Book Review: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart

Book Review: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver by E. LockhartThe Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart
Series: Ruby Oliver #1
Published by Random House Children's Books on 2009-01-16
Genres: Social Issues, Young Adult
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
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five-stars

Ruby Oliver is 15 and has a shrink. She knows it’s unusual, but give her a break—she’s had a rough 10 days. In the past 10 days she:
lost her boyfriend (#13 on the list),

lost her best friend (Kim),

lost all her other friends (Nora, Cricket),

did something suspicious with a boy (#10),

did something advanced with a boy (#15),

had an argument with a boy (#14),

drank her first beer (someone handed it to her),

got caught by her mom (ag!),

had a panic attack (scary),

lost a lacrosse game (she’s the goalie),

failed a math test (she’ll make it up),

hurt Meghan’s feelings (even though they aren’t really friends),

became a social outcast (no one to sit with at lunch)

and had graffiti written about her in the girls’ bathroom (who knows what was in the boys’!?!). 
But don’t worry—Ruby lives to tell the tale. And make more lists.

Awesome, thy name is Ruby Oliver. Y’all had I not followed Crooked Carla, had I not gone to E. Lockhart’s awesome signing, I may not have ever had the pleasure of meeting Ruby Oliver. The Boyfriend List kicks off E. Lockhart’s Ruby series. GUYZ you have GOT to read this book. IT HAS FOOTNOTES. And it is genuinely funny and heartfelt and full of win.

Okay, so Ruby has the worst luck ever. She is 15 and currently seeing a shrink, because she is having these panic attacks. Why panic attacks? WELL, everyone at school currently hates her because her boyfriend dumped her for her best friend, and her best friend came out looking like the good guy, while Ruby, who writes this list of all males she has had romantic entanglements with comes out looking like a skank, as she throws the list away, but it gets fished out of the trash and photocopied.

When you remember high school, do you cringe a little bit? I know I do. If you do as well, or if you are currently in high school THE BOYFRIEND LIST is THE book for you. Ruby’s life is like an 8 on the Richter scale of embarrassment. I mean, like Ruby I have definitely done the whole fight over a boy with a close friend thing. (Actually the same boy with two close friends, different years though. FYI: TOTES not worth it). Some of her life choices are stupid, like that of any teenager. I mean, let’s be real, teenagers do dumb things and if you say otherwise, you are a liar or were boring in high school. Holy crap I did so many stupid things as a teenager. The Boyfriend List reminds me of that. I can’t help but feel for Ruby as she goes through crap day after crap day. She’s so endearing and okay, the footnotes, they endear her to me way more. There are two kinds of people in this world, those who love footnotes, and those who don’t. I am firmly of the love category.

Divided into chapters with the name of a boy as the chapter title, The Boyfriend List bounces around quite a bit. It bounces from past to present and back again. For those who like order and routine, this may not be a good thing. For those of us with undiagnosed ADD, this is awesome. Ruby’s story is all over the place and a bit scatterbrained and I LOVE IT.

“Before anyone reading this thinks to call me a slut -or even just imagines I’m incredibly popular -let me point out that this list includes absolutely every single boy I have ever had the slightest little any-kind-of-anything with.”

pg. 1 first line of the book. Clearly, my kind of a read.

“I’m not telling you what I look like in any detail. I hate those endless descriptions of a heroine’s physical attributes: “She had piercing blue eyes and a heaving milk-white bosom blah, blah,” or “She hated her frizzy hair and fat ankles blah blah, blah blah.” First of all, it’s boring. You should be able to imagine me without all the gory details of my hairstyle or the size of my thighs. And second, it really nothers me how in books it seems like the only two choices are perfection or self-hatred. As if readers will only like a character who’s ideal-or completely shattered. Give me a break. People have got to be smarter than that.”

pg. 20-21

Can I get an amen?

Disclosure: Copy purchased at a signing.

Other Reviews:

Dreaming In Books
Reading Nook
I Was A Teenage Book Geek

Purchase The Boyfriend List HERE or HERE

five-stars
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April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.
About April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

Comments

  1. I bought this book a couple of weeks ago! I have it on my pile for the readathon this weekend. I am super excited to read it!

  2. I haven’t read the Ruby Oliver books yet, but they are on my list! I’ve heard such good things. Glad to hear that they’re as awesomeamazing as they sound! 😀

  3. I bought this a couple of months ago after seeing Carla talk about it! I must read it asap!!

  4. Reading your review makes me want to read these all over again. I LOVE Ruby so, so much.

  5. YES!! You have found the amazingness that is Ruby Oliver!! I absolutely ADORE this series and it’s one of my favorites to re-read. I’m so glad you loved it too- honestly, I think everyone in the world would love Ruby if they read it. The awesome cannot be denied.

  6. I need to start this series sometime. I know a lot of people that love them, and they always sound so cute and funny. And I need more cute and funny.

  7. AMEN!!

    Oh my goodness, I am so ECSTATIC that you loved this book and holy crao they get better and better. Honestly, I wouldn’t lie to you. Lockhart has got to be one of the most naturally talented writers I have ever read in the sense that everything she writes just seems to flow just so that you never question for one second that anything would or could be different, it just is. AND I LOVE HER SO.

    Looking forward to seeing what you think of the rest of the series. and HEYO to footnotes.

  8. Amen! 😛 I really enjoyed the one E. Lockhart book I read, and I’m definitely up for reading another. I love the way she writes about teenage girls and their relationships.

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