Top Ten Tuesday is an original blog meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. and is currently being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is “Favorite Couples In Books.” I could probably come up with tons of couples whom I absolutely love, but for this week’s topic, I’m going a completely different route. I’m listing ten of my favorite books that don’t have romance in them. This list was harder to put together than I thought it would be, which does means I need to reach for more books without romance. Always open to recommendations! Covers are linked to Goodreads.
1. Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu, Illustrated by Sana Takeda
2. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4. Bird Box by Josh Maleman
5. A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
6. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
7. Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer
8. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
9. The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
10. Odd & True by Cat Winters
Do you read a lot of books with no romance? What are your favorite books that don’t include a romantic storyline? Let me know in the comments and be sure to leave me a link to your own TTT post, so I can visit.
A Kernel of Nonsense 
Lol I love how you twisted this week’s theme. Great books too!! 😊
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Thanks so much!
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I really want to read the Book Thief!
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You should. It’s one of those few books I’d recommend everyone read.
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Ooooh, LOVE the twist you put on this week’s theme! I like a good romance but sometimes it’s really nice to pick up a book that doesn’t have any. Almost all of these are still on my TBR, so I need to get to work haha!
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Thanks! I like romance as well, but it’s nice to read a book every once and a while with no romance. They are all great!
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Until the Netflix film, I’d not realized there even was such a book story as “Bird Box.” Haven’t read it or seen the film because, well, it looks a little creepy. 😉
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It’s great, but only if creepy is your thing.
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I did something else this time around too. 🙂
I tend to prefer books with little to no romance and I love this list. Great picks!
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Great minds! Thanks so much!
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Now this is an awesome take on this TTT! I rarely read books that have little to no romance and the only thing I could remember that have no hint of that is Dan Brown books or my recent read The Silent Patient.
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They can be hard to find. I originally was going to go with MG titles, but that felt like cheating.
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I’ve read and loved six of these. I’m fine with some romance in a book, but I also love it when there’s not. I was single for a loooooong time, and still enjoyed my life, so I like books to recognize single people can have stories too.
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Great point. It would especially be good if we could normalize being single, especially for teens.
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I actually like when a book has no romance! Shame that they’re not as common as I’d like them to be!
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It would be nice to see more of a balance. I’d especially like it if they instead focused on friendship more.
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I’ve heard great things about Monstress! And I have The Knife of Never Letting go on my shelf to read.
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Love Monstress so much. I have to get to the third volume soon. The Knife of Never Letting Go is sooo good!
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I’d like to read more books with no romance. Not Even Bones is now even more appealing to me haha.
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I can’t speak for the sequel, but the first has no romance in it.
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Ooh I love how you’ve changed the theme! I was never sure I’d there was romance in The Book Thief or just friendship but it was such a great book 😍 love your list and topic!
My ttt: https://bookslifeotheroddities.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/10-adorable-fictional-couples/
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I think it’s one of those books where it could have gone either way if certain things hadn’t happened (I’m choking up). Thanks!
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I don’t need romance if I’m reading a spooky book. In fact, sometimes romance gets in the way of a good haunting.:-)
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I’m sure that’s what all those ghosts think too 😉
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I hate reading books with no romance… I love love!
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Haha, to each their own!
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I am not surprised that I have read NONE of these books. I love romance, and I think the only books I read without romance tend to be middle grades.
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I almost went with a list of just MG, but thought it would be kind of cheating.
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…Not Even Bones has no romance? I didn’t know, now I need to read it.
And I loved This Savage Song and Monstress! Stories that are deeply unromantic and about monsters are my thing, apparently?
Great list!
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The first book does not have romance, but we’ll see where the author decides to take Not Even Bones in the second book. Haha, I also love monsters too, especially when authors turn the tables and it’s the monsters who prove to have the most humanity. Thanks!
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Great spin on this week’s topic! I love The Book Thief and Not Even Bones is one I need to check out, it sounds amazing. 🙂
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Thanks! The Book Thief is one of my all-time favorite books. Not Even Bones was so good, bloody, but good.
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Great list and I love your spin. So Bird Box doesn’t have any romance? Netflix added a hint to their movie but then it would be no big surprise if the movie and the book were different right?
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Thanks so much! Yes, I think Bird Box the book hinted that there could have been a romance, but the movie expanded it to appeal to viewers.
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The Book Thief is one of my favourite books! I liked This Savage Song, but I preferred the sequel, Our Dark Duet. The more I hear about Not Even Bones, the more excited I get to read it!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/top-ten-tuesday-198/
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I still need to pick up the sequel to This Savage Song. I was really impressed with Not Even Bones.
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You should it’s great!
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honestly im kind of a sucker for romance in my books but it’s so nice and refreshing to read sth without once in a while!! i only read the book thief from ur list, but all the other choices seem great too! im gonna have to check them out!
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I love romance too, but it’s nice to read a few without it. The Book Thief is a classic, so if you were to pick up only one of these, it would be a good one.
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Ooh, I loved your twist on this week’s theme. It’s hard to find books that avoid that topic altogether.
This is my Top Ten Tuesday post.
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Thanks so much. Yes, it is. I tried not to include any books with romance, even those with just a touch.
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Interesting take on this week’s topic. I think most of the books I read have some kind of romance in them, even if it isn’t the main plot. What can I say? I like my books with a bit of romance. 🙂 Here is my Top Ten Tuesday
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I do too, which made this list not easy to put together, haha.
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No Romance:
Dietland by Sarai Walker
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
The Bad Seed by William March
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman
Those are just a few I found, but I noticed two things: 1) people are likely to already be married in a novel, but the focus isn’t their “romance,” and 2) a lot of dark and murder-filled stories lack romance! There has to be better.
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I have been really curious about We Have Always Lived in the Castle and this might be a good excuse to pick it up. It’s really hard to find YA without romance. I had to add a couple of adult novels to make this ten.
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If you read We have Always Lived in the Castle, don’t do the audiobook. The voice narrator makes the main character sound drippy.
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I love romance in books but I also really want to read more books that don’t have romance in them. A book that stands out in my head for having no romance in it is Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard.
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I am not familiar with that one. I will have to look it up.
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I like how you did something different. I like books with romance in them but I mainly want to read a good book. I want to read This Savage Song.
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This Savage Song is really good. I loved that we got to know the characters without romance. Sometimes it isn’t needed.
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I really, really appreciated This Savage Song’s lack of romance! (I think that ‘s part of why I’ve put off Our Dark Duet… I fear that it’s going to turn into a romance, and if I don’t read it, I can pretend it never does…)
I really like stories that don’t include romances, because those definitely aren’t the only important or interesting kind of relationship. (Especially when they focus on friendship instead.) I think a lot of my preferred romances focus are strongly on friendship as it is too… it’s possible I just really like friendship stories, whether they have a romance component or not…
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I’ve put off Our Dark Duet as well, but that’s just me not having enough time to get to all the books. I would so love more books that just focused on friendship, especially in YA.
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Awesome list! I love romance in books, but I think it’s sad that romantic relationships are explored so much more often than platonic ones. I love reading about friendships and family relationships, so I love reading books without romance as well. Monstress is amazing ❤️
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Thank you! I really like it when an author manages to balance romantic and platonic relationships in a book, but definitely think sometimes the romance is unnecessary. I love Monstress and need to get to the third volume soon.
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When I was a teen librarian this would be a big selling point for some students: no romance. It is rare in YA lit, I think, too. My favorite literary couples
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Wow.This is why we need more YA books without romance.
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I don’t read a lot of books without romance, I’m kind of a heavy romance reader myself. But I really liked Lucy and Linh by Alice Pung, which has virtually no romance in it, as well as Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda, that has just a little romance at the very beginning. Battle Royale by Kousun Takami is really long, but it also is really good and is pretty much romance-free.
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I love a love story too, which is why I kind of wanted to do this list, to challenge myself to come up with ten. It was hard. I don’t know those, so I will have to look into them!
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I also enjoyed The Girl with All the Gifts and The Book Thief. They didn’t have romantic relationships, but they had a lot of love and great relationships.
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Yes, I loved that we got different kinds of relationships in both those books.
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Great post!
Birdbox is definitely a book I want to read this year. I heard the film adaptation and the book are so different from one another. Normally I like to read a book before watching its adaptation, but since the two in the case of Birdbox are so different I think I’ll watch the film first. Otherwise it’s too distracting.
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Yes, they are different, but both are good.
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So nice to see list of books without romance. Majority of the books have romance in it. This is really refreshing and I’ll check these out! 😀
P.S.
I love Monstress.
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Yay, glad to hear it. Monstress is so good. I love the series so much.
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The Ocean at the End of Lane sounds so amazing!
My TTT post!
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I love that one so much. I think it’s my favorite Gaiman novel.
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Great list! I loved The Book Thief, Not Even Bones, Bird Box, and The Knife of Never Letting Go. They were great! A few others on the list that I still need to read.
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I’m so glad you were a fan of those as well.
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Great list! I was having a hard time thinking about no romance books…fantastic and no romance…still thinking!
I’ve read 3 books on your list so that’s a start. I have The Knife of Never Letting Go on my to read list. The movie is coming out and I want to read it before it comes out.
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The Knife of Never Letting Go is incredible. I highly recommend the entire series.
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