Not If You Were The Last Man On Earth

I considered entitling this post: We Are Never Getting Together or You'll Never Be MY Book Boyfriend. That should give you a good idea about what I'm going to discuss in this post.

There are certain male characters we fall madly in love with and dub our book boyfriends and then there are those we don't like...to put it mildly.

You guys are all so polite. I usually hear things like, "he wasn't my type" or "he did nothing for me". Sometimes I try really hard to be polite like that too but there's a certain type of male character/ love interest I, well, hate!

And I find that this, so called, love interest is usually a fan favorite which I just do NOT get. I wouldn't date a guy like this if he was the last man on earth. So, what's this type of man I find so utterly loathing? Are you just dying to know? Not Really? Alright, fine but I'll tell you anyway.

 A perfect example of the type of man I hate is Edward from the Twilight books. I use him as an example because most people have read Twilight not because poor Edward deserves anymore bashing.  But that definitely gives you an idea, am I right?

Lets look at some of the qualities in a male character that gets my eyes twitching and my anger boiling.

• WAY too overprotective
• Like WAY. They act like the woman they love is a helpless moron who's as delicate as a snowflake landing on a hotplate. 
• Therefore, they are demeaning. It's insulting to watch these men defame the woman they supposedly love by insinuating she's so stupid she couldn't possibly make a rational, self preserving decision. 
• In fact, they are so over protective they actually LOCK UP these women or have someone guard them to keep them out of danger. What the hell?! 

And this is just the tip of the ice berg. I've read far too many books where the so called hero does something like the above mentioned and it makes me so crazy! You want examples?

Adam from the Mercy Thompson books
Akiva from the Daughter of Smoke and Bones series
Arin from The Winner's Crime trilogy
Edward from the Twilight series (of course)

I'll stop there. So, why? Please tell me what the appeal is? I'm not a feminist in the traditional sense. I obviously get riled up when men act all superior and smarter than women but I also think feminists today need to be careful or we'll be living in a world of amazonian, hard, heartless women and sniveling pretty boys who can't even use a screwdriver but that's a different topic for a different day.

But I do want to know why these types of men are so rampant in books today. Particularly YA books. Am I missing something? Is this attractive? Do some women just love being told every little move to make and that she's a helpless infant who couldn't possibly make a calculated decision about her own life?

Shout out now to the awesome male characters that let women be women and know damn well that she's capable of taking care of herself and kicking ass.

Astley from the Need series
Lincoln from Attachments
Po from the Graceling Realm books
Dave the Laugh from the Georgia Nicolson books