My favourite bookish bromances | Because romantic relationships aren’t always everything.

Hello everyone! I hope your Monday has been amazing, and, for those of you in Canada celebrating family day, I hope that has been great as well. 🙂

So, as you guys all know, I love my romantic relationships in books. But that’s obviously not the only type of relationships there are; say hello to friendship/bromances, which are so amazing.  The platonic relationship, the friendship that is so strong, it just has to have its own title.

Why are bromances so awesome?

I shall tell you.

• There is literally all the banter??! I love banter between characters so so much and bromances basically mean wit and sass 98% of the time which is so great AND very relatable–but mostly just VERY fun to read. Ahem.
• So much platonic, beautiful, sibling love!! Without being siblings. The amazing brotherly bonds the characters form is so so wonderful and it makes my heart into a gooey mess just as much as our fellow romantic ships. Seriously, this love is so beautiful it can even totally be better than the romantic kind.
• No complications of love triangles! There are so many times where a love triangle creates oh so unnecessary problems that cause readers much grief and frustration, and just in general, romantic relationships can be so angsty and whatnot (don’t get me wrong, I love them, but it’s still true!) but with bromances, there’s no such issue which makes the relationship even more awesome. The love and the feels without the pain? Fine by me.
• Realistic, and relatable relationships. I suppose it depends on the book (most of us aren’t super close with a prince or have a buddy for a super dangerous journey or whatever the circumstances are) but a lot of the time, we read about romantic relationships that may or may not be something we’re familiar with. Most of the time, for me, I’m not familiar with it, but I love to read about them for that reason (and the feels, obvi). But despite that, it’s nice to see how valued platonic relationships are because those are the majority of the relationships I’m going to have. Apart from romantic love, friendships are one of the biggest aspects of my life, and most likely yours as well. It’s important to have that rep, you know?

So you can see how they are just as important, just as amazing, as my OTPs! Which is why I decided to make a separate post to list my favourites! I think I’ve rambled long enough, let’s get to the list!

Percy and Grover

“Meat!” he said scornfully. “I’m a vegetarian.”
“You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans,” I reminded him.
“Those are vegetables.”

~Percy Jackson & the Olympians

As much as I love the trio here, and later the group of 7, I really wanted to focus on Percy and Grover, because these two were such a highlight of the Percy Jackson series! Their banter, their friendship gave me so much life and I was so sad when Grover no longer showed up as much later. #bringbackgrover2k17

Arin and Roshar

“You could offer her a seat,’ Arin said.
“Ah, but I only have two chairs in my tent, little Herrani, and we are three. I suppose she could always sit on your lap.”

~ The Winner’s Curse series by Marie Rutkoski

You must know my love for Arin and Kestrel, but to shine a light on my other favorite pairing: Arin and Roshar are SO AWESOME. There’s of course, the banter (love love love), but they have each other’s back in such a way that is so inspiring and makes me so happy ahhhh. Although there are tense moments between them (like any friendship), we know it’ll work out because they’re such an awesome pair.

Will and Jem

“Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?”

“They ate it too,” Will reminisced. “Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

~The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare, book 1

We can’t have a bromance list without these two lovelies! Ahhhhhh aside from the fact that I love them both as love interests for Tessa, these two have their own connection (they’re parabatai, a term for two Shadowhunters who fight together as warriors, bonded for life under an oath) which is so beautiful. I love Tessa, but these two, form a ship that’s much stronger than anything I can describe! They just go on to show that romantic relationships aren’t necessarily everything.

Ron and Harry

“He must have known I’d want to leave you.”
“No, he must have known you would always want to come back.”

~Harry Potter series, book 7

Ron has a reputation for being the sidekick (which, I’ll admit, is pretty true), the humorous one (also true), and the dumber one (not true) in the Golden Trio. And although the movies did a pretty accurate job on recreating the books, in the books, Ron and Harry had a strong relationship that is kind of underdeveloped in the movies. They had their fights, their problems, but at the end of the day the both need each other, and they both are very close friends. Bromances for the win!

Darrow and Sevro

“You tell anyone I cried, I’ll find a dead fish, put it in a sock, hide it in your room, and let it putrefy.”
“Fair enough.”

~Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown

Oh my gosh, the amount of love I have for Sevro and Darrow is UNREAL. Seriously. I would go even as far as to say I love them even more than Darrow’s romantic ship?? Sevro and Darrow’s friendship was formed earlier on and developed more and more throughout the series, so maybe that’s why, but seriously. I adore these two so so so much aghhhh I just can’t. ❤ ❤

The Raven Boys

“I never taught him to break his thumb.”
“That’s Gansey for you. Only learns enough to be superficially competent.”
“Loser,” Ronan agreed, and he was himself again.”

~The Raven Cycle by Marie Stiefvater

My beautiful Raven boys!!! ❤ ❤ I love each and every one of them so much. I haven’t finished the last book in this series yet (I will soon promise) but each and every book I’ve read so far has me loving their bond. All the characters individually are so wonderful, and seeing their connection as a whole is just so sweet and killllllllls me. So awesome. Now I shall go hide because I still haven’t read The Raven King and squeal over the Raven Boys because they are so great, ahhh.

Kell and Rhy

“A fine idea,” said Rhy. “But no. We must go out, you see, because we’re on a mission.”
“Oh?” asked Kell.
“Yes. Because unless you plan to wed me yourself—and don’t get me wrong, I think we’d make a dashing pair—I must try and find a mate.”

~Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab, book 1

Let me first pause to say A CONJURING OF LIGHT IS BEING RELEASED TOMORROW!!! And I am. freaking. out. Ahem. Apologies. But I’m so ready for this book, for more Kell, more Lila, more Kell and Lila, and definitely more Kell and Rhy! Kell and Rhy have the most amazing bonds ever and I love them to death. Seriously, they are my absolute favourites right now and ahhhhhhhhhh I can’t describe how beautiful their brotherly bond is. ❤ You just have to read it.

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So that concludes my list for today! Valentine’s Day is long gone, but I wanted to showcase these bookish bromances, because this form of relationships deserves so much love and appreciation, which I feel as if it doesn’t get enough with so much attention on the romantic ships.

What are your thoughts? Which of these bookish bromances do you absolutely love? Do you prefer romantic ships or platonic ships–or both? Let’s chat!