the boyfriend list- e. lockhart

So picture this:
Me. Sitting on the floor at Books-a-Million (YA section, more sprawled across the floor than actually sitting upright)... laughing hysterically.

This is not, "oh, that's so funny," laughter. This was crazy laughter. Doubled over laughter. Way past reasonable limits on laugh amount allotted for girl sitting all alone anywhere, much less for a girl sitting all alone on the floor of a bookstore. Way past.

This is me, reading the first 70 pages of The Boyfriend List, by e. lockhart. (I can't bring myself to spell her name with capital letters. It reminds me of e. e. cummings.) Anyway, that is another topic for another time. This is The Boyfriend List.

Ruby Oliver is having a bad week, which is turning into a bad month, which could very well lead to a bad year, or, most likely, a bad life. In the last ten days, Roo has: lost all of her friends, lost her boyfriend, lost a lacrosse game, experienced a massive amount of public humiliation relating to a list, become a leper, and had many interactions with many boys.

It is a combination of these events that leads to a panic attack, which leads to a parental attack, which leads to the office of a psychiatrist named Dr. Z. After listening to Ruby's rantings, which include a lot of the word 'just' and, of course, a lot of boys, Dr. Z asks Ruby to write the Boyfriend list.

What follows is a charming, funny, sweet, wonderful novel, as well as several lists(which, you know, are a total weakness of mine.) The chapters of this book are divided into each of the 15 boys on the list. But these are not, you must understand, all boyfriends. This is a list of every boy who has ever entered Ruby Oliver's mind as a maybe-kinda-possible romantic interest. These boys include Adam, who she used to play mermaid with; Micheal, who was the first kiss that she NEVER wanted to have; Gideon, her friend's older brother; Tommy, Ruby and Kim's imagined version of Prince Charming; and Jackson Clarke. Jackson who has been her boyfriend for six wonderful months, until he broke up with her, only to move on to her best friend two days later.

This book had so many incredible aspects that I couldn't possibly list all of them, but here is it's very best attribute, at least in my humble opinion: our heroine, Ruby Oliver. I realize that every single back-of-the-book says that the heroine is so true-to-life and so relateable, but that is usually not the case. In Ruby Oliver, however, e. lockhart has created the most life-like, relatable, and likeable heroine that I've seen in a long time and a lot of books. Why? Because Ruby is intelligent but still makes idiotic mistakes- and the same idiotic mistakes that every teenage girl is making today. (Tossing an un-labeled list of boys into a school trashcan when everyone is out to get her anyway?). She is spunky but she still allows the people she cares about to walk all over her, if it will keep them by her side. She has hopeless crushes and embarrasses herself and overthinks to no end. She doesn't want to give up on the people she loves, even if they've let her down, even if they don't deserve her loyalty. I identified with Ruby in a way that made me wonder if perhaps e. lockhart had written her especially with me in mind.

The other characters in the book are excellent as well. I immensly enjoyed Ruby's dynamic with her close friends; I loved nearly every boy to grace Ruby's list. (Not Jackson, though.)

This book is the most accurate description of a teenage girl's mind out there today. I would reccomend it to anyone who has a teenage girl's mind, who has ever had a teenage girl's mind, or whoever has ever wondered what exactly goes on in a teenage girl's mind. It's a made-of-awesome book with delicious characters and excellent writing and debacles.(and lists.) (and FOOTNOTES!) I can't wait to read the next two books, as well as e. lockhart's others!

Five cups of coffee, straight from the coffee capital of the United States! (Seattle, which is where the book is set.)

Perusing her own mental 'boyfriend' list,
wanting some coffee from seattle,
appreciating her much-more loyal friends,
still waiting for Tommy Hazzard(even though Gideon was my favorite),
Caroline

Birthday Best Wishes!

Sorry to all our frequent readers that there hasn't been a review lately. There will be soon, I promise. Most likely it will be on Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz, but there is a slight possibility of it being on An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. Either way, look out for those two reviews coming soon.

But for today, all we have for you is a little bit of Birthday Best Wishes! (you probably gathered that from the title). We'd like to give a huge, ginormous, 819-paged Happy Birthday to one of our favorite authors, Libba Bray!

I meant to get this posted sooner, but had play practice so, Happy Birthday Libba Bray! (even though not many people will actually read this today, unless of course you are in a different time zone, which Libba is not, she's in the same time zone as me and apparently treating herself to a spa day, but I'm getting off topic).

If you'd like to give her her Birthday Best Wishes! yourself, got to her LJ at http://www.libba-bray.livejournal.com

And I'm kind of doing an in-post survey here. Who has read Libba Bray's books? The 'Gemma Doyle Trilogy' (ugh I hate that title! It's just so awful and doesn't fit the series well enough even though it is a whole lot shorter than the rambling 'A Great and Terrible Beauty Trilogy' That there is a mouthful)?

And of those, or of the ones currently reading Libba's awesome skills in the literarea (new word! dibs!), are you really really looking forward to Going Bovine, her work in progress? I know I am.

Well, thanks for holding out this long and finishing reading my babblings. Birthday Best Wishes! to you Libba! And all others out there who's birthday it is!

staring at The Sweet Far Thing and debating rereading it again,
♥Heather

Sweet, sweet contest!

Well, because the Page Flipper is so amazingly amazing, there is a contest to win books!

The books are:

The Unspoken by Thomas Farly
Fake Boyfriend by Kate Brian
Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Here, There be Dragons by James A. Owen and it's sequel, In Search for the Red Dragon
and Tweak by Nic Sheff


I personally am entering the contest to win these amazing six books. They all sound pretty-really good!

Go over to thepageflipper.blogspot.com to check it out and for more info!

entering as we speak, thinking of a topic, and loving the page flipper,
♥Heather

Jinx (*giggles* 'pinch poke!')

You know those ridiculous handshakes you made up as a kid? The ones to get rid of jinxes and curses and such? You remember playing Jinx? And 'pinch poke, you owe me a coke'? This was all a joke. No one in this world needs those luck games. Or, at least, not as much as Jean Honeychurch.

She's lived her life with nothing but bad luck. It started on the day she was born. Not minutes of being in this world, something bad happened to Jean.* As her mother was giving birth (or right after, I'm not positive on the timing) the power went out in the hospital. A storm cell had passed over and caused a blackout so huge that people had to be airlifted from the hospital to the next county to be treated. If that wasn't bad enough, it resulted in one of the worst nicknames ever. One that she hates even more than her normal, boring name. Jinx.

Through her life, everyone in her family has come to know her as Jinx. Nothing else. Growing up a preacher's daughter, in a house-hold of 7, in Hancock, Iowa, Jean never has the best of luck. She breaks everything she comes into contact with.**

Her bad luck gets so extreme she has to move to New York City to live with her Aunt and Uncle--and her three cousins. One of which, Tory*** has changed an awful lot since the last time she saw her... five years ago. She enters into a new school, and, typical of her luck, things go wrong. All but one thing, that is: Her new friendship with the cute, adorable neighbor, Zach (who enjoys seals).

(At the risk of sounding cheesy) Through all this, Jinx learns to accept her bad luck and live with a secret she's been hiding. The secret that is the reason she left Iowa in the first place. And it comes back after her anyway...(ooh, being all cryptic and evil. Mwahahahaha!)

As is typical of Meg Cabot books (or at least from the extent of my knowledge) this story is written very well. Meg Cabot's ability to relate to teens (or teen girls, that is) still amazes me. The one thing I must criticize, however, is the lack of intelligence the main character always seems to hold. The whole way through the book, I just wanted to reach in and rip Jinx's hair out.

The plot starts out a bit sketchy (mimicking that of other Cabot books I've read) but quickly develops into a page-turning, can't-put-it-down novel. I found myself, more than once, verbalizing my opinion out loud. I became part of the story. I had to keep reading. The characters drew me in and held me. They are dynamic and entertaining, but sometimes quite predictable. You just can't help falling in love with them, though. They are your friends, family, neighbors. Just on a whole new level you never thought they could be on. They are realistically, unbelievably...wonderful.

But, this book may not be everyone's cup of tea...

Who am I kidding? How can you not love this book?

As I've said before, a good cover is usually (and here I emphasize the word 'usually') a sign of a good book. And I, for one, love the cover. It's beautiful and etherial. It fits the writing and plot of Jinx very well.

And that's why I give this book 4 perfectly hot, deliciously sweet Cups of Coffee--with just the right amount of that foamy milk.****

♥Heather

*Not Jean Marie, or Jeanine, or Jeanette, or even Jeanne. Just Jean.

**As her cousin Teddy so blatantly points out

***Or as she prefers, Torrance (*dramatic sigh*)

****Hey, not everybody likes the foamy milk...