ‘They can be a very attrac­tive fea­ture.’ Her mouth started to curve into a reluc­tant smile.

~ page 156

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7) Jake Tolen from Sav­ing June

Jake could quite pos­si­bly be my top book boyfriend this year, cocky, con­fi­dent, pas­sion­ate about music but always there for Harper as she deals with the loss of her sis­ter. Believe me when I say there are some seri­ous sexy­times in this book and I think we’ve estab­lished that dark messy hair and green eyes are a bit of a weak­ness of mine. Read and enjoy.

‘All I can do is look at him. Up close, I get a bet­ter view; there’s no deny­ing the fact he is really, really good-looking, in this rak­ish, edgy, badass, I just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-screw-you-I-don’t-need-a-mirror kind of way. He has these pierc­ing, unbe­liev­ably green eyes that are as gor­geous and sharp as the rest of him; it’s like they can see straight through me.’

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‘This time I draw my gaze up to meet his. His hair looks kind of slept-on, stick­ing out in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, his eyes darker in the dim light thrown off by the street lamp. The same lamp allows me to notice that his black t-shirt clings to him in all the right places. At first my stom­ach twists, and I feel vaguely ashamed, or guilty, or some­thing, for notic­ing that. But then I think – so what. So what if he’s hot, some­times. Like every time I look at him…Even if I’m no damsel in dis­tress and he’s miles away from Prince Charm­ing, dis­plays of gal­lantry, com­bined with his not-bad-okay-actually-pretty-good looks, make my strange lusty feel­ings com­pletely jus­ti­fied. Prac­ti­cally oblig­a­tory, even.’

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8) Cricket Bell from Lola and the Boy Next Door

Cricket!!! Can we talk about how cute and adorable Cricket is, with his pin­stripe trousers and and vin­tage shirts and his inven­tions. He’s a sweetie, in a totally sexy, Dr Spencer Reid kind of way (sorry I got my cute sci­ence geeks mixed up for a moment), plus, you know the boy’s good with his hands. Cricket ties with Jake for my top book boyfriend of 2011 spot.

‘Cricket stands behind me. The faintest touch of a fin­ger against the back of my silk kimono. I close my eyes. I under­stand his com­pul­sion, his need to touch. As my par­ents burst into con­grat­u­lat­ing Cal­liope, I slide on hand behind my back. I feel him jerk away in sur­prise, but I find his hand, and I take into mine. And I stroke the ten­der skin down the cen­ter of his palm. Just once.

He doesn’t make a sound. But he is still, so still.

I let go, and sud­denly my hand is in his. He repeats the action back. One fin­ger, slowly, down the cen­tre of my palm.’

~ page 302

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Cricket kneels an takes my left foot into his hands. The sock comes on too fast. My boot squeaks as he slides it over my leg. His care­ful, quick fin­gers lace it all the way up to my knee, where they linger ever so slightly. I close my eyes, pray­ing for the clock to stop. He tugs an tight­ens the buck­les. And then he repeats every­thing on the other side.

Some­how, this is the sex­i­est thing that has ever hap­pened to me.

~ page 332

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9) Roger Sul­li­van from Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour

Okay — so I hate the name Roger. But other than that, he is sweet, car­ing and funny, loves his­tory, doesn’t ever say good­bye, will skid down super­mar­ket aisles in socks for fun and occa­sion­ally answers to the name Edmund.

‘I was bare­foot, in old jeans and the show T-shirt from last year’s musi­cal. This had become my de facto out­fit and I’d put it on this morn­ing auto­mat­i­cally, with­out con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­bil­ity that this Roger guy might be dis­arm­ingly cute.

And he really was, I saw now that he was closer. He had wide, hazel eyes and unfairly long lashes, a scat­ter­ing of freck­les, and an air of easy confidence.’

~ page 16

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”I mean, I should have known,’ he said, lean­ing back a lit­tle and smil­ing at me. ‘It always hap­pens this way.’

‘What does?’

‘The best dis­cov­er­ies always hap­pened to the peo­ple who weren’t look­ing for them. Colum­bus and Amer­ica. Pin­zon, who stum­bled across Brazil while look­ing for the West Indies. Stan­ley hap­pen­ing on Vic­to­ria Falls. And you. Amy Curry, when I was least expect­ing her.”

~ page 337

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10) Con­nor from Not That Kind of Girl

Connor’s a refresh­ingly nor­mal, car­ing guy, who always treats Natalie with respect, even when she doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily deserve his kind­ness. He is also, of course, very good look­ing and easy going.

”You wouldn’t do that,’ he said, step­ping toward me.

I laughed. Did he expect me to faint or some­thing? I took a step toward him, folded my arms and leaned in. ‘Oh yeah? Try me.’

We stared each other down like that for a sec­ond and a strange feel­ing came over me, start­ing warm at my toes and spread­ing up through my body.

‘I like your PJs,’ he said.

‘Shut up,’ I said.

He grinned. It made one dim­ple appear on his left cheek, which looked sandy with stub­ble. ‘You’re pretty tough, aren’t you, Sterling?”

~ page 142

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Who makes your Top Ten Book Boyfriend 2011 List?