The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

I first stumbled across the work of E. Lockhart during my first reading challenge when I read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. I forget how I discovered Frankie, but I'm very glad I did discover it; it's an amazing book. I quickly read The Boyfriend List, which is book one in the Ruby Oliver quartet. I'm finally now getting around to reading the rest of the quartet, starting with The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them. (Warning: spoilers for book one in the next paragraph.)

Ruby Oliver has issues. There's no way around it really. When it comes to relationships, she's a mess. In The Boyfriend List she lost her boyfriend to her best friend. Ruby started having panic attacks and had to attend therapy. One of the therapy exercises was to write a list of boys in her life, which her best friend distributed throughout the whole school when Ruby tried to get back with her ex.

The Boy Book finds Ruby working to put her social life back together. Throughout the book, Ruby navigates old and new friendships, old and new relationships, and explores several rules and guidelines via The Boy Book, a diary she wrote with her best friends before the boyfriend list debacle.

I love the wit of these books, and Ruby is painfully relatable and freaking lovable. If you've never made a blunder like Ruby, then you know someone who has. There are amazing footnotes (one of my favorite features) and the entries from The Boy Book are hilarious.

I give this a 4 out of 5 and definitely recommend the Ruby Oliver quartet.

I thought I'd mention that I also read The Beauty and the Beast by Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. I'm not counting it as a book because it's quite short, but it came up on my Kindle recommendations, and I couldn't help but read it. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of the Disney princess movies. I mean come on, Belle is an archetypal nerd-girl. Of course there are differences between the book and Disney (when isn't there?) but for being a little morals story, it was absolutely adorable.

Right now, I'm in the middle of reading a few different books. I had an uptick in my writing, which created a downturn in my reading, but I'm getting back into it. I'm very bad, do forgive me. Right now I'm reading Isherwood on Writing by Christopher Isherwood and Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques. I'm hoping to finish MtW quickly, but I anticipate Isherwood being a book I digest more than read.

As you may or may not be aware, Brian Jacques died almost a week ago. He was a great writer and meant a great deal to me. I wrote a eulogy over on my personal blog which you can read here.

Later,
~Emily~