Fictional Book Boyfriends Pt 3

About once a month we like to gather a small list of  what we and others like to call Dream-cast or Fictional Book Boyfriends. We've said it in the past we LOVE putting faces to the characters in our books (especially the men). We also LOVE seeing page to premieres. So we combined the two to do our spin on dream casting. We picked a few titles and show you who we imagined the leading men to be. We'll put the link to the previous ones at the bottom of this page. 

Slammed by Colleen Hoover 

girl moves to Michigan and falls for poet neighbor

Aaron Johnson as Will Cooper 
Because who doesn't think Aaron Johnson is beyond charming?!

Red Rising by Pierce Brown 

Boy disguise himself in a higher class to help lead a rebellion to free the suppressed lower classes. 

Douglas Booth as Darrow

All those rough edges has us love Douglas booth.

Never Never by Tarryn Fisher and Colleen Hoover  

Best friends since they could walk. In love since the age of fourteen. Complete strangers since this morning.

Brando Eaton as Silas 

That boyish charm...Swoon.

Broken Skies by Theresa Kay 
Aliens have invaded earth and have always kept their distance until now. 

Wade Poezyn as Lir

Slap some scales on him and try and tell us he doesn't look like Lir!!

pt 1

pt 2

<3 A&L

Bringing Sexy paperBack

These are the intelligent, charming, witty, and handsome men that write YA. We know in this genre women reign and we here at SBSR wanted to shine a little light on these fellas.

We decided to start off with our personal favorite.... Pierce Brown. The 26 year old author has been getting a lot of buzz lately. If you are into books at all then there's no doubt you've heard about his Red Rising series. At just our book store alone he is on at least 5 different favorites tables, it's insane... With just two books currently out and it even only being January people are already saying that Golden Son will probably be the best book out this year (I fully agree with this). Brown actually wrote 9 books before having Red Rising picked up. Red Rising is also set to become a movie, and we couldn't be more excited about it.With casting and dates still up in the air, well be waiting hand and foot for more details.
Pierce Brown is just oozing with talent, and we can't wait to continue too follow his career...
It also doesn't hurt that he has a super love for Harry Potter.

John Green. How can you have a YA list without this man not being mentioned?! Ya can't! Within the last few years he has became a house hold name. With a writing style all of his own, there's no questioning why so many love him. Green is the only man who can get away with killing off your favorite character and it just making you like him more. And books aren't the only thing he's ruling in... He has mastered the ranting YouTube video and has also brought so much attention to YA with his book to screen movie The Fault in Our Stars. With countless book awards under his belt and with Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska in the works to become movies, it's no surprise why he made this list. No one does teenage angst quite like this man. 

Ransom Riggs. He's debut novel Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children hasn't gone unnoticed. It's currently in production to become a movie, with both a bigger director and big actors set to star in it. He has brought something really interesting and new to this growing genre by incorporating pictures into his work. Creepy, Creepy pictures... He is the husband of one of our favorite authors Tahereh Mafi and they are without a doubt one of our favorite book couples. He is another author that post videos on YouTube, and is very active on his instagram.  With an amazing sense of humor, we can't get enough of Ransom Riggs... and Yes that is he's real name.

J.D Netto... What you haven't heard of him?.. Well you're about to be schooled. He is the author of the new-ish series Whispers of the Fallen. This Brazilian-born talented man is steadily rising up in the Ya book scene. During his senior year in High School, J.D.Netto had an idea "What if Lucifer had a Diary? What if the Diary was a secret? What if the secret was a reality", this idea and were sure many others are what brought you this series. This man isn't just a talented author he is also a talented graphic designer... You can get a small glimpse at that on his instagram page. One of the main reason were loving this man is because besides having interesting reads he is also super involved with his fans.. And nothing is more charming than being grateful. 
 

Theo Lawrence is a graduate of Columbia University and the Juilliard School. He is the writer of the Mystic City series, which is a series we recently started.  As all the other men on this post writing isn't his only gift... Ya boy can sing. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Off-Broadway. Lawrence is still and up and coming Ya author that we can't wait to watch and learn more about. Plus the covers of his books ARE AMAZING!

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

"Old enough to screw, old enough to crew"

I actually started Red Rising last year and it ended up going in my "DNF/On Holf" list on goodreads. At the time it just wasn't want I wanted to read... BUT seeing as in it's the start of a new year I said I was going to go back to that list and finish every book on it (there's around 11). I am so thankful I did this.

Originally I got about 90-ish pages in and it was just so slow... So this time knowing some of what was going on I powered through the first part of the book and when I hit the second half I wanted to smack myself in the face for even putting it down. If I would have known that the second half of the book would have hit like a train I wouldn't have stopped in the first place. I also, like everyone else I know whose read this, am having a hard time placing this book... Is it Sci-fi? Is it YA or NA? Is it Fiction?... I don't know and I don't care I just loved it. 

I will repeat though the first half of this book is slow. Once I hit the other section I completely understood why. Pierce does an amazing job in world building and setting up the story to have this amazing POW effect towards the end. On to the actual review though.

Darrow is a Helldriver on Mars. He is drilling mines with the hopes that one day people will live on the surface. This world is ruled under strict laws/rules. Darrow is all about keeping a low-pro and just doing what needs to be done. His wife, Eo, however doesn't feel the same way. Disgusted by how the Golds rule she wants to take action to free everyone from the way things are. The relationship between Eo and Darrow is so much more than sweet. I feel a lot of times male writers either hit or miss the mark when it comes to capturing relationships, and Pierce hit the bulls-eye. After several events take place Darrow ends up on the surface of Mars disguised as a Gold. After which he enrolls into an Academy with the goal of rising up in the Gold ranks. 

“I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.”

 

The Academy however is not what you would think. THIS IS WHERE THE STORY REALLY HAPPENS! THIS IS WHERE I SHOULD HAVE PUSHED MYSELF TO GET... Once he is enrolled all shiz hits the fan. Darrow goes from this mundane kind of boring character and truly transforms into someone that is even hard to describe. Just this off the charts growth. I thought this story was going to take kind of a feeling like The Testing had too it, but I was so so wrong. I was excepting the school to start off norm and then become something insane. What I didn't expect was Darrow's first test to be killing a boy with his bare hands. I didn't expect his character to be thrown into such warfare. I didn't expect all hell to break loose or this story to go from zero to sixty so fast. I know I'm saying "I didn't expect" a lot during this review, and again I don't care, because this book wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be.

The thing Red Rising has going for it besides the complete turn around in plot, was the surprising amount of action. I ended up feeling like I read two books at once. The first half was this world building, low key gem and the second half was this action packed book that could and will play out amazing on the big screen. There are so many surprises and action packed into the last half of this book that I swear I said "WHAT THE F DID I JUST READ" probably 50 times.

Character development was another thing that Pierce mastered, with such grace. If I would have read Red Rising last year it probably would have gone as my "biggest surprise read of 2014", sadly it didn't happen for me then... But thankfully it got my 2015 reading year off on the right foot. Also can't thank him enough for how he ended the book. (it wasn't on a cliffhanger and for once I'm really glad about it.)

Red Rising if you can't tell, took me by surprise and I can't wait to read Golden Son. This is a book you need to experience.

8.5/10 Stars 
-Angela