A book review by Alicja Duda
Has the social web of drama ever ensnared you in its tangles?
Were you able to find your way out?
Through lists, letters, e-mails, footnotes, and therapist appointments; E. Lockhart spins Ruby Oliver, an apparently troubled adolescent, and the reader into the crudely enticing and messy world of drama in The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them.
Entering her junior year with the reputation of a promiscuous “leper” after a summer fling, Ruby endures the silent treatment of her friends, the hollow absence of her ex-boyfriend and adapts to her socially deprived status at her private high school. Although the reader may be able to empathize with Ruby, it becomes clear that she is more than applicable for her frisky “leper” status. Ruby juggles boys as if they were rentable relationships, lacks a secure foundation of priorities and decides to childishly channel her hormonal anger and confusion out on her therapist. It seems that despite her countless efforts to redeem herself from the bottom of the social totem pole, Ruby succumbs to even the slightest temptation that boys offer.
Despite the predictable plot that Lockhart creates, The Boy Book is essentially the publishing of social drama of teenagers alike in which both the characters and the reader are able to learn and mature from.
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