{Top 5} Scene-Stealing Side Ships!

Today’s Top 5 Wednesday topic is super exciting. Ships are one of my favorite things about reading. I love, love, love it when I as a reader can identify with a couple in a book or series. Well constructed couples, especially the ones that stand off in the wings around the main couple of the book can really help ground the story in reality and realism.

Basically, when I’m rooting for couples in a book, it means that the characters are strong enough for me to care about and want to see happy. Of course, we all know how that goes: lots of heartbreak! But isn’t that what keeps drawing us back in??

{Top 5} Scene-Stealing Side Ships!

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{Tonks and Lupin} Harry Potter Series
by JK Rowling

I absolutely loved these characters! Tonks especially held a special place in my heart. Late additions to series can often get a little bit annoying, especially when they end up paired with characters that you’re more familiar with, but Tonks was so instantly lovable that it was impossible not to feel connected to her and instantly accepting of her coupling with Lupin. I’m giving spoilers a wide berth in this post, but lets just say that their pairing ended up pulling at the heartstrings unexpectedly along the way!

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{Nina and Matthias} Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom 
by Leigh Bardugo

Okay, I know that basically everyone raves about Kaz and Inej – and I liked them too! – but my favorite side couple in the series has got to be Nina and Matthias. I loved their strange and sordid history, and I really loved how their relationship unfolds in Six of Crows as Leigh Bardugo strips back the layers and complexities of their connection. Plus, the way they played off of each other was great!

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{Theo and Mausami} – The Passage
by Daniel Cronin

I read The Passage early in January of this year and was blown away by how much I enjoyed it. The character and the world were both incredibly complex and so compelling. None more so than Theo and Mausami. Settlers in the “First Colony” after the apocalyptic events at the start of the book, these two have already been through the ringer by the time we meet them. They are young, and in love, and trying their best to sort out the intricacies of their relationship in the midst of a conflict that will likely see their lives cut short. I was rooting for them the entire time.

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{Strike and Robin} Cormoran Strike Series
by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym for JK Rowling)

I’m including this, even though both of the characters mentioned above are main characters in the series! Though I still need to catch up and read the third book, Robin and Strike’s relationship dynamics fascinate me. Strike is brusque and abrasive, and Robin is bogged down by commitment to a volatile relationship of her own. And yet the duo orbit around each other in close quarters due to the nature of their shared work, drawing inexorably closer together and it’s so painful and so perfect. ❤

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{Magnus and Alec} The Mortal Instruments Series
by Cassandra Clare

I would be remiss to mention a strong gay couple at least once in this list! As a gay man myself, I wish I would have read this series when I was younger. I really empathized with Alec in particular, and think he would have been a very strong role model for me when I was still closeted, and it’s heartening to think that he (and Magnus!) remain strong icons for young gay men and women in the community today.

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What do you think about my choices? What are some of your favorites? Do you think a great side ship can save a poor main ship in a book? 

Thanks for reading!

xoxo