Best YA Couple of 2010

Alexa, over at Not Enough Bookshelves, is doing a countdown of the best couples in YA for 2010 and I thought I'd share my favorites. For her, it's a countdown to Christmas and for me it's just one Best-of-the-Year/End-of-the-Year post.

I thought I'd have a bunch of couples to choose from, but looking at my Goodreads shelves and the reviews I've written... there really aren't many romance stories on there. Sure, I read a few, but the ones I really loved weren't focused on romance and the most realistic, incredible characters had dynamic stories that don't fall under the category of romance. For the most part the best couples weren't even couples. Or they were, but not until the very end. Or they weren't, but I thought maybe sometime in the future they would be. Yes, I know this is fiction.

So with all of that said, the best YA couple of 2010? (Warning: spoilers for a certain book/series after the jump.)

Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark

(via weheartit)

With The Hunger Games trilogy, and Mockingjay in particular (best book of 2010, no doubt), Peeta Mellark became one of my very favorite fictional characters. The trilogy isn't a romance by any means, and I'm so glad that their relationship and the love triangle - though parts of it were at the forefront at times - was not the primary focus of the story. To me the way that Katniss and Peeta's relationship evolved throughout the series was incredibly well done and there was a nice balance of the awwww moments along with the reality of what was happening with their world and Katniss' complex emotions regarding Peeta, Gale, the future, and people in general. I spent a lot of time while I was reading this series trying to figure out if I liked Katniss or not and in the end I have to admit that while she does a lot that I'm not entirely on board with and I don't understand bits of it, I do like her. And even more, I like the relationship she shares with Peeta and the different ways this grows and changes in the course of the trilogy.

I'm not usually a fan of the whole "opposites attract" thing, but I do love couples that complement each other or fit together, and this definitely applies to Katniss and Peeta. How much I love them (and why) can be explained very easily, with this quote from the end of Mockingjay --

...what I need is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.