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Title: The Boyfriend List (15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver)
Author: E. Lockhart
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks was my favorite YA read of 2008, so what took me so long to read more by the same author?

Summary: In less than two weeks, 15-year-old Ruby Oliver manages to lose her boyfriend and her best friends, making her the official social pariah of her prep school. Then the anxiety attacks start, and she literally can’t breathe.

Review: I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. Because of how much I loved Frankie, I expected to be blown away again. Not exactly fair, I know.

Of all reviews, this one deserves a list, so here are a couple things that got in the way of me loving this book:

  • Footnotes—I liked them in An Abundance of Katherines, but here they distracted me from the flow of the story. I think it’s because these footnotes were too frequent, and they didn’t always add much.
  • Timeline—The back-and-forth timeline was hard to follow at times. I would catch myself jumping back a page or two to try to figure out when the scene had really happened.

But Ruby grew on me, and at the end of the book I wanted to read the rest of the series.

Why? Little scenes like this. Ruby’s driving, and her mom is in the passenger seat.

We were only going like five miles an hour in a circle around the parking lot, but Mom kept doing these sharp intakes of breath like she was at a horror movie.

“Roo! That guy is pulling out!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you see him? There, he’s backing up.”

“Yeah.”

“So stop!”

I stopped.

“Don’t hit the brake so hard, Roo.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. I jerked forward in my seat. But it’s okay, you’re learning. It’s practice. Oh!” she squealed, as I started around the parking lot again. “Be careful! There’s a squirrel!”

“I wonder where I get my anxiety,” I said.

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