I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

Following the events of the last few months, Ruby Oliver is ready to try and repair her life. Starting her junior year, she only has a few friends, and most people still think of her as a slut. However, she's turning over a new leaf, and has rediscovered her old 'Boy Book'. Now with a job, and developing her unlikely friendships, Ruby is starting to feel happy once more.

I will say that this one was better than book 1, thank god! Even so, I reckon at most I could give this 2.5 stars. Ruby has matured - not a lot, but a little - and is nowhere near as annoying as she was previously. Even so, I felt like she was actively damaging her relationships and her progress from time to time. Jackson was clearly a waste of space, but she was allowing him head space, which nearly ruined her new found friendship with Nora. And then there's the way she acted when Kim came home - if you don't like someone, just stay away from them! I won't be continuing the series, but here's another book cleared from my NG shelf!

Oh Ruby Oliver, you taught me so much.  I don't read young adult fiction, I didn't even read it much when I was a young adult.  I get frequent book review requests from various lovely people who have written a young adult novel and ... no, nothing doing.  Sorry.  The Boyfriend List is the exception that very much proves the rule.  I think this book is spectacular.  The only thing is, I wasn't fifteen like Ruby Oliver when I read it.  I wasn't a teenager at all.  I was twenty.  Still, finding a copy of this and rediscovering its brilliance has been one of the highlights of this week.  This is not just a young adult novel - this is a psychologically brilliant exploration of the horrors of dating, it is a manifesto for womankind about how we should be treated.  E. Lockhart knows her stuff.  Frankly, this should be required reading for teenage girls.

Ruby Oliver is having a tough week.  Her boyfriend dumped her and then started going out with her best friend two days later.  None of her friends are speaking to her, she has become an instant social leper and she's started having panic attacks.  So now Ruby Oliver is fifteen years old and has a shrink.  And not just any shrink, but one who advises Ruby to take up knitting and to write a list of 'all the boyfriends, kind-of boyfriends, almost-boyfriends, rumoured boyfriends and wished-he-were boyfriends I've ever had'.  With that, chaos and self-discovery ensue.


To explain my personal enthusiasm - several years ago I discovered this book in the bookshop but no longer being a teenager, I decided not to buy it.  But the concept intrigued me and a friend and I checked it out from the library.  Because checking out a young adult book under the eye of a librarian is in some strange way less embarrassing.  Of course.  What Lockhart is pointing out to her teenage audience (and to the naive slightly older demographic who come across her series accidentally) is that there are patterns to our behaviour.  As well as untangling the social nightmare that Ruby has got herself into most recently, each chapter focuses on a different boy from the boyfriend list.  Even the boy who Ruby liked when she was five has relevance, as does the boy she only ever lusted after from afar, or the one who she only kissed once.  Together, all of these hold the key to why Ruby is having panic attacks and what she can do to stop it.

Naturally, my friend (who we will call Gemma - it's not her name) sat down and wrote our own Boy Lists, along with helpful annotations about the boys featured.  I then forgot all about the exercise for five years until I rediscovered the list when I was moving house.  First of all, there was confusion about what this list could possibly be, then the second wave of recognition but above all the third emotion of utter horror that I had left my list on my childhood bookshelf where anyone (my mother) could have found it.  Not quite as bad as what happened to Ruby but still.  However, after I had paused to breathe, I realised what a fascinating psychological artefact my list had become.  Five years is a long time.  My perspective had completely changed.  There were boys on the list who I would never have remembered to include in a redraft.  There are boys who were not on the list who on reflection perhaps ought to have been.  So now I think it's a good kind of list to reflect on.  Plus my original list has Gemma's on the other side of the page so I'm pretty much set as far as blackmail material goes.  But I would never photocopy said list and distribute it, unlike certain former friends of Ruby.

Many (most) of us suffer the horrors of social leprosy at some point or other during our education.  Ruby's story may be slightly worse than the average but it is still well within the bounds of the believable.  And when you're starting out in dating, it is all too easy to pretend you like the rubbish presents the boy gives you and when he doesn't live up to your expectations, it's simpler to just not make a fuss.  Via the medium of Ruby's shrink, Lockhart is telling girls everywhere to take control, reject passivity and speak up for what they want.  So much of young adult fiction is about complaining about boys, wondering about boys, feeling sad or happy about boys.  It is so incredibly refreshing to read a book that offers constructive advice - it is not warning girls about abusive relationships, but more giving pointers about what is and is not acceptable behaviour.  Few of us begin dating feeling as though we have all the answers but without ever moralising or feeling like an After School Special, Lockhart preaches to her readers about the importance of self-respect and being respected by your partner.  This may seem obvious advice and it's not as ground-breaking now as it was when I first read it, but considering its audience, I think that this novel is an absolute gift.  I applaud E. Lockhart for writing it.  And its sequels.  They're all amazing.

The Boy Book was another surprising read for me, like I mentioned before, I've struggled with YA lately, but with the Ruby Oliver series, I'm just able to connect on so many levels with Ruby and what she's going through, that it's making this series such a fun read for me. In The Boy Book, Ruby is trying to make it through junior year, with everything that went on last year, I was hoping that things would have settled down a bit more for her. It was fun following Ruby on this journey through high school, of finding her place and making sense of herself. There were some characters once again who proper annoyed me, it was like they hadn't learnt from things since last time and I couldn't stand how others could just brush things aside and act like things were okay. This aside, I liked how Ruby was able to make friends in the most unexpected of places such as with Meghan and Noel, Meghan just because the way she acted, everyone had made assumptions of her, but once Ruby got to know her, you realised she wasn't the airhead everyone thought her to be. Despite me only giving this book three stars, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it, a three star rating for me is a decent read and of course Lockhart was once again able to bring so much laugh out loud moments to this story, Ruby herself is such a funny person, I never had so much fun reading someone's internal monologue. It's just that I feel as if I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did the first book, but that hasn't put me off reading the rest of the series and being back with Ruby's life once more!