Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books To Read If Your Book Club Likes …

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Books To Read If Your Book Club Likes …

Male Protagonists in YA Fiction.

A few weeks back I was tagged in the This or That Tag, and one of the questions was if I preferred reading about male or female protagonists. I answered female, not because I don’t enjoy reading about male protagonists but just because there are so many more YA books out there featuring female protagonists. So while thinking of possibilities for this week’s themed free for all topic I decided to feature some of my favourite male protagonists, a list which can hopefully be expanded on as more books are released.

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Kaz, Matthias, Jesper and Wylan
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

There is so much happening in this duology, and while the chapters from Inej’s and Nina’s perspective are just as amazing I loved getting glimpses into Kaz’s, Matthias’s, Jesper’s and – in Crooked Kingdom – Wylan’s minds. They are such a diverse array of characters and all of them are so amazingly written. If you haven’t read this duology yet I would highly recommend running out and buying a copy of both books.

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Sam
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

This is another book that had split POVs, and although it is Miel’s chapters which contain the bulk of the story – her struggle with her powers, so to speak, and her battle with the Bonner sisters – Sam’s chapters contained a brilliant secondary story. His struggle with who he wants to be and what promises he made himself and his mother when he first became ‘Sam’.

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Percy Jackson
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

While this is technically more of a middle grade book than YA I just had to include Percy Jackson somewhere on this list. He has such a sharp inner voice which made reading this series a brilliant experience for me. Percy had a unique and quick-witted take on the quests he was sent on the and Greek myths he found himself a part of.

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Patroclus
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

There are probably a lot of people who know how Achilles and Patroclus’s story ends. Even though I haven’t read The Iliad yet I know how it ends. In The Song of Achilles however we see the events through different eyes and Patroclus has a very unique take on both Achilles and the events of the Trojan war. Out of every book I’ve read with a male protagonists Patroclus is my favourite.

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Seth
More Than This by Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness writes amazing characters, and Seth is no different. More Than This was honestly a book that was all about his development and his journey. At the beginning of the story Seth kills himself, but when he wakes up in a strange world he finds himself looking back on his life before and what it was that led him to take his own life. Overall this is just a stunning book.

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Darrow
Red Rising by Pierce Brown

I feel like Red Rising was one of the first books I read told through a solely male POV, and I loved it. Darrow goes through so much over the course of this trilogy but he still stays determined and strong no matter what. He’s a great character; complex, well developed, but at the same time he stays true to who he was in the beginning of the first book.

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Kell
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

It’s been a while since I featured my favourite ever series in one of my TTT lists. Although this book is told from both Lila and Kell’s perspective I enjoyed reading Kell’s chapters that little bit more. He’s a complex character; chained to the royal family and making illegal trades of items though the different London’s, but when it comes down to it he is loyal to his London and his brother.

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Simon and Baz
Carry on by Rainbow Rowell

Carry On is my favourite Rainbow Rowell book and a large part of that is because of all the voices in the story. We don’t just see things though Simon and Baz’s perspectives but all the characters at one point or another. Simon and Baz were the main two characters however and their interactions with one another made for wonderful reading.

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Noah
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

This is another book with split POVs between Noah and his sister but even from the beginning I loved Noah’s chapters that little bit more than Jude’s. Both of the siblings change after the death of their mother; seeing what happened to Noah before his mother died made his actions through Jude’s eyes at sixteen so much more emotional in their own way.

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Todd
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Given how much I loved Patrick Ness’s books I just had to include another on this week’s list. The Chaos Walking trilogy is my all-time favourite and a large part of that is because of the development of the characters. Reading what Todd goes through across all three books is beyond anything else I’ve read before in terms of character development, the Todd we meet in the first book is nothing alike the Todd we know in the last one.

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what you picked for this week’s themed free-for-all, or who some of your favourite male protagonists are.