Review #42 - The Boyfriend List by E Lockhart

This is the story of a girl named Ruby who is going to therapy after all her friends stop talking to her. Her therapist makes her write down a list of every boy that she has ever dated officially or unofficially. Each chapter is on a different boy and goes through her current ordeal and her relationship with that boy.

The closest thing I could describe this book to is a cross between an Abundance of Katherines, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging and Clarice Bean (because Clarice Bean is so amazing I'm not even being sarcastic). It had the dialogue of Clarice Bean if she was a teenager which I loved in Clarice Bean and I did really enjoy here. It felt very much like an inner monologue/diary. However, the book is probably about 1/7 footnotes which I found interrupted the story and really started to wear me down, especially as some of the footnotes spelt things out to me that I had already worked out.

Ruby was very, very boy obsessed as a character (I know, that's the point of the book). I found this quite hard to relate to as I never really have had obsessions with guys or relationships (which could be to do with being in a girls school for nine years until this year). I found it hard to really empathise with a lot of it and I didn't find it oh-so-insightful as a result. Also, I'm not currently pubescent. I think this would be a great read for a fourteen year old but not so much for a seventeen year old.

I did find it hard to keep track of all the boys she talked about - I had to keep looking at the blurb to try to remember who they were and even then I struggled to remember their stories. Maybe if the author had dropped hints maybe it would make more sense. If I'd read this book over a week instead of two days I think I would have found this confusing.

Even though I wasn't completely involved in the plot I did feel huge amounts of emotion in this book. I think E Lockhart does that really well in general. I felt so desperately sad for Ruby while reading. I also empathised with some situations even though my friends are amazing and I've never been bullied like Ruby was some of this book reminds me of that "girls school culture".

A lot of intrigue was woven in because the plot was woven in around the boys on the list. The intrigue was pulled off really well.

I would recommend this if:

You are in your early teens

You want a light read 

You want a book about boys

I gave this book three stars

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