Product Description

A witty teenage memoir about Ruby's romance traumas and how the fifteen boys came to be on her 'Boyfriend List', a mental-health homework task from her shrink, Doctor Z.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41366 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Synopsis
The Boyfriend List was a homework assignment for my mental health. Doctor Z, my shrink, told me to write down all the boyfriends, kind-of boyfriends, almost-boyfriends, rumoured boyfriends and wished-he-were boyfriends I've ever had. Plus, she recommended I take up knitting. In the same ten days I: lost my boyfriend (boy No. 13); lost my best friend; lost all my other friends; learned gory details about my now-ex boyfriend's sexual adventures; did something shockingly advanced with boy No 15; did something suspicious with boy No. 10; had an argument with boy No. 14; drank my first beer; got caught by my mom; lost a lacrosse game; failed a maths test; became a leper and became a famous slut. Enough to give anyone panic attacks, right? I was so overwhelmed by the horror of the whole debacle that I had to skip school for a day to read mystery novels, cry and eat spearmint jelly candies.

From the Back Cover
The Boyfriend List was a homework assignment for my mental health. Doctor Z, my shrink, told me to write down all the boyfriends, kind-of boyfriends, almost-boyfriends, rumoured boyfriends and wished-he-were boyfriends I've ever had. Plus, she recommended I take up knitting.

Ruby Oliver is fifteen and has a shrink. It might be unusual, but that's what happens when you lose your boyfriend and your best friends, become a social outcast at school and start having panic attacks. What else is there to do but skip school for the day, read mystery novels and eat spearmint jelly candies . . .

Customer Reviews

The Boyfriend List
I read this book over two days where I didnt do much and I just thaught it would fill the time. It caught my eye because of the cover with a ceramic frog on it!
I was facinated by Ruby Oliver's life and the amazing boyfriend list and Doctor z. I I read a little on the Sunday and most on the Monday and loved it. The book is laugh out loud funny and my brother thinks im mad. In a way I think I have a lot in common with Roo but from another perspective I am a world away from Tate.
I wish E.Lockhart would do a tour of England. And by the way just out of interest, what does the E. stand for ???

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
The additional title of THE BOYFRIEND LIST is (15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, Ruby Oliver). It's very enlightening, entertaining, and oh-so-paramount to the book. This is the life and times of nearly sixteen-year old Ruby Oliver, former girlfriend of Jackson, former best friend of Kim, former semi-popular Sophomore high-school girl. Now just a girl with panic attacks, a Xerox-copied "Boyfriend List" circulating through school, and a shrink named Doctor Z.

Ruby's life used to be pretty normal, until her boyfriend broke up with her to date her best friend. Then the panic attacks started--shortness of breath, a tightening sensation in the chest, dizziness and nausea--that had her parents shipping her off to a psychiatrist to work out her "issues." Those issues would mainly be, in chronological order:

1) Adam
2) Finn
3) Hutch
4) Gideon
5) Ben
6) Tommy
7) Chase
8) Sky
9) Michael
10) Angelo
11) Shiv
12) Billy
13) Jackson
14) Noel
15) Cabbie

It might sound, in retrospect, like a lot of guys in a short period of time. But Ruby's made a list of every boy who has ever meant something to her, and these are the fifteen guys that make up the list. In THE BOYFRIEND LIST, we learn about all the guys in Ruby's life, from Adam to Cabbie and everyone in between--and the result is a laugh-out-loud coming-of-age story that is well worth reading.

I can't wait for the release of THE BOY BOOK: A STUDY OF HABITS AND BEHAVIORS, PLUS TECHNIQUES FOR TAMING THEM to be released in September 2006. Since THE BOY BOOK was actually the creation of Ruby Oliver and her friends in THE BOYFRIEND LIST, it should be quite an adventure!

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

Absolutely boring, a disapointment
Looking at the cover and blurb you would assume that this book would contain humor and an easy read well, you would be mistaken.

The book talks about a girl named Ruby Oliver who just broke up with her boyfriend, who is now dating her ex-bestfriend kim and about how Ruby is being shunned out by the rest of her school as well as her former friends and people whom she never before met.

Ruby finds life hard and ends up having panic attacks which leads her to seeing a shrink who assigns ruby to a list containing all the names of boys that she has ever been linked with. From there the story waffles on about rubys insecuritys and her faults and is very tedious, which makes you wanna slam the book or rip it, it's that annoying.

The biggest problem in the plot for me was that the author didn't make it seem bad that Ruby's ex-best friend was now seeing her boyfriend like it was completely normal and it wasn't their fault they liked each other but instead it was Rubys problem because she was being so 'childish' about their hook-up and also showed that the attitudes of her fellow peers was justifiable.