Love of a Bad Boy

I was a guest on a blog recently and was asked to discuss Bad Boys in YA literature. I thought it was a great topic and I know most of you didn't see it so I'm posting it for you.

Love of the Bad Boy

Good girls crave bad boys in real life and fiction. They come in all forms-fallen angels, vampires, werewolves, shifters, jocks, rakes, boys with bad attitudes. The list could go on and on, but there is one thing for certain-bad boys are our guilty pleasure.

Some of us might be too afraid to act on our inner bad boy desires in reality, especially young women and teens, so we choose to get our “fix” through fiction. It’s safe. Fictional bad boys don’t hurt us like bad boys in real life will and we’re almost always guaranteed a happy ending. But...what does a happy ending with a bad boy mean? 

We have to begin with why we love a bad boy to understand how to get the happily ever after with him. It’s a simple fact that bad boys are damaged and we want to save them. We want to change them. We want to be the first woman he ever loves. And the last...sigh.

Bad boys don’t fall in love easily, so you’ve accomplished the near impossible when you win his heart. When the right woman breaks through his icy exterior, he will fall hard and forever, so you better watch out. There is no limit to the extremes he will go to in order to protect the love of his life. We crave that powerful protection. It’s sexy and being protected makes us feel wanted and sexy. In short...a bad boy makes the perfect boy to fall in love with instead of the worst.

We all have our favorite bad boys and I’d love to share some of my list toppers with you.

1. Jessie Boone from Going Under by Georgia Cates. (He’s my character, so I had to list him first. Man...he is so hot with all of his tattoo yumminess.) 
2. Travis Maddox from Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire.
3. Beau Vincent from The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines
4. Daemon Black from Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout
5. Keilor from The Charmer by Autumn Dawn (Not a YA book, but definitely Bad Boy nomination worthy.)

Good luck with finding your next Bad Boy read to satisfy your guilty pleasure.