Pamela Ribon

MRRRHHNH. (That's Bear for "Coming in for a hug.")

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.)

I honestly didn't expect to love this book as much as I did.

I mean, I don't know what I expected, other than it seemed like a cute idea that could very well fail spectacularly. At the end of the day, I picked it up because I really, really wanted to use this video in a review.

https://youtu.be/ASScXyEMSmc

Nora stumbles into a 500-pound American black bear while show more camping with one of her many d-bag boyfriends. When Bear is later driven from his forest home by wildfires, he finds Nora thanks to a discarded issue of Bust. (Nice touch! Eff off, Ben!) Against all odds, these crazy kids fall in love and make a go of it. But will Bear's looming hibernation rip them apart, if society doesn't break their spirits first?

My Boyfriend Is a Bear is weird and adorable and just straight-up delightful. I know I'm supposed to read it as an allegory about overcoming differences both large and small in relationships, but you know what? It's also a cuddly AF romance story about a lady and a bear. Says the girl who claims as her soulmate a snaggle-toothed, marshmallow-bellied rat terrier (now nearly five years dead, and whom she thinks of on the daily) and once referred to her first-adopted dog as "her other boyfriend (tm)." Dogs > people. Probably bears > people, too. All nonhuman animals > people, who are we kidding.

http://www.easyvegan.info/img/my-boyfriend-is-a-bear-02.jpg

As much as My Boyfriend Is a Bear had me laughing - and it was like whoah - it also has its fair share of sad moments, especially as Bear's hibernation approaches. That last act was filled with snot-flinging ugly crying. But the end? Pure magic.

This is one that's earned a permanent place on my nightstand, right on top of Hyperbole and a Half and the Sarah's Scribbles collections. Along with Nicole Georges's Fetch, it's a book I'll turn to every now and then, when I need a good, hysterical cry.

Basically My Boyfriend Is a Bear is the best thing ever. Or at least since the proud tradition of bears wearing tees without pants.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2018/04/17/my-boyfriend-is-a-bear-by-pamela-ribon-and-... show less

When it started, I thought it was really funny and that it’s aimed right at people like me, who thought their thirteen to fifteens were the culmination of life. Who was a writer before they realized it. When we felt things way too intensely. When we were more in love with the idea of being in love than actually being with anyone. Who thought everything they created was a precious diamond but also crap.

But I also hoped it wouldn’t get too repetitive, since it would be very easy to. Given show more that these are letters from an early teen girl, they weren’t exactly intended for a discerning audience. Will you wince? Will you cringe? Most definitely. Is that what the writer intended. Also yes.

I picked it up because it’s by Pamela Ribon, she helped write Wreck-It Ralph 2, Moana, several award-winning comics (including Rick & Morty) & graphic novels, and columns, and anime. She’s been all over the place and she’s damn good. And it’s a delight to peek into what she did when she was a kid and we can know she’s not alone. You get a flavor of Texas, a flavor of the west coast. This is a woman who thought losing her virginity was the ultimate sign of adulthood and made elaborate plans to do so, then wondered why it failed.

There are times when it gets dark. Like trigger warning dark. It seems like little Pam’s compass is spinning wildly and you want to reach through the book and tell her it will be all right. Yes, it can get repetitive slogging through each letter chock full of teen bad poetry cliches that might make an Evanescence songfic avert their eyes. But I’m glad she and I survived those teenage years so that she could write a book and I could read it. And I plan on it not being the last of her work I partake. show less

As soon as I found out this book was about roller derby I got super excited being a nonskating official with a flat track derby league myself.

Charlotte's husband leaves her and it's the worse thing to happen to her, until he comes back and she can't deal with the fear that he will suddenly up and leave again. She ends up leaving him and putting the whole marriage on hold for over a year. Charlotte lives in limbo and becomes self absorbed and obsessed with making decision but not actually show more making any kind of decision. She can't move forward and she can't go back. Then she makes friends with a girl at work, Francesca. Frannie introduces Charlotte to roller derby. Like a lot of people at first she thinks it's insane, but as she starts skating she uses it to help her cope and become a stronger person. The beginning of the novel was very slow and I was going nuts trying to figure out exactly what it was that drove Matthew to leave and his sudden return. Then the roller derby started and I got caught up in that. Being part of a roller derby league I think that the author caught the camraderie in roller derby accurately, and I recognized some of the feelings I had when I first tried skating (picturing getting kicked in the face does in fact make me get up faster, lol). I also really liked that Charlotte didn't end up with a guy at the end. (yes there is a hint of a relationship beginning at the end but it's not the guy that makes that happily ever after and that makes me happy because roller derby is all about self confidence and a man shouldn't be what gives a girl confidence.) I'll get off my soapbox now and say that if you can get through the very slow beginning you will enjoy the book. show less

What I love about Pamela Ribon’s books is how they are simultaneously hysterical and heartbreaking. They’re like two, two, two books in one! Except they aren’t, because she manages to move between the two extremes—giving more time to the hilarious, thank goodness—in a way that feels completely normal.

In “Notes to Boys,” Ribon adult-narrates her teen dorkiness. Her notes to boys are exactly that: uncensored bits from her journals and first drafts of notes—some 200 show more pages!—detailing her ascent into madness. And isn’t that how must of us entered our teens, mostly sane until the hormones hit? What she shares will make most readers cringe and nod and laugh along with her... and dig around in their parents’ attic for their old journals.

(That’s what I did anyway, and was disappointed to find that my teenage journals were far less interesting than Little Pam’s, though they were equally embarrassing.)

“Notes to Boys” is another Pamela Ribon hit. She has woven these excerpts from her journals into a story that, like her earlier books, is both realistic, relatable, and an absolute joy to read. show less