Tuesday 3 January 2012

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Review: Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart

Real Live Boyfriends by E. LockhartReal Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoiled for you.

Ruby Oliver is in love.
Or it would be love, if Noel, her real live boyfriend, would call her back.
But Noel seems to have turned into a pod-robot lobotomy patient, and Ruby can’t figure out why.

Not only is her romantic life a shambles:
Her dad is eating nothing but Cheetos,
Her mother’s got a piglet head in the refrigerator,
Hutch has gone to Paris to play baguette air guitar,
Gideon shows up shirtless,
And the pygmy goat Robespierre is no help whatsoever.

Will Ruby ever control her panic attacks?
Will she ever understand boys?
Will she ever stop making lists?
(No to that last one.)

Roo has lost most of her friends. She’s lost her true love, more than once. She’s lost her grandmother, her job, her reputation, and possibly her mind. But she’s never lost her sense of humor. The Ruby Oliver books are the record of her survival.
From Amazon UK

I have just finished this book, the fourth in the Ruby Oliver series, and I am sad. Really sad. Sad with a capital S. It's the last book in the series, and I won't get to read about Ruby anymore. I feel like someone has died. I think I might have got too emotionally involved in these books.

Real Live Boyfriends is just as brilliant as the other novels in the series, but it's also different. It's a pretty sad book. Sure, the others in the series weren't exactly bright and breezy, but this is sad in a different way. There is still Ruby's amusing outlook and witty voice, her lists and her funky words, but sad and sometimes scary things happen, and it's different. Maybe slightly better.

Why? Well, Ruby gets with Noel at last. (At last!). But then he starts being all weird for no apparent reason, and things end up not so great. And then Ruby has another boyfriend. That's not a spoiler, see the title; Real Life Boyfriends - plural. Follow this by complications, warped views of things and confusion, and well, you have Ruby Oliver's life as we expect it. But more. Better. I can't ellaborate, you'll just have to read it.

And now no more Ruby! No more Doctor Z, no more Noel, no more nutty parents, no more Meghan or Nora or anyone else. Despite the fact that these books are fairly short, so in the great scheme of things, Ruby hasn't been in my life long, there was something about her voice, her therapy sessions with Doctor Z, her story that I fell in love with, that touched me. Despite the deceptive light, comedic seeming surface, so many serious things happen in these books, and with the therapy element, they actually made me, as well as Ruby, look at things differently. And I'm devastated they're finished! This is a seriously fantastic series, and one that will be with me for a long time. I cannot recommend this series enough!

Published: 27th December 2011
Publisher: Ember
E. Lockhart's Website
The Boyfriend List Website

Other reviews from the series:
The Boyfriend List (Ruby Oliver Book 1)
The Boy Book (Ruby Oliver Book 2)
The Treasure Map of Boys (Ruby Oliver Book 3)

4 comments:

  1. Ahhh! I absolutely LOVE Ruby Oliver. I haven't yet read this book, but I badly want to. Sad though that it's the end of the series :(

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  2. I know, it's so sad! I want it to go on and on! This is a fantastic book!

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  3. I finished The Treasure Map of Boys a few days ago and followed it by trawling the web for all the promotional material for Real Life Boyfriends and E. Lockhart did say (a couple of times!) that she might write another Ruby book someday. Still, I think I'll probably cry when Real Live Boyfriends is over.

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  4. Oooh, that's good to hear! Thanks, Julianne! I'll keep my fingers crossed for more books! :)

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