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A review by thelizabeth
Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
4.0
Oh come on now!!
Wow. So glad I finally bought this book. I think I waited so long because I borrowed all the other ones from Meg, and I guess I forgot that I could... own them. For my own. And then it would just appear, bidden into my life. Like that.
Anyway, to me this was a really pleasing way to pull together the tiny little Ruby series with a hundred things to say. A lot of the arc here is Ruby learning to get rid of a lot of her bad habits that help her not help herself cope, and personally I found that just as tough to read as the books about the things that overwhelmed her entirely out of her control. She's done with the panic attacks now, her mental health is healthily improved, but also, no it isn't. She still is upset, dissatisfied, oversensitive and hurt. Because that is what happens even when you get over something. "Plus a general inability to relate to other human beings in a way that leads to happiness."
And sometimes you have to make yourself quit giving up because you feel bad. Sometimes you have to take some blame. I think at some times it might be easy to read Ruby as a self-centered kid when she sticks to her guns at an inopportune time (painfully, her mom misreads her this way when they fight), but I like following Ruby into those mistakes where what she has to sort out is a lot harder than just whether or not she should really be yelling at someone in a restaurant. Though I think her problems in the other books were really more painful, in some ways doling out those conclusions that have nothing to do with your own bad attitude are much less painful than what she starts to do here.
And I like that she doesn't finish. She starts the growing-up work and isn't done yet when the book is.
I mean, ok, I laughed so hard every time she said she was going to "flush it down with the poo." (I think I should start a new Goodreads shelf called embarrassing-subway-laughter.) But also, I wanted to cry a little.
The other best thing that happens here is the continued complication of life with Ruby's parents, who are super good parents who make super huge normal person mistakes with her. Both her parents get overly caught up in themselves in this book, for different reasons, and screw up their home life and Ruby a little bit. And for the first time, they notice what it does to her. Also for the first time, Ruby bears it pretty well, but she still goes through unnecessary sadness. When her dad realizes, oh, you were worried about this? That worried? I, ah, aw, ouch, Olivers.
I don't know how E. Lockhart does it, the way she writes these books as manifestos, instruction manuals for ownership of teenage bodies, commandments of respect and self-respect. She writes the bluntest advice-column kind of insight into right and wrong girlhood, and makes it a great novel that is so incredibly fun to read. The inner back-and-forths at times when Ruby is frustrated over an email or a non-email or whatever, and her narration pops out in a list breaking down the logic and fairness of the problem -- Am I being dissed? Am I causing myself to be upset? Am I letting him know what I really am saying, or am I saying something different and I want him to read my mind? But don't forget that I must expect respect too. A reasonable person could expect this. -- I don't know, it basically reads like mental health in a can, in an immensely touching, outstanding can. I just am so impressed that this doesn't suck, or ring false, it being as simple as it is. But its transparency works in its favor 300%.
"'But I'm not a forgetting person,' I said. 'I'm not an ignoring person. ... I'm a lay-it-all-out person...'"
Essentially I think I'm still apologizing to the universe a bit for being one of those people who thought these books weren't important because each one has "boy" in the title. I'm sorry, universe. Please keep these books around. And maybe get one in the hands of every single kid, at just the right moment.
And #3 is still my favorite.
Wow. So glad I finally bought this book. I think I waited so long because I borrowed all the other ones from Meg, and I guess I forgot that I could... own them. For my own. And then it would just appear, bidden into my life. Like that.
Anyway, to me this was a really pleasing way to pull together the tiny little Ruby series with a hundred things to say. A lot of the arc here is Ruby learning to get rid of a lot of her bad habits that help her not help herself cope, and personally I found that just as tough to read as the books about the things that overwhelmed her entirely out of her control. She's done with the panic attacks now, her mental health is healthily improved, but also, no it isn't. She still is upset, dissatisfied, oversensitive and hurt. Because that is what happens even when you get over something. "Plus a general inability to relate to other human beings in a way that leads to happiness."
And sometimes you have to make yourself quit giving up because you feel bad. Sometimes you have to take some blame. I think at some times it might be easy to read Ruby as a self-centered kid when she sticks to her guns at an inopportune time (painfully, her mom misreads her this way when they fight), but I like following Ruby into those mistakes where what she has to sort out is a lot harder than just whether or not she should really be yelling at someone in a restaurant. Though I think her problems in the other books were really more painful, in some ways doling out those conclusions that have nothing to do with your own bad attitude are much less painful than what she starts to do here.
And I like that she doesn't finish. She starts the growing-up work and isn't done yet when the book is.
I mean, ok, I laughed so hard every time she said she was going to "flush it down with the poo." (I think I should start a new Goodreads shelf called embarrassing-subway-laughter.) But also, I wanted to cry a little.
The other best thing that happens here is the continued complication of life with Ruby's parents, who are super good parents who make super huge normal person mistakes with her. Both her parents get overly caught up in themselves in this book, for different reasons, and screw up their home life and Ruby a little bit. And for the first time, they notice what it does to her. Also for the first time, Ruby bears it pretty well, but she still goes through unnecessary sadness. When her dad realizes, oh, you were worried about this? That worried? I, ah, aw, ouch, Olivers.
I don't know how E. Lockhart does it, the way she writes these books as manifestos, instruction manuals for ownership of teenage bodies, commandments of respect and self-respect. She writes the bluntest advice-column kind of insight into right and wrong girlhood, and makes it a great novel that is so incredibly fun to read. The inner back-and-forths at times when Ruby is frustrated over an email or a non-email or whatever, and her narration pops out in a list breaking down the logic and fairness of the problem -- Am I being dissed? Am I causing myself to be upset? Am I letting him know what I really am saying, or am I saying something different and I want him to read my mind? But don't forget that I must expect respect too. A reasonable person could expect this. -- I don't know, it basically reads like mental health in a can, in an immensely touching, outstanding can. I just am so impressed that this doesn't suck, or ring false, it being as simple as it is. But its transparency works in its favor 300%.
"'But I'm not a forgetting person,' I said. 'I'm not an ignoring person. ... I'm a lay-it-all-out person...'"
Essentially I think I'm still apologizing to the universe a bit for being one of those people who thought these books weren't important because each one has "boy" in the title. I'm sorry, universe. Please keep these books around. And maybe get one in the hands of every single kid, at just the right moment.
And #3 is still my favorite.