The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

The whole title of this book is:

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

Which should give you a little more detail about what this book consists of in it's entirety. See, Ruby is a 15 year old sophomore at Tate High School. She's not popular, but she's not a leper - or she wasn't at the beginning of the novel. 

Ruby is a girl who wears retro clothes, fishnets, bright colored clothes, and has glasses. She likes who she is. She's even had a boyfriend for 6 months, but that is later in the story. 

This novel is where she records all of her boyfriends she's had. Granted, some of the guys don't know they were boyfriend/girlfriend, and many were not an "official" boyfriend. 

But Ruby's shrink wanted her to write down any boy that she had a crush on, had "relationship" thoughts or moments with, anything to do with guys. 

Ruby ends up with 15 "boyfriends" and how each story from each boy may have been the reason her relationship with Jackson ended the way they did. 

So, what, may you ask, happened with Jackson? Does Ruby become the dreaded "leper" that she avoids at school? Read The Boyfriend List to find out!

My Thoughts/Reflections

This was a cute, dramatic, head-spinning story. Who knew that at age 15 one could have 15 "boyfriends"? Well Ruby pulled it off and had some pretty entertaining stories to tell for each boy. 

Many high school, young adult novels written today make the teenagers seem so grown-up. They are dealing with supernatural problems, death-related issues, or more mature topics that make the reader almost forget their in high school until one chapter they are sitting in class listening to their teacher. 

This is not like that. This screams "HIGH SCHOOL"! On one hand, it was annoying to go back to the drama every minute experience. On the other hand, it was refreshing to get a different, but normal, YA story about a typical dramatic life of a teenage girl. 

I would recommend this novel to any teenage girl. Definitely not a boy, I don't think. It's all about relationships from a girl's perspective and how things can spiral out of control within one week. But for a teenage girl? I think she can relate to Ruby's horrible week very easily - especially if they date.