Review: Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, plural. If my life weren't complicated, I wouldn't be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4) by E. Lockhart

Rating (Out of 5): 3.5

Publisher: Random House (Delacorte Press)

Spoilers: Very Minor

Goodreads Synopsis:

 Ruby Oliver, the neurotic, hyperverbal heroine of the The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, and The Treasure Map of Boys, is back!

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.

Review:

This was pretty good. It's been a while since I read the last one, so I was thinking I should re-read them, but it sums things up pretty easily within the book, so it wasn't hard to remember what had previously happened.

This series is, pretty shamelessly, a drama-filled, teenager-y, girl read. It's fun, and pretty light, and easy. And it's just generally good.

Ruby (or Roo, as her friends call her) is witty and over-thinks everything, and is boy-obsessed, even though she has terrible luck with them, and has a special love for sweets and girl-y lingo and giving people fun notes. She has panic attacks and sees a therapist because of it. And she tends to try to ignore things and be subtle about them instead of face them and be blunt, which is what she should be (this was a bit frustrating at times, actually). Her mother is always trying something new and becoming obsessed with it and never listens to anything Roo or her father says. At times, it's funny, but it's ridiculous how much she doesn't seem to care how her daughter or husband feels. And then her father gets depressed in this book, which is understandable but a little crazy (and, yea, funny).

In this book, Roo continues having problems with her friends and boys. I think that her friends are a little lame. Or, her old friends are lame. Meghan is pretty cool, even if she's a little oblivious, especially when it comes to love. Although, her outlook on it is also a little uplifting. I really like Finn, he's the sweet, good-boy type, and they are cute together. Hutch, with his music obsession and general odd-ness, is awesome, even if we didn't get to see much of him in this book since he's away in Paris.

Nora redeemed herself a little, but what she did before, and her timing, was very not cool of her. And Kim and Cricket, her old friends, made me dislike them even more. But I don't think what happened at the beginning of the series was all Roo's fault, and it's just totally lame that they all ruined their friendship over a boy. The whole situation was messy and immature.

That's one problem that I had with this book. They all seemed a little too immature for seniors. They might not be too far off, but still just a little. They acted a little more like freshmen or sophomore's or something. (But I could be wrong, since the immaturity of high schoolers astounds me sometimes.) Also, they 'fall in love' way too easily. All of them do.

The one part of the book that shows that they are all seniors, is that they are thinking about college. Roo doesn't dwell on it much, as she already has an idea of what she likes and where she wants to go. (Although I wondered how exactly she was supposed to pay for the schools that she mentioned, since they are out of state for her, expensive, and she's on scholarship. I guess that part of how? It doesn't really expand on this, explain it, but I guess that wasn't really a big part of this book. But still.) She does work on the video she wants to send to the colleges though, since she wants to be a filmmaker. This part of the book was fun, as I liked reading the little conversations as she taped them and questioned them about certain things. Like those, I also like Roo's lists (which don't always seem to have a list-like feel to them, but are still fun) and notes at the bottom of the page (especially these. They are actually, possibly my favorite part of this series).

The boy that Roo is having some problems with in this book (not really unlike the previous ones), is Noel. Noel has asthma that he ignores (which I totally relate to), and he's baked her cookies, and he obviously likes her, and he wants all of her updates. He's supposedly her Real Live Boyfriend (which she explains in the book), only then he starts not really acting the part, which makes her insecure and wonder and panic. And then some stuff happens with Gideon (who is Nora's older brother). Gideon is nice and in college, and I actually like him, but Roo keeps thinking about Noel, and her and Gideon just don't seem to connect the way they should. And then we find some stuff out about Noel, which explains the way he's been acting. (And [Spoiler!] the ending was pretty good, which was nice.)

This was pretty good. I believe it's the last in the series, which I didn't know until I read a review of it, and I guess I'm glad it is. If it was much, or any, longer, then it would seem even more dragged out with drama than it already is. It was good, but, you know... drama can seem to go on way too long. This series wasn't too bad with that, though, which is good. It was mostly a fun and easy book to read, which is what I needed at the time.

Review: Girl Parts by John M. Cusick

~3.5 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Goodreads Synopsis:

What happens when a robot designed to be a boy’s ideal “companion” develops a will of her own? A compulsively readable novel from a new talent.

David and Charlie are opposites. David has a million friends, online and off. Charlie is a soulful outsider, off the grid completely. But neither feels close to anybody. When David’s parents present him with a hot Companion bot designed to encourage healthy bonds and treat his “dissociative disorder,” he can’t get enough of luscious redheaded Rose — and he can’t get it soon. Companions come with strict intimacy protocols, and whenever he tries anything, David gets an electric shock. Parted from the boy she was built to love, Rose turns to Charlie, who finds he can open up, knowing Rose isn’t real. With Charlie’s help, the ideal “companion” is about to become her own best friend. In a stunning and hilarious debut, John Cusick takes rollicking aim at internet culture and our craving for meaningful connection in an uberconnected world.

Review:

This was actually really good. And it surprised me in several ways, actually.

First of all, the writing style was very different from what I was expecting. In a good way. He writes in third person, which I am used to, but he also does it in a way that makes it feel like he's a person overlooking everything that's going on. Kind of like someone is narrating it without an actual person doing it. For example, during a scene where there's an assembly (I think?) one of the main characters is at the assembly, but he takes the time to describe people around him. What some of the other students are doing and how some are kind of flirting and not paying attention. It kind of bothered me at first, and then I was unsure if I liked it or not, but it grew on me, and I found myself really enjoying it.

Second, the characters. I was expecting to like Charlie, and I did, but I wasn't expecting to dislike David as much as I did. Charlie was very likable, and sweet, and honest. David was very much none of these things. I was thinking he would be one of those rich kids who act like a jerk while inside is very different and likable. He wasn't. He had moment where I thought he was going to be okay, but he was still very much a jerk inside. Although I maybe feel a little bad for him.

I really liked Rose. She was interesting, as I thought she would be, because of how she's programmed for these things but then how things change for her and so she changes and becomes kind of a person. I liked how she responded to things that had to do with human contact, it was very fun to read. I also liked May, she was a very interesting character.

I was thinking the plot line would be like the other stories I've read with a robot character like in this one, so I wasn't expecting most of the things that made this one different. (I haven't really read or seen very many though, besides the manga Absolute Boyfriend.) I wasn't expecting Rose to meet Charlie like she does, or how David would react to Rose being gone. Especially not what happens to Rose later in the book after her and Charlie meet May. I quite liked that turn of events, though.

How the plot line starts, with the David going to the counselor and finding out about Sakura and then getting Rose was actually a good plot line. It was interesting, and I liked the down fall of it and how all of it was connected.

The ending I am a little confused by, and I feel like I wanted more of an explanation as to what happened with Rose. And Charlie. I pretty much understand what happened with David.

This was pretty much a surprisingly good read. I wasn't expecting most of the things that happened in it, and some of them give me a bittersweet feeling while others I liked.

Review: Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner

 3/3.5 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Harlequin

Goodreads Synopsis:

Teen Genius (and Hermit) Carrie Pilby's To-Do List:1. List 10 things you love (and DO THEM!)
2. Join a club (and TALK TO PEOPLE!)
3. Go on a date (with someone you actually LIKE!)
4. Tell someone you care (your therapist DOESN'T COUNT!)
5. Celebrate New Year's (with OTHER PEOPLE!)
Seriously? Carrie would rather stay in bed than deal with the immoral, sex-obsessed hypocrites who seem to overrun her hometown, New York City. She's sick of trying to be like everybody else. She isn't! But when her own therapist gives her a five-point plan to change her social-outcast status, Carrie takes a hard look at herself—and agrees to try.
Suddenly the world doesn't seem so bad. But is prodigy Carrie really going to dumb things down just to fit in?

Review:

I was really surprised by how much I liked this one. Probably because the cover (even if I do like it,) and the headline doesn't give a very good insight as to what it's about. The synopsis doesn't give as good of an idea as it could, either. The headline and the list on the back makes it look like it's going to be a book about a teenager trying to fit in at school or with a certain bunch of people. Which is not what this book it about.

The book is about Carrie Pilby, a nineteen year old girl, who has already graduated from Harvard. She's a prodigy and she's disappointed with all of the people out there who are not as smart as she is and who all act like idiots, at least in her opinion. And because of this, she doesn't want to go out and see people.

I liked how much she thought, because she thought about a lot of things and it was all very philosophical. I had quite a bit in common with her, because I think about things like she does, (for example, when she's talk about fate).

I liked her talks with her psychologist, and with her co-workers, and it was good of her to get out. I didn't much like her relationship with Matt, although I understand that she needed to have it. It gave her someone to be with and made her grow up a little bit, since she'd skipped a bit of high school. I didn't agree with it, but I understand the meaning of it. And, after her relationship with her professor, I see why she had it.

Her relationship with her father, I kind of understand. I sympathize, a little, why she was mad at him, because she felt that he lied to her, but I think it was a little dramatic for her to be. But, I guess, she was expecting more from people after all that he'd told her, while I have more of a realistic view of it. Still, it seemed a little ridiculous of a reason.

I did like the relationship that she'd started near the end of the book, and wanted to see a little more of it.

This book took me a little bit longer than most to get through, (about a week,) and that's probably because of all the thinking that she does. But overall, I enjoyed it. And it gave me quite a bit to think about.