Every Boy's Got One

Even though I find a number of Ms. Cabot's books somewhat predictable, I still enjoy reading them and am genuinely excited about continuing.

In a way, it's like a trip. It's not about the destination per se, more about the way there that's the fun part. For instance, I just KNOW Cal and Jane are gonna fall for each other by the end, it's just watching them get there that's the fun part. Watch me be wrong about this entire thing, BTW.

I know this is one of her books for adults, but I think it's amusing that she can't write the word 'penis'. She uses various euphemisms, which are kind of amusing. But then, she might be a lot like me and giggle at the word penis like we're twelve.

But no matter, so far I am enjoying this book and it will most show more likely be on my reread list. show less

Meg Cabot has a knack for engaging books with silly yet endearing protagonists, and this book is no different. Though it is terribly predictable, it is a quick and enjoyable read. Like the other books in the Boy series, the story is told through a series of emails, journal entries, receipts, airline tickets, telegrams, and scraps of paper. This allows the reader to hear a description of events from multiple perspectives, which is a fun change from the more typical writing styles and makes for an interesting read.

The Best Man and Maid of Honor accompany the prospective bride and groom who are eloping to Italy. He's a foreign correspondent and she's a cartoonist working for the same paper. He comes across as a bit anal retentive; and she comes across as a bit flaky... This is less about the chemistry of opposites attracting than it is a wedding comedy. Told via journal entries, it's a great way to chase away a couple of rainy afternoon hours; but not as strong as the other books in the Boy series in terms of humor or sexiness.

I love Meg Cabot's email books!! I read A LOT, yet this series I count as one of my all-time fav books. Yes, they are fluff, but they are really very clever and original and funny. It is a light read that uplifts you, makes you feel better about the world!! Bad reviews to these books really upset me for some reason (I love Ms - Miss?? Mrs?? - Cabot, and feel the need to defend and protect her princessy, marshmallowy, chock full of heart (yes, it is Every Boy Has a Heart, Not A Penis!) books!!!)!!!! And of course no one in the real world sends an email stopped in mid-sentence, but come on!! For the purpose of the book, just pretend that they do, instead of reading a book that practically screams from the cover 'I Am Pink Fluff!!' yet you show more picked it up expecting something else??? Then you bag it as rubbish??? That's almost as sinful as eating the entire hot dog then saying 'but I don't like mustard!!' Meg Cabot is the Queen of Romantic Comedy, and I treasure this Email/Boy series. They are my special, comfort, everything is alright books. Expect to get sticky, pink fingers, the series is that sweet. 5 sticky pink stars!!! show less

While this is a better book than Boy Next Door, I still had some massive plotting and characterization issues as I read through it. The overall story is cute—I do really enjoy the main eloping in Italy story, and there are some good moments with Jane—but the romantic story with Cal Langdon is what really bothered me whenever I was reading. The problem with the romance is that it’s set up for such the cliché of “I hate you on sight! Oh, but you secretly have a warm fluffy marshmallow sensitive side, but I still hate you! And you’re hot! I wouldn’t mind sleeping with you!” (Or as I call it, the Bennett/Darcy Hypocrisies.) This is also really bothersome for me, as whenever I read a “battle of the sexes” plot, it always show more seems like the guy in the relationship has to be a huge jerk throughout the whole story, until his change of heart, and goes “You know what, [love interest]? You were completely right! I’ve seen the error of my manly ways.” (For anyone who is intending a Pride & Prejudice feel: YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Both Elizabeth and Darcy admit at the end that both of their actions were wrong. /tangent.) Not to mention, there are really glaring double-standards in this. For example, Cal’s whole backstory about how he married a woman after knowing her for a week and her cheating on him broke his heart….and the book ends with a couple getting together permanently having known each other for a week. But it’s okay, since Jane is a normal, average cartoonist and not a modeling harpy! A lot of the book is saved by the side characters, which makes it enjoyable, but massive grating problems with this. show less

Loosely connected third in the Boy series, this novel does not disappoint if you are looking for light, romantic reading. The edition I read had an interesting section at the end by the author detailing all the ways in which the novel used real life events of her Italian wedding. On top of all that, I kept being reminded of basic plotlines in "Pride and Prejudice". Two people - each forming an unflattering and unbalanced picture of each other - undeniably attracted to each other none-the-less. The hero saves the day, they each admit they were wrong, happily ever after. Cabot does have a way of making me giggle.

On the same trip to the library (as when I got Swimming Upstream Slowly), I also picked up (again, randomly, just from perusing the shelves), Meg Cabot's Every Boy's Got One. The component of this book that attracted me to it was that it was made up not of traditional paragraphs but of e-mails and journal entries. I've always had a penchant for that type of writing -- I loved the Baby-Sitters Club books because each chapter started with a hand-written entries and one book I read multiple times as a young person was Norma Fox Mazer's I, Trissy (in which the heroine receives a typewriter for her birthday and the whole book is made up of things she's written on it).

But from the first page, the book's heroine, Jane Harris, grated on my show more nerves. After about 50-pages, when she still hadn't grown on me, I was about to put the book aside for good when I found myself in a situation with nothing else to read. It was only about two-thirds of the way through that Jane became a sympathetic heroine to me.

This book was definitely not life altering. It is fluff. Fairly fun fluff (aside from the main character being a little too oblivious about her true emotions and kinda full of herself, and disinterested in politics and world events and pretty much anything of consequence).

Even though I love the format of journal entries, I was unable to suspend my disbelief in this case. It seemed implausible that anyone would have that much time to hand write long-winded entries about every detail of their trip to Italy. Or that their hand-writing would be legible when written on drives on narrow roads on the mountainside.

One element that was pretty cute and worked well was the character of Peter, the house-keeper's German nephew who was a great fan of Jane's famous cartoon cat and whose posts to a fan site were included in the novel, broken English and all.

Another component I liked was the post-script, in which the author included material about how she'd come up for the idea for the book and her own travels to Italy, where she got married herself. I liked that part better than the book itself.

And right now, the title of the book strikes me as a complete mystery. Every boy's got what, again? Maybe it was a heart? A soft spot? A romantic bone? I can't quite remember now.

So what I get out of this this is that using a different format might draw a reader in, but if the characters and plot don't appeal to the reader, the interest is unikely to be sustained. The format becomes a gimmick. For a novel to really work, it needs more than that. show less