The Boyfriend List

When I started reading this, I added it on Goodreads and sort of scrolled through reviews, not reading them but eyeing the ratings. For most books, my friends reach a sort of general consensus; with The Boyfriend List, the ratings varied from one star to five. Thankfully, I fell on the higher end of the spectrum, a relief since I just bought the complete series in a fit of no will power.

The variety in opinions on this book makes perfect sense, though. How you feel about The Boyfriend List will likely have a direct correlation to how you feel about the MC, Ruby Oliver. Ruby has a very distinct way of expressing herself and somewhat controversial opinions. If she annoys you, the book will be utter hell. However, if you think she's show more hilarious and makes good points and maybe reminds you of your high school self, you'll think she and this book are the best ever.

Though I did not personally identify with Ruby, I did think that she was funny most of the time, with occasional forays into whininess or melodrama, though these fit her personality and her situation perfectly. The Boyfriend List revolves around a series of panic attacks Ruby had, leading her parents to send her to a therapist. Her therapist asked her to draw up a list of boys for them to discuss. Thus the list was born, ultimately with some Harriet the Spy kind of consequences.

What Lockhart got just right is the teenage drama. Ruby feels so much like a teenage girl, with her own misconceptions, weird slang and inability to deal with being a social outcast. Having a boyfriend matters so much. Her own world matters so much, and she has a lot of trouble seeing past her own issues. Her parents fight all the time, but she can't really see that until therapy, and the same goes for her friends' issues too. Ruby has blinders on, and it's wonderful to watch her gain new perspective on the world in her conversations with her shrink.

The romantic drama herein depicted may seem a bit like the absurdity of Gossip Girl or Glee, where the same twelve characters keep swapping boyfriends in an endless spiral of jealousy, betrayal and infidelity. However, Tate, Ruby's school, is this tiny prep school full of rich kids (except for Ruby, who's on scholarship); there just aren't that many fish in the dating pool. I went to a very small college, and one guy dated three girls out of the twelve on my freshman hall, so that kind of stuff does happen, though there was no drama with our instance. They're stuck in a small school with lots of hormones and not many people with whom to exercise them.

The other awesome thing about Ruby Oliver is that it's not romanticizing teens or trying to depict them as innocent or sex as awful. Ruby discusses sex openly and with overt fascination. She and her friends discuss boys and all of their exploits and that's just so much how life goes down; we all share the details with our best friends.

Now, this really does not affect my opinion of the novel or mean anything to those who have not read this book, but I still need to get this off my chest: Kim and Jackson are major d-bags. Jackson especially. He's a serial boyfriend, dumping one girl and immediately lining up the next (or already having her waiting). Kim may be a big proponent of "The Rules," and, yes, Ruby broke them too, but Kim stepped out of line first. She can talk about fate or how it only just happened all she wanted, but she is lying. Ruby needs to get those two awful people out of her heart entirely and out of her life as much as is possible at Tate.

The Boyfriend List is a humorous, sassy contemporary, sure to delight those who delight in misadventure, pop culture references, and romantic drama. show less

After having five panic attacks in a week, 15 year old Ruby Oliver's parents start sending her to a shrink, Dr. Z. Dr. Z tells Ruby to make a list of all of the boys that she has ever had feelings about in her entire life. The list of fifteen boys (impressive for a girl with only one ex-boyfriend), however, ends up just adding to the trouble that caused the panic attacks in the first place.

Ruby Oliver is an absolute delight of a character. Yes she has angst and she's a little bit obsessive in thinking about boys a lot of the time, but in my experience, that's pretty typical for a 15 year old girl. What is so enjoyable about Ruby is her hysterical internal monologues and the footnotes that she uses throughout the novel to add small show more sidenotes to her own narrative. Ruby's story and her growth over the novel are just plain fun to read and I'm really glad there are three more books in this series. show less

Summary: Ruby Oliver's had a rough few weeks. Her boyfriend, Jackson, dumped her out of the blue; she got into a huge fight with her best friend Kim, which has resulted in all of their other friends not speaking to her; everyone in their tiny Seattle high school thinks that Ruby's a slut - which is completely untrue; and she's started having panic attacks. Her parents send her right off to a shrink, which Ruby is so not psyched about - what kind of fifteen-year-old needs a shrink, anyways? Dr. Z's first assignment for Ruby is to make a list of all of the important boys in her life, so that they can start at the beginning and figure out how things got to be the way they are.

Review: It seems like most of the YA novels I read, show more contemporary or otherwise, have a love story front and center, even if they're nominally not romances. So it was refreshing to read a book that didn't really have a love story - or, rather, had a lot of love stories, was made up of mostly love stories, but that focused on their aftermaths rather than their beginnings. Reading about someone else's therapy sessions doesn't sound like it should be particularly entertaining, and certainly not funny, but in Lockhart's hands, Ruby's telling of her own life (and love) story becomes the fodder for some cringe-worthy yet comic moments. Lockhart treats the subject of panic attacks, and therapy, and the people involved with a good deal of respect, and despite Ruby's early antagonism towards her shrink, without judging.

I always love when YA novels get the feeling of high school right, and The Boyfriend List definitely does. I went to a school that was about as insular as Ruby's, and I recognized a lot of the friendship and boy drama and cliquishness and general highschoolish behavior. Where Ruby's friends have The Boy Book, and Ruby's got her Boyfriend List, we had the Kissing Web and the Dot List of Crushable Boys (one of our guy friends found out that he only had five dots out of a possible six, and spent months actively campaigning for that last dot.) We thankfully managed to keep the inter-friend squabbling over boys to a minimum, but I still recognized a lot of the dynamics in Ruby's social circle.

I was pleasantly surprised by Ruby herself. For most of the book, she's the kind of character that normally pisses me off: completely passive, not doing anything to make things better, and then complain-y about how terrible things are in her life. But strangely enough, I didn't really mind it in Ruby's case, and eventually I couldn't help but cheer for her... perhaps because she's at least working to change her behavior. I also really liked her narrative voice, and the fact that there were footnotes was an excellent bonus. The ending was satisfying without being overly neat and wrapped up, and I appreciated that Lockhart doesn't allow her characters an easy-out; everything felt well-earned. Overall, while I didn't always find this book completely emotionally absorbing, it was definitely consistently entertaining, and well worth the read. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I'd recommend The Boyfriend List for fans of contemporary YA who are looking for a fun read that's a little more than a standard girl-meets-boy love story. show less

Ruby Oliver is fifteen, and she's been having a rough ten days. She lost her boyfriend as well as her best friend, and she's become a 'leper' at school because of persistent rumors. Ruby goes to therapy to deal with the panic attacks that have begun since her social ostracism.

The book is structured around Ruby's list of 'boyfriends' that she wrote for her therapy sessions. The stories behind the list are touching and beautifully evoke the vagaries of dealing with the opposite sex, best friends, and parents.

I devoured this book and am looking forward to the sequel. This dealt with all the problems of adolescent life without being corny or trivializing teenage existence. All I can really say is that it evoked so many memories (not all show more of them good), and that's the true measure of a successful 'high school' book.

I loved the footnotes (utterly hysterical), and I'm looking forward to the sequel which is supposed to include more excerpts from 'The Boy Book'.

Upon reread (Sep 26, 2007):
The betrayal by friends and boyfriends is still heartwrenching, but this time I noticed far more just how irritating/oblivious her parents really were to her distress and how much they contributed to her panic attacks. I also caught the 'message' of actually doing something to take care of your problems yourself in a much stronger way upon reread. The therapist has the right of it: like most teenagers, many of Ruby's problems are of her own making - simply due to her inaction. Like so many people she chooses to blame others for what they do or don't do rather than discuss her problems with them.

Ruby is still a sympathetic character - and the scenes with her friends are truly upsetting (they come off as even more callous on reread) especially given the problems inherent in the 'Tate Universe'. But by the end of the book, Ruby has reached a much better place emotionally speaking, and in a non-corny sort of way. Still a good (and funny) read - but it's got less punch if you already know the big horror she keeps hinting at through the chapters. show less

I fell in love with Lockhart with Frankie, but knew I'd keep reading her books after The Boyfriend List. I loved this book way more than I thought. I'd passed over it numerous times in the past, but when I finally picked it up, I scolded myself for not reading it before. Basically it's a high school story where everything goes wrong, but in a way that the reader can identify with. There's no drama car crash or alien abduction or whatever (not that I don't like those, I do), it's just normal teenage stuff. And I love Lockhart for both the frank way she deals with therapy and how really, absolutely hard it is for some of us in high school, even when we're just trying to do the right thing.

I remember being 12 years old and thinking I was pretty much awesomeness personified for reading books like [b:Jane Eyre|10210|Jane Eyre|Charlotte Brontë|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266450134s/10210.jpg|2977639] and [b:Wuthering Heights|6185|Wuthering Heights|Emily Brontë|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255584435s/6185.jpg|1565818] when all the other kids were reading [a:Roald Dahl|4273|Roald Dahl|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1217358820p2/4273.jpg]. Since then I seem to be going backwards and reading all the books I should have read prior to my 16th birthday, like [b:Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging|402013|Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, #1)|Louise show more Rennison|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174447512s/402013.jpg|108471] and also this one. And I love them! It just goes to show how a book doesn't have to be a couple of centuries old and a household name to be awesome.

I loved Ruby Oliver and, as a former clueless adolescent myself, I also understood her. She doesn't colour over the truth, in fact her voice is refreshingly honest and so so funny. [a:E. Lockhart|173491|E. Lockhart|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1267209040p2/173491.jpg], for me, seems very good at portraying the newfound sexuality of a young girl, like with the realisation that, not only does Ruby not slap him and yell "ewww!" when Cabbie feels her up in the cinema, she actually likes it (shock, horror!). I think this is a great novel for teenage girls (and boys too, if they so wish), it addresses the 'slut' issue with humour and without being all up-in-your-face feminazi. It made me laugh and held underlying messages - it was always going to be a winner!

It's probably a 5 star read if I'm honest but I always like to wait until I've read more when it's only the first in a series. Either way, thank you Tatiana for the reviews that made me read this great book. show less

I am not sure why, but this book took me completely by surprise. The reviews for this book rated it highly and I knew the narration was reported to be fantastic. But I still got my socks knocked off. This book hooked me from the beginning. What this book is about at its core is a young girl (sophomore in high school) navigating the social mine field of high school and trying to make sense of her female friendships and her relationships with boys.

The setting is perfect – a private school, a scholarship student, a boat house for the main character’s home, some very involved, loving but extremely quirky parents, and lots of mistakes, missteps and misunderstandings. All together, it makes a book that is incredibly funny and show more enlightening. E. Lockhart really really really hits on what it is like to be a 15 year old girl. Relationships with other girls are so intense at that age, love affairs in a way – but they can be treacherous. And relationships with the opposite sex is a complete mystery, every step brings a new learning moment. This book could just be light and funny and it is definitely that. But it also has serious character growth that brings readers along for the ride. Through Ruby Oliver’s examination of her boyfriend list, she examines what it means to be a true friend, what is the meaning of popularity, how girls get labeled slut, the true actions of betrayal, and that it feels good to have one’s boobs fondled. Yup, all important topics. E. Lockhart has a serious talent of leading Ruby and the reader down the path of enlightenment but doing it in a very fun way (for the reader, for Ruby it is actually quite painful and embarrassing) so that it doesn’t feel like I was learning. Side note, there is even a beautiful feminist discussion on the effect of labeling a female, how men do not get labeled in a similar way, and why this is -- E. Lockhart does this brilliantly by having a teacher discuss this topic in a class presentation, so that it does not come off preachy at all. I have a soft spot for this particular issue and I thought it was really well handled.

What was surprising for me was that I ended up identifying with both Ruby Oliver (the lead in this story) and her parents. I hope that I am not quite as boundary ignoring, invasive and quirky as Ruby’s parents were but through them I saw two people who truly loved their daughter and wanted to stay involved in her life. I saw myself talking to my teenager, trying to appear (hopelessly I am sure) cool, try to convey love and yet respect those important boundaries. Raising a teenager is such hard work. This book is a tad bit mature for my 12.5 year old but in a few years I cannot wait for her to read it and then I will ask her, “How did this make you feel?” And she will roll her eyes and walk away. But I will smile, because in a way we will have shared a moment.

I recommend this book for anyone who has been a teenager, who has a teenager, and who likes to laugh. show less