YA Fresh

What's Fresh with E. Lockhart's The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them is the sequel to The Boyfriend List, which is just out in paperback. The Boy Book is about Ruby, who in the first book plummeted from social butterfly to leper, rebuilding her life junior year of high school -- with the help of a guide to understanding the male sex that she wrote with her ex-friends.

The new, cheaper edition of the first Ruby Oliver book (The Boyfriend List) has a fun author Q&A at the back, plus provocative questions for your book club or reading group.

In The Boy Book, Rub confronts the secret about Noel,
mysterious notes from Jackson,
the interpretation of boy-speak,
the villainy of Cricket,
the horrors of the school retreat,
and the exploitation of hooters everywhere.

There are fruit roll-ups.

There is upper-regioning.
There are so many boys to choose from!
And there are penguins.
Preview it here.

Now read on for some fresh questions, E. was so kind to answer...

Hello E, please tell us about your latest novel, The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them.

E: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them is the sequel to my earlier book, The Boyfriend List, which is spanking new in paperback this month as well. I'm interested in the social stratifications and attendant mortifications of high school -- and in heartbreak. I wanted to write about the aftermath of heartbreak in a suffocatingly small community.

And I wanted it to be funny.

And have footnotes.

Both are published by Delacorte, and the PB (Boyfriend List) and hardcover (Boy Book) released simultaneously Sept 26. Here's a nice quote: "Lockhart achieves the perfect balance of self-deprecating humor and self-pity in Ruby, and thus imbues her with such realism she seems to fly off the page." -- VOYA

Could you share a bit about the main character of your book and what makes her unique?

E: Roo is a scholarship student at a wealthy Seattle prep school. She lives on houseboat with two neurotic parents and in the first book goes from social butterfly to leper. Everyone pretty much hates her, thanks to countless debacles and misunderstandings and heartbreak. She sees a shrink twice a week for panic attacks, and has an encyclopedic memory for movies, both trashy and highbrow.

She's certainly interesting! How did the idea for this novel come about?

E: When I was writing The Boyfriend List, I got this idea that Roo and her friends (now ex-friends) kept a notebook in which they (wrote) all their musings on the male animal. Kind of a pseudo-scientific analysis of wolverine behavior -- only about boys. And suddenly, although at the time I was only halfway through writing the first story, I knew there should be a a second novel that was structured around that notebook.

What do you hope readers gain from reading The Boy Book?

E: I would like them to laugh so hard they feel slightly worried they won't catch their breath again, and maybe feel a little weepy at the end.

Oh, I have to read this book! Thanks for sharing, E. Let's close with a novel you highly recommend and why?

E: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos. That book has some of the most idiosyncratic and wonderful first-person narration I've ever read, and it is flat-out hilarious.


To learn more about E. Lockhart and her latest release, The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them visit her website, TheBoyfriendList.com. Also check out her ultra cool quiz, Find your dating destiny!