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

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.

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Purchase The Boyfriend List HERE or HERE

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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.

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