Love Between the Covers

From Tots to Teens, StarMag

I WONDER ... do guys ever fall in love ... or have crushes, at any rate, on characters in books? None of my male friends have confessed to such feelings, but several women I know continue to lose their hearts to men in fiction.

The first fictional male I loved was Theodore Laurence a.k.a Laurie in Little Women, but  went off him when he made the fatal mistake of marrying the wrong March sister.

Since then, there have been many others - Bran in Susan Cooper's The Grey King; Scott in Linda Blake's Laura novels; Antonia Forest's Patrick Merrick.

However, although many women who swoon over Pride and Prejudice's Mr Darcy, he has never interested me at all. Still, like Lizzie Bennet, I might change my mind if I ever visited Pemberley.

My most recent ink-and-paper crushes have been the male leads in three YA novels. Garret Freymann-Weyr is a genius at creating the most attractive male characters. There were Link and James from My Heartbeat; Kolya from The Kings Are Already Here; and Eamon from Stay With Me. Now there's perhaps the most swoon-worthy, to date, of the author's creations, Leigh Hunter from Freymann-Weyr's latest novel, After the Moment (Houghton Mifflin, 336 pages, ISBN: 978-0618605729).

Leigh is a high school junior. His parents are divorced and he lives with his mum in New York, while his dad lives with his new wife and stepchild in Washington D.C. Leigh's stepsister is called Millie, and every early in the book, her father dies and it's decided that Leigh is the best person to break the news to her. At this point you realise that Leigh must be someone really special - or at least very special to Millie. I've always been impressed by good big brothers who love and care for their sisters - like the Walton boys in the 70s telly series - and so Leigh's relationship with Millie struck a chord.

The death of Millie's father also leads to Leigh moving to Washington D.C. He leaves his school where is a popular, straight-A student, and his gorgeous girlfriend, to be with his stepsister. Wow, can you imagine any boy or man you know doing anything so empathetic and sensitive as that?

Leigh is, of course, not perfect, and After the Moment culminates in him screwing up royally - but not in a way that reveals that he is really a first class asshole - just that he's human, misjudged a situation and made the wrong decision. This endears him to me even more.

Over in D.C, Leigh meets Maia. She's his age and Millie's friend, struggling with anorexia and full of quirks (she doesn't touch door knobs) and sadness. She and Leigh fall in love, and it's romantic and complicated, and tragic. You have to read the book to understand just how gloriously heartbreaking this book is. Also, to be reminded how seemingly small and insignificant actions, words and gestures can have a huge impact on people.

This was also the "message" of Thirteen Reasons Why (Razorbill, 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1595141712) by Jay Asher. In this book, shortly after the suicide of Hannah Baker, Clay Jensen receives a box of cassettes in which Hannah explains why she killed herself. The cassettes are to be sent to a list of people, each of whom had a part to play in Hannah's final decision. It's a powerful book and I wasn't expecting it to be. I admit I sometimes get very impatient with teenage angst and (what I see as) melodramatic self-pitying behaviour, but Hannah's story is very real and some of the situations she describes are so commonplace that you might be forgiven for thinking "So what? For this you killed yourself?" It's not as simple as that though - it never is, and Thirteen Reasons Why makes you really consider how "every thing effects every thing" and how dangerous it is to dismiss or take anyone for granted.

Clay is, like Leigh, imperfect but he has enormous potential. He was just a tiny crush. On the other hand, I fell madly in love with Marcelo Sandoval from Marcelo in the Real World (Arthur A. Levine, 312 pages, ISBN: 978-0545054744) by Francisco X. Stork. Marcelo has a form of autism which makes him very  unique in his personality, mannerisms and outlook. He can't read facial expressions; has trouble understanding the emotional reactions of those around him; hears internal mind-music; is intensely interested in the concept of God. In the summer before his final year in high school, Marcello goes to work in the mailroom at his father's law firm. The aim is to introduce Marcello to the "real world" - it's felt that the life he's thus far led is too sheltered. If he copes well, he will be allowed to continue attending his special private school. Otherwise, he'll have to go to public school.

His job does force Marcello to face new kinds of people and situations, and whether or not he copes "well" with the challenges the "real world" presents him is a matter of opinion and moral perception.

For my part, what I admire most about Marcello is his objectivity. This quality has much to do with his ability not to be influenced or affected by emotions. Interestingly, most of us have to learn to be objective. We struggle largely because we are extremely emotional about things. Marcello's lack of emotion could be seen as cold, but for his total lack of guile, and his obvious desire to understand how the people around him tick.

If we dated, I would probably want to throttle Marcello before too long - it's a good thing that I will never actually meet him or any of my other crushes. That's the beauty of ink-and-paper lovers - they will never reveal annoying habits and, if you ever feel the least bit impatient with them, you just have to turn the page, or put them back on the shelf.