The Boyfriend List

I had a few light-hearted books I was thinking about reading (this being one of them), so I read a chapter from each and this is the one I ended up choosing. I wasn't expecting too much, but it was very engaging.

After a recent break-up with her boyfriend, Ruby makes a list of all the guys she's had any contact with. Since the book jumps around in time a lot, you know a lot of what's going to happen before it does. You don't know exactly how point A goes to point B, though, so there is some element of surprise. I felt that at times the book shifted around in time a little too much, but maybe that's just because I was so anxious to find out what happens next.

This book has an overwhelming number of footnotes. While I think it's a “cute” idea, it made the book a little more frustrating to read. I wasn't sure which ones were important, and sometimes I forgot about them while reading. Overall, I didn't find them too important, and I didn't feel like I missed to much by skipping a majority of them.

I have to give this book props for not being the “cliche teenage romance” it could have easily been. It really touches on how rough heartbreak can be and doesn't just resort to the old “female finds hope in a new love interest” tactic. It also calls out a lot of movies for being cliche (in the footnotes). I think it's a great book for teenage girls to read and a lot more inspiring than other books cough Twilight cough.