ABSTRACT
In our gender-dichotomous, heteronormative world, a “good” love story centers around a boy and a girl crafted with opposing and/or complementary physical characteristics, values, and communication behaviors. This is particularly true in contemporary young adult romance literature. Much attention has been focused on the seemingly increasingly feminist female heroines of dystopian and fantasy works including entire collections revolving around Twilight, 1 Divergent, 2 and The Hunger Games. 3 But discussion of masculinity in more realistic YA fiction has been limited.
