The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them (Ruby Oliver) [Hardcover]

I picked up The Boy Book right after finishing the first book in the Ruby Oliver series, The Boyfriend List, expecting it to be just as funny, just as poignant, and just as amazing. I got all three!

This book starts pretty much where The Boyfriend List left off. The summer is now over, Ruby is starting her junior year. She's still seeing her shrink, Doctor Z, she's still a social pariah - unless you count carpooling with Meghan friendship, and she's still broken hearted over Jackson - who is still going out with Kim.

But there are further complications; stirrings of interest in two other guys on her Boyfriend List. Noel, the guy from school she has a laugh with in Paint Elective, who suppoted her during the whole "Spring Fling debacle", as she calls it, and Angelo, the son of her mum's best friend, who turned up to her Spring Fling after party with a corsage who she kind of had a moment with. I have to say, I really enjoyed watching Ruby with these guys and questioning her feelings - or if there were any feelings - because she is still hung up on Jackson. When something happens between her and Angelo, is it just a thing, or is it a thing thing? Is she having moments with Noel, or are they just friends? Does she want to have moments with Noel or a thing thing with Angelo, anyway? And why on earth is Jackson sending her notes when he's seeing Kim? It's all so complicated and brilliant reading! I was rooting for Noel the whole way through, he's so quirky and cool and over all the teenagery crap. I liked him!But what happens in the end? You'll just have to read to see!

The only trouble is, as social pariah, Ruby has very few people, bar her therapist, to share and have girly chats with. Just Meghan. Meghan wouldn't normally be her first choice, because she found her unintentional flirty behaviour, PDAs with her boyfriend last year, and general gorgeousness highly annoying, but she has no-one else. What's great to see is te friendship that grows between the two girls as they get closer, and Ruby realises Meghan isn't the shallow, social airhead she thought she was. With her being a pariah, and with the therapy she's getting, Ruby is starting to look at people in a different light, and those she didn't think to highly of before, she's re-evaluating. Even those she thought hightly of - her ex-friends - are being re-evaluated.

It's also great to see therapy help Ruby take action to solve her problems, rather than wallowing. IT helps her rebuild her friendship with Nora, and over time, helps her take a look at herself and help herself. It's just great to see her a much stronger, focussed young woman.

This may sound like I've told you the whole story, but I haven't. Despite being only 193 pages long, quite a bit happens, with a fair few humourous incidents. a really fantastic book, and I can't wait to read The Treasure Map of Boys, the third in the series. Highly recommended!

Another hilarious installment in the life of Ruby Oliver, this time documenting everything you could possibly need to know about boys. This includes: The Care and Ownership of Boobs, Levels of Boyfriends, Clever Comebacks to Catcalls and Why Girls are Better than Boys as well as a number of other need-to-know pieces of boy wisdom.

In case you weren't aware by now, girls are better than boys because we smell better, always carry tampons and are more likely to survive if we fall off an ocean liner. Basically, this book is non-stop fun with a few actually important life lessons and issues thrown in there as well. There's a great deal of tackling sexism in it's many forms - subtle and otherwise - and also expressing feminist values without overdoing it. Most of it I agree with and I love how the author uses humour to prove her point rather than the traditional block-my-ears-now rant about seeing girls as sexual objects. I have one issue that I can't resist to point out, it's nothing original and it's been talked about and dissected a million times over... catcalling. Or wolf-whistling. Or car horn-honking. I honestly don't think this is sexist, if I saw a hot guy walking down the road I might attempt (pitifully) to wolf-whistle (and then possibly duck behind something like a 12 year old). My point is - and feel free to disagree - people go perving on each other all the time regardless of gender. I've never saw this as an issue, just something I wanted to comment on even though I know very few people will actually care :)

On the subject of boys, as that's kinda what this book is about, I really like that E. Lockhart doesn't give us a romanticised set of unrealistic and angelic male characters. Like I found with Melina Marchetta, we get the honest version of teenage boys (and it ain't so pretty) rather than some sparkling, "love you forever and always" Edward Cullen. This is obviously what I've been missing while I was wasting my time trying to find something worthwhile in the fantasy and paranormal romance side of young adult literature. Long live realistic fiction, it seems like that's where it's at lately.

I loved this book because i felt like i could really relate to her and it was so amazing. DEFINITELY READ THIS BOOK