Real Live Boyfriends By E. Lockhart
i adored The Boyfriend List and it's follow up, The Boy Book--I thought that they were pretty much perfect and should've ended right there. I didn't care much for The Treasure Map of Boys, despite it's cute marshmallow snowman with pretzels-as-arms, but it had had some moments that I liked. So, when I found out that another book would be coming out, Real Live Boyfriends* (*yes, boyfriends, plural. if my life weren't complicated--I wouldn't be Ruby Oliver.), I wasn't thrilled to be picking up the last installment, especially since E. Lockhart had changed the covers from cute to blah and done to us what Jackson had done to Ruby: given us a frog-less day. Despite all of this, I decided to give it a chance, because this was Ruby Oliver. I wish I hadn't.
It's Ruby's senior year. Hooray! But more importantly, she is in love. With Noel, witty anti-popular mysterious imperfectly perfect Noel. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. Because as the title says, if her life weren't complicated, she wouldn't be Ruby Oliver. Which is what I think is one of the biggest problem I have with this book, and there is a lot that I find wrong with this book. The problems in the first three books--yes, even Treasure Map--I could relate to and understand. But with this, it was drama, drama, drama. Just to have drama. Oh, and things like: A mathematical-looking freshman nearly collided with me as I rounded the landing, or Mailbox admires my ambulatory legs and opposable thumbs--from the scene where she runs off to sit by a mailbox, from dinner with her two friends because her real live boyfriend (I came to hate her using this phrase after the first chapter, which is entitled--Real Live Boyfriends! while informing us what a real live boyfriend does and does not do) witnesses her having it out with her mother.
Her mother was horrible in this book. Absolutely horrible. I mean, Ruby's grandmother dies somewhere around the beginning of the book, so it's understandable that her father is grieving. She just died. But her mother is all, Oh, get over it Kevin. Stop being such a baby. Kevin, if you have to sob, do it in the bedroom. I'm trying to write an email here (Yes, she does actually say the last one). But the horrible-ness of Elaine Oliver doesn't stop there. Because of the fight she has with Ruby at Snappy Dragon's, where Ruby basically tells her off and is right about everything she says, she decides to cook nothing but meat despite her daughter being a vegeterian. She only stops after her daughter loses five pounds and her husband gains ten. Also, on a parent questionnaire that's to help for Ruby's college applications, she writes things like: Ruby is self-involved and neurotic. She may be a repressed lesbian. She may be an anorexic. As for strengths: she is superb at making stingingly unkind remarks, for questions like What are your child's strengths and weaknesses. Seriously? No, seriously. Her mother, though annoying yet still relatable in previous books, was no where near as bad as she was in this book. She was a full-blown antagonist, and earned the spot above Kim for being the most hated character.
Kim. Whose that you ask? No one really, despite being the main antagonist the first two books and then basically falling off the Ruby Oliver universe--only to appear maybe once in Dittmar the counselor's office, and be mentioned in name. I understood Jackson not being in the book. Anything with him and Ruby had been resolved in the last book, and seeing as he had been a senior, went off to college. But there's no resolution with Kim, or Cricket--who we are never given insight into other than Cricket used to one of Ruby's best friends and is a drama goddess--for that matter. Which disappointed me, because here I thought was the perfect chance to have some sort of resolution between Kim, Cricket, Ruby and Nora, something.
Which is what I found to be the biggest disappointment when it came to this book. It felt like everything was a half-assed cop-out.
Ruby, who seemed to be progressing since the last book, did a total and complete turn around and made Noel into her whole world--Noel Noel Noel. Nora, who stops talking to Ruby after she 'steals' Noel in the last book, shows up at Ruby's grandmother's funeral and they make up by because everyone drives off to the funeral except Ruby and Nora, who accidentally show up at a funeral for Alvin Hyman Fudgewick which is ha-ha-hilarious. Also Nora, who hasn't had a boyfriend since forever, magically has one named Happy Mackenzie. So it's all cool now. Gideon, who is golden and perfect and eats organic cheese puffs, is made up to be some wonderful but absolutely boring guy who takes Ruby bowling but kisses with too much tongue. Nora realises that Kim and Cricket are actually not that great, as they make up the code word 'jog bra' or something equally stupid (because honestly, jog bra can't be used that many times without it sounding suspicious) when they want to get rid of Nora, so Nora stops hanging out with them point blank. The reason why Noel turns into everything that Ruby thought he wouldn't have. How Noel and Ruby end up getting back together. Cop Out.
Oh, and Ruby attends therapy maybe once or twice, where Doctor Z pretty much chews gum and gives out the most vaguest answers and Ruby second-guesses every decision she makes. A lot of this book is just Ruby second guessing, not speaking her mind--which frustrated me to no end--or speaking her mind, only to lose five pounds over it.
I see the relevance the title has to the book. Sometimes we put emphasis and importance on real live boyfriend this and real live boyfriend that and how in the movies this usually happens, and hold unnecessary expectations of how it should be instead of how it is. We do all these things, when there is no real live boyfriend, but just a boyfriend, or girlfriend, who might not talk all the time or what to do when you run out of a chinese restaurant but wants to know everything about you and makes you laugh. I liked that Ruby finally understood this, but did I have to read through her mother wanting to open a meatloafery named MeatMix or Uncle Hanson the drunken screw up came to Thanksgiving dinner and passed out because he is a mess blah blah blah?
The only redeeming things I liked: Meghan. Hutch, even though he is gone the majority of the book. That we finally get to meet Greg, the man who never leaves his house, but reminded me a bit of Hutch--so he was like a Hutch stand in, if only for a few pages. The definitions each character gives at almost each chapter beginning.
Pass on Real Live Boyfriends. Also, hello, I'm shecaneathesea :D