Listness
Today, it's all about the List. The New York Times List? Letterman's Top Ten? No, my friends, The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart. Did you ever have a boyfriend list? Well, Ruby (Roo) has such a list and disaster strikes when her list gets outted in her school. The book is YA, but for anyone who remembers the pain of high school, it's one of those things that could happen to any of us. The book got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, who said, "Spot-on dialogue and details make this a painfully recognizable and addictive read."
I had a chance to ask E some questions, mainly about her list (I had one, too):
Kathleen: Do your high school boyfriends know about your book? Any fun stories you'd like to share about that? Any lawsuits?
E: There's a reason this book is written under a pen-name :). Truthfully, I doubt they know. Or care. The feelings of romantic agony in The Boyfriend List are fictionalized from my high school and college experiences, but the horrible stuff Roo goes through -- the panic attacks, the penis information list, the bathroom wall graffiti, the betrayal by the best friend, the leprosy, the shrink, the Spring Fling debacle -- thank goodness I only imagined it.
Kathleen (who is always curious about people who do high school well): if you could go back in time now, what would you change?
E: I think I'd change how I conducted my relationship with my first major boyfriend. I was too much of a doormat, and at the same time was always demanding that we "talk." Only our talks never made anything better. It was a very dramatic romance. I think I'd take some more action, deliver some ultimatums, try and define myself for myself, instead of in relation to him. That lesson -- don't be passive, explain how you want to be treated -- is part of what I think Roo learns in The Boyfriend List.
Kathleen (rhetorical side note): Why are we women such doormats early in life? Isn't that just the way it is?
Kathleen (non-rhetorical question): Did you enjoy the experience of writing YA?
E: The Boyfriend List was the most fun I've had as a writer. Ruby has got a big, precocious mouth on her, which let me just run wild with slang and footnotes and parentheses and run-on sentences. The sequel is called The Boy Book, and comes out in late 2006, but before that I've got a book called Fly on the Wall, which is about a girl who literally becomes a fly on the wall of the boys' locker room -- and sees everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING.
Kathleen: A fly on the wall? Oh, my…..
And there you have it folks, today's book pick, The Boyfriend List (I really wish I never burned mine. It'd be worth money on Ebay.)
A couple of days ago, I talked about whether swearing is a taboo, or not, and then on the Daily Show Wednesday night was Princeton professor Harry Frankfurt (just makes you want to spell out Frankenfurter), talking about his new book, On Bullsh*t. Now, this book has been buzzed about, mainly because of the title, and now sits at Number 11 on Amazon. The actual content of the book is a short essay (67 pages) on the rising use of bs in our culture. Now, okay, this is $10 for a hardcover book that is 67 pages (and according to Jon Stewart, big font and lots of whitespace) and the subject matter is bs. Ah-hem. Do you know those pictures of a person in a mirror, holding up a mirror, which reflects a smaller mirror, and so on , ad infinitum? I feel like the author is making us hold up his book to the mirror, and there's ten million reflections of reflections in there, and they're all the same image. Bullshit.
And in today's Satanic news , there's a pet store in Indiana that recently suffered a fire. The only animal to survive the blaze? A turtle named Lucky, who now has an image of Satan on his shell, complete with horns and a goatee. Lucky will be auctioned off on the internet, as are all animals, food objects, and body parts gifted with images of deities, or non-deities as the case may be.
And that's the way it was: Friday, March 18, 2005.
I had a chance to ask E some questions, mainly about her list (I had one, too):
Kathleen: Do your high school boyfriends know about your book? Any fun stories you'd like to share about that? Any lawsuits?
E: There's a reason this book is written under a pen-name :). Truthfully, I doubt they know. Or care. The feelings of romantic agony in The Boyfriend List are fictionalized from my high school and college experiences, but the horrible stuff Roo goes through -- the panic attacks, the penis information list, the bathroom wall graffiti, the betrayal by the best friend, the leprosy, the shrink, the Spring Fling debacle -- thank goodness I only imagined it.
Kathleen (who is always curious about people who do high school well): if you could go back in time now, what would you change?
E: I think I'd change how I conducted my relationship with my first major boyfriend. I was too much of a doormat, and at the same time was always demanding that we "talk." Only our talks never made anything better. It was a very dramatic romance. I think I'd take some more action, deliver some ultimatums, try and define myself for myself, instead of in relation to him. That lesson -- don't be passive, explain how you want to be treated -- is part of what I think Roo learns in The Boyfriend List.
Kathleen (rhetorical side note): Why are we women such doormats early in life? Isn't that just the way it is?
Kathleen (non-rhetorical question): Did you enjoy the experience of writing YA?
E: The Boyfriend List was the most fun I've had as a writer. Ruby has got a big, precocious mouth on her, which let me just run wild with slang and footnotes and parentheses and run-on sentences. The sequel is called The Boy Book, and comes out in late 2006, but before that I've got a book called Fly on the Wall, which is about a girl who literally becomes a fly on the wall of the boys' locker room -- and sees everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING.
Kathleen: A fly on the wall? Oh, my…..
And there you have it folks, today's book pick, The Boyfriend List (I really wish I never burned mine. It'd be worth money on Ebay.)
A couple of days ago, I talked about whether swearing is a taboo, or not, and then on the Daily Show Wednesday night was Princeton professor Harry Frankfurt (just makes you want to spell out Frankenfurter), talking about his new book, On Bullsh*t. Now, this book has been buzzed about, mainly because of the title, and now sits at Number 11 on Amazon. The actual content of the book is a short essay (67 pages) on the rising use of bs in our culture. Now, okay, this is $10 for a hardcover book that is 67 pages (and according to Jon Stewart, big font and lots of whitespace) and the subject matter is bs. Ah-hem. Do you know those pictures of a person in a mirror, holding up a mirror, which reflects a smaller mirror, and so on , ad infinitum? I feel like the author is making us hold up his book to the mirror, and there's ten million reflections of reflections in there, and they're all the same image. Bullshit.
And in today's Satanic news , there's a pet store in Indiana that recently suffered a fire. The only animal to survive the blaze? A turtle named Lucky, who now has an image of Satan on his shell, complete with horns and a goatee. Lucky will be auctioned off on the internet, as are all animals, food objects, and body parts gifted with images of deities, or non-deities as the case may be.
And that's the way it was: Friday, March 18, 2005.
posted by Kathleen at 7:26 PM
3 Comments:
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A penis information list?!? Obviously, my high school experience was sadly lacking. ;-)
Ah-hem. Obviously as a writer, I need to be more careful of my words. I had a 'boys I'd kissed' list, only. In those days, I think a penis information list would have shocked us all. Nowadays, we have a complete penis information list for various celebrities. Ah, the times we live in....
-- Old Codger
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