I'll admit I'm not the typical teenage girl - I grew up reading really old teen books I got second-hand from jumble sales, where the idea of a bad boy was a boy who had long-ish hair and scowled when talking to his girlfriend's parents(yes, really!), and of course he owned a motorbike or a really wild horse.
But what I like in a LI is, in no particular order:
- Vulnerability. Have him brood, but for an actual REASON.
- Boys who are actually teen boys, and look like it - so a bit gangly, clumsy, not necessarily built like a flipping body-builder. But I love tall LIs - I know it sounds awful but because I'm pretty tall, I can't fall in love so much with a titchy LI because it seems a bit ridiculous.
- Freckles! Eddie Redmayne (Marius in Les Miserables, representing the Brits!) is so sexy with all those freckles...
- Good sense of humour - self-deprecating, sometimes. I love funny guys, but when they make cruel jokes about the MC, or, like Patch in Hush Hush, humiliate her to show their wit, it turns me off.
- Awkwardness is always good. The boys who are totally arrogant because they are really hot and they know it, really puts me off. A bit of awkwardness can be really cute!
Finally, it might just be me but I dislike it that almost all the LIs in YA are really intelligent, straight-A - or straight-A clever but too much of a bad-ass to get the grades - and also are in the football team or busy killing demons or whatever.
What about the boys who struggle at school? Or who just aren't academic, or are loving and funny and kind, but are average intelligence rather than Ivy-League-bound?
Or even better, LI boys who just aren't quite as intelligent/academic as the FMC?