Book #13 - The Boyfriend List

I honestly have no idea why I picked up this book. My bedside table is piled high with new releases by my favorite authors, their (mostly) paranormal tales begging for my attention. Heck, I even have a new Nora Roberts romance waiting to be read. I never put Nora in a corner.

I'm not really an impulsive book shopper, either. I like to browse the shelves, read the back cover blurbs, sometimes check out the first chapter.

It wasn't like that at all with The Boyfriend List. I wasn't even book shopping when I saw this title winking at me from a table of other YA books. (It wasn't even the "book in my bag" this week.)

The tagline kind of says it all: 15 guys, 12 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, Ruby Oliver.

Yep, that about sums it up. Ruby Oliver is a high school senior with a somewhat messy history with the boys in her school. After one of the guys dumps her (the bf who gives her four ceramic frogs...cute), Ruby suffers a panic attack and goes to see a shrink - who makes her write down and discuss every boy she's ever dated, or even thought about dating. The list makes her sound a bit more experienced than what's reality..but of course, it's high school. Imagine what could be done with a list like that...just saying.

Ruby has some impressive snark, and many of her boyfriend adventures made me laugh at loud. But with every chapter designed to dish about one of the names on her extraordinarily long list, I started to think all of her adventures had a similar theme. Part of me wanted a bit more...something.

E. Lockhart is a great writer, and the Ruby character is well-developed. The story lacked action, but still managed to make me turn the page. It's a fast read, with no supernatural elements (shocking, I know) and I *think* it might appeal to my teenage stepdaughter.

One small nit - the author uses footnotes throughout the book, and I found myself getting a bit lost as I scrolled down the page to read the text associated with each number (sometimes there were up to 4 per page) and then scroll back up the page to find my place again. While I can appreciate the technique, I personally found it distracting and I don't think I was ever truly able to get IN to the story.

And now, back to the real book in my bag.

- Dawn

The Book In My Bag (for realz): Rot & Ruin, Jonathan Mayberry

PS - This Sunday, I'll be joining more than 1,000 bloggers on the A-Z Blogging challenge, where we'll be blogging every day except Sundays throughout April. On this blog, I've teamed up with Jessica Bell to chat about music that has inspired us over the years - trust me, it will be an interesting battle of the bands. I'm willing to bet we don't have a single blog post in common. The "other me" is blogging about great YA books, and on the Most-Wanted Monsters blog, Judith and I will be waxing poetic about 26 creepy monsters. You don't want to miss out - those posts could save your life!