The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

by E. Lockhart

Book Overview

From E. Lockhart, author of the highly acclaimed, New York Times bestseller We Were Liars, which John Green called "utterly unforgettable," comes The Boyfriend List, the first book in the uproarious and heartwarming Ruby Oliver novels.

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),

...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385732074
• ISBN13: 9780385732079
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Eh

Amusing enough to not mandate that I put it done but definitely a little weird and not a favorite

Can't Get More Real Than This

Ruby is having panic attacks. Her boyfriend has broken up with her, none of her friends are speaking with her, her ride to school won't take her anymore, and her parents are sure she is feeling suicidal or anorexic. Welcome to the story of The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart, a masterful look inside the life of a teenage girl. This girl is every girl. Reading this book was like looking back at parts of my past, and it was amazing and painful to take the journey with her. Lockhart writes truthfully on the way a girl thinks about boys. Ruby reveals pieces of her life one bit at a time. Her therapist asks her to create a boyfriend list: a list of every guy she has liked, dated, thought about dating, kissed, or had a special relationship with. Ruby isn't sure how this is going to help her solve her immediate problem: getting her boyfriend back and getting life back to normal. But as she examines each boy on the list, Ruby may discover she's not the victim she thinks she is. Lockhart is spot on. Ruby is like a poster child for the things women do to screw up their lives. We fall for a guy, and when he doesn't end up being prince charming, what do we do? We beg, plead, cajole, manipulate, and lower ourselves--do anything but the thing we should do, pack our bags and move on. I wanted to be hard on her, but she is so dang sympathetic it's impossible. I think this book has it all: teenage angst, unhealed wounds, a journey of self-discovery, a lot of pain, and also hope for the future. Also, I think most girls would admit they could relate to at least one of the stories in this book. Here are things I have done that Ruby did: Wait by the phone for a guy to call Allow myself to be a victim of heartbreak Flirt with one of my friend's boyfriends Not be honest with myself about my motives Kiss a guy to make myself feel better Feel tremendous pain at betrayal Not take action to change my future I have to hand it to Ruby, though, she does make progress eventually, as everyone must if they want to heal. As I was reading this book, I was thinking it was similar to the book/movie High Fidelity. In that story, the male protagonist tries to discover the answer to the age-old question "Why does this always happen to me?" by looking back on his 5 most painful break-ups. Like Ruby, he even asks some of the women directly, "Why did you break up with me?" In each case, Rob discovers it wasn't just because he was unlovable or ugly, but rather a case of the wrong time or a misunderstanding or some such thing. E. Lockhart has a great future as a writer, and I recommend this book highly to any teenage girl from age 14 and up.

An entertaining story, with dead-on details about high school life

The Boyfriend List is the story of several months in the life of high school sophomore Ruby Oliver. They are angst-filled months, featuring a harsh dumping of Ruby by her first-ever boyfriend, and subsequent social mis-steps on her part that caused her to: 1. Lose her close friends; 2. Become a social leper; 3. Be widely considered a slut in her small pond of a Seattle prep school; and 4. Start having panic attacks The panic attacks result in Ruby (aka "Roo") being sent to see a shrink, Dr. Z. The story is told in bits and pieces, moving backwards and forwards in time, as Ruby examines what happened, and why. The Boyfriend List of the title (also used for chapter titles), refers to a list that Dr. Z. asks Roo to prepare of all of the boys that she's ever had any kind of romantic interaction with (dates, crushes, gifts left in lockers, etc.). Of course the mere existence of the list leads to problems, too, but you'll have to read the book for the details. The audio version works quite well for this story. The text was apparently edited slightly, because Ruby occasionally will refer to "this story that you're listening to", instead of what I presume is "this story that you're reading" in the printed version. It feels like a long phone conversation with a new best friend, in which she tells a story filled with classic high-school drama. The narrator (Mandy Siegfried) sounds youthful, without being annoyingly girlish. Ruby is a fully 3-dimensional character. She loves her slightly eccentric parents. She is, without much comment, a vegetarian. She buys clothes from vintage shops. She's insecure, and she makes foolish mistakes. She moons around after boys, on the slightest provocation, but is happiest hanging out with her girlfriends. She talks too much when she's nervous. She likes narrow-ruled notebooks. She feels real. And the story feels real, too. I was humiliated for Ruby at her low points, and wondered how she could face school in the morning. But I also nodded my head, and laughed with her at some of her insights. There's a description in which she likens kissing a boy she doesn't find attractive (as part of a spin-the-bottle/7-minutes-in-heaven game) to going to the dentist. It's hilarious. There are many references to body parts and sex, though nothing too advanced actually happens with Ruby. She's refreshingly open and curious, with an entertaining voice. Of all the books I've read, this one most made me reminisce about my own junior high and high school experiences. It's not that my experiences were the same as Ruby's, but E. Lockhart has so exactly captured what it's like to be a girl of that age--uncertain about what boys are thinking, having disagreements with friends over trust, and thinking about relative levels of popularity. The details are dead on. One other nice thing about the book is that talking with Dr. Z. does help Roo to identify some negative behavior patterns in herself, and to start taking tiny steps towards

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

The additional title of THE BOYFRIEND LIST is (15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, Ruby Oliver). It's very enlightening, entertaining, and oh-so-paramount to the book. This is the life and times of nearly sixteen-year old Ruby Oliver, former girlfriend of Jackson, former best friend of Kim, former semi-popular Sophomore high-school girl. Now just a girl with panic attacks, a Xerox-copied "Boyfriend List" circulating through school, and a shrink named Doctor Z. Ruby's life used to be pretty normal, until her boyfriend broke up with her to date her best friend. Then the panic attacks started--shortness of breath, a tightening sensation in the chest, dizziness and nausea--that had her parents shipping her off to a psychiatrist to work out her "issues." Those issues would mainly be, in chronological order: 1) Adam 2) Finn 3) Hutch 4) Gideon 5) Ben 6) Tommy 7) Chase 8) Sky 9) Michael 10) Angelo 11) Shiv 12) Billy 13) Jackson 14) Noel 15) Cabbie It might sound, in retrospect, like a lot of guys in a short period of time. But Ruby's made a list of every boy who has ever meant something to her, and these are the fifteen guys that make up the list. In THE BOYFRIEND LIST, we learn about all the guys in Ruby's life, from Adam to Cabbie and everyone in between--and the result is a laugh-out-loud coming-of-age story that is well worth reading. I can't wait for the release of The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them to be released in September 2006. Since "The Boy Book" was actually the creation of Ruby Oliver and her friends in THE BOYFRIEND LIST, it should be quite an adventure!

I am not a teen, But I loved this Book!

First know that I am saving this book for my little girl because she will be a teen one day. This book was so wonderful! It was funny and let me see that teens today are into slightly different things, but deep down they are not that different from me when I was a teen. This poor girl is amazing and smart and really not that different than most of us teen girls!!! You will love it. I can't wait to read more from her. Even though I am not a teen!! I am 31, way older than a teen!!!!!!! Ug I am so old, but this book made me feel or at least remember what it was like being young again!!!!!!! lisa

Richie's Picks: THE BOYFRIEND LIST

If, from my male perspective, I were to characterize the typical crop of Chick Lit as a muddy lot full of bricks, slugs, thistles, and poison oak--as I'm quite content in doing--I would be remiss in not pointing out that it's right on the edge of that lot that I regularly uncover patches of well-fertilized and imaginative growths of tasty YA literature. They're not exactly what I'd refer to as Chick Lit, but they are gobbled up by similar female audiences, along with a significant number of us guys. Last year there was THE YEAR OF SECRET ASSIGNMENTS and SAVING FRANCESCA. Other good examples from previous years are CATALYST, GINGERBREAD, DEFINE NORMAL, and WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW. I suspect that many male adolescents will react to the cover of THE BOYFRIEND LIST (15 GUYS, 11 SHRINK APPOINTMENTS, 4 CERAMIC FROGS AND ME, RUBY OLIVER) as I did. The title and the ceramic frog on a white background which provides the not-so-subtle accompanying visual allusions to frogs-slash-princes did not set off any "Wow! Looks Like A Great Book!" alarms in my head as my fingers took a stroll through the box of advance copies that arrived last week. (Actually the cover got the opposite reaction--i.e. a very positive one, indeed--from our female 10 and 15 year-olds when they scampered through the new stack. But then they had to go do their homework and I got to read the book first.) Whatever you think about the cover (or Chick Lit), THE BOYFRIEND LIST is a delightful and frequently achingly honest tale--warts and all--about what happens when girls and boys meet. As Ruby Oliver explains within the very first footnote (of the dozens of oft-lengthy footnotes throughout the book): "I was hoping there'd be a set of guidelines handed out in Sex Ed class, but Sex Ed--when I finally got to take it--was all about biology and birth control and nothing about anything that actually goes on between people. Like how to tell what it means when someone forgets to call you when he said he would, or what to do when someone gropes your boob in a movie theater." Ruby compiles the boyfriend list on the advice of her "shrink," Doctor Z. She is sent to Dr. Z after experiencing a series of five panic attacks that occur within the same ten day period in which Ruby: " lost my boyfriend (boy #13) lost my best friend lost all my other friends learned gory details about my now-ex-boyfriend's sexual adventures did something shockingly advanced with boy #15 did something suspicious with boy #10 had an argument with boy #14 drank my first beer got caught by my mom lost a lacrosse game failed a math test hurt Meghan's feelings became a leper and became a famous slut" The titles of the fifteen chapters that comprise THE BOYFRIEND LIST (15 GUYS, 11 SHRINK APPOINTMENTS, 4 CERAMIC FROGS AND ME, RUBY OLIVER) are the same as the fifteen listings of the boyfriend list. In these fifteen chapters Ruby recounts for Doctor Z the history of her relationships with boys, going all the way back