The Boyfriend List

The Boyfriend List, by E. Lockhart
ISBN:  0385902387

Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2006

Plot - Ruby Oliver is more than a bit lost--she's been straying far off her own track and hadn't even realized it until she has a lot of trouble just breathing.  Ruby certainly realizes things are horrible, though.  She's lost her 13th boyfriend (had a 13th boyfriend in the first place), her best friend and her other friends have sworn her off, she's blown it as the lacrosse team's goalie and caused them to lose the game, and she's just failed a math test.  Panic attacks, beginning at the dinner table, alert her parents to the fact that fifteen year old Ruby needs help sorting out her troubles.  She and her psychologist, Doctor Z., begin with the boyfriend issue and she notes down every boy she's ever had a crush on, much less been intimate with.  When the list somehow makes it out of the trash where Ruby threw it and into the hands of kids at school, though, everything truly falls apart.  With Dcotor Z's wise and compassionate help, Ruby is able to see herself from a different perspective and trace the path of how far she's wandered off her own best course. 

Critical Evaluation -The Boyfriend List, a perfectly attuned 15 year old girl first person narrative, is so accurate, funny, and poignant, it's amazing.  E. Lockhart manages Ruby's adolescent fits and starts at growing up, her confusion, and her hilarious view on her own foibles with the sympathy that only a writer who knows her character inside and out can manage.  She allows us to know Ruby as well as she does, and to cheer for her and wish we could ground her in equal measure.  Doctor Z is also developed well, though no one is as thoroughly as Ruby herself.  Ruby's journey through teenage drama is one readers will recognize easily from their own or friends' lives, but with Ruby we see just enough of a big picture to make it enjoyable and at times hilarious.  The book's chapters are oriented around a boyfriend, each, as our heroine goes through her list.  Within each chapter, Ruby's asides in the form of footnotes, are one of the best devices for giving the reader  even more insight into her perspective.

Reader's annotation - Ruby is losing it--her friends, her boyfriend (the 13th), the lacrosse game, her mind.  But maybe losing it all will finally give her the chance she's been needing to get herself together.

Information about the author - Emily Lockhart, as she has revealed her name to be after not being able to secure "elockhart" as a web address, is a professional writer who uses her own experiences only peripherally in her writing.  According to her website, when she has writer's block she skips ahead to further places in the story; she finds it easier to write more about characters she has already created; she always wanted to be a writer but was distracted by her interest in acting and then by earning her PhD from Columbia University in English Literature.
Genre - YA fiction, Chicklit
Curriculum Ties - None to speak of
Booktalk ideas - 

1. Ruby is having the worst week ever.  Her 13th boyfriend has chosen her best friend over her, her best friend and all her other friends are through with her, she bombed a math test, and now she can't breath at the dinner table.  When her parents send her to a psychologist to "help," she makes her write a "boyfriend list" that accidentally gets out at school, and things suddenly couldn't get any worse.  Ruby keeps her sense of humor, though, and through the story we see how she and Doctor Z. make lemonade out of her life's lemons.
2. Read the beginning of the end of Ruby and Jackson.  Begin with pg. 107, "It seems stupid, but by 10 o'clock I was crying." and end on pg. 108, "Oh, so you did know we had plans."

Reading level - Young adults 13+, but because of language and sexual references, I would recommend 15+.

Challenge issues -Possibly for sexual references and language

Challenge defense ideas:

• Librarian must read the book carefully and include it as a resource intended for older teens.
• Librarian greets students and regularly discusses their reading choices; she provides individualized, age-appropriate guidance in book choice.
• Explain the ways in which the librarian accompanies and guides younger students looking for books, and knows students well as individuals.

Why I included this book - The International Reading Association's 2008 Young Adults' Choices Reading List includes The Boyfriend List in its 30 titles for the year.  The book truly walks the reader through surviving some of adolescence's most trying times, and does so with humor and compassion.  It's Chicklit at its best, because while drawing the reader into the drama, it lets her see her own life with some perspective and some real hope for growth.