Reviews for Confessions of a Boyfriend Stealer: A Blog

The average rating for Confessions of a Boyfriend Stealer: A Blog based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-10-01 00:00:00 John Morris I hated this book. I am not the intended audience, but I hated it soooooo much. First of all, teenagers are the least interesting people in the universe. Teenagers' problems are the least serious problems in the universe. This girl is so stupid, too, that listening to her describe events and circumstances is nearly unbearable. I doubt she was meant to be as stupid as I perceived her. She says her sister is a bartender and her mom cuts hair, but they're middle class. She states SEVERAL times that they're middle class. They subsidize their income by being hookers. Or, rather, by having rich boyfriends who mean nothing to them except the good time and cash flow. Genesis (the idiot narrator) says they live in a rented house, but I could not stop picturing a trailer I lived in as a teenager when she describes her home. Her mom smokes and fucks around, but we're supposed to believe she wears designer labels? Knows what those are? Not TJ Maxx? Same for her sister Shay? (The name "Shay" is so trailertacular, I don't even know what to say. "Genesis" is bad enough, but "Shay"? That was setting her up for a life of classlessness.) Genesis says 320998743 times in the book that she's the "family bouncer". She's the mediator, the referee. She says this so many times, I never want to hear the word "bouncer" again. Not only that--She spent more time saying she was the bouncer than being one. She refereed NOTHING between her mom and sister in this book. Not that she should, but fuck, one would kind of expect her to since, apparently, it's her schtick. But she's also the balance between her two terrible best friends. They're so terrible, they're *called* the Terribles. They're mean girls who treat boys like dirt until they're done getting from them what they want. They're also not nice to other girls. This whole book is about how CJ and Tasha (the Terribles) are cunts. And Genesis, born and raised of cuntery, ends up friends with them despite being inferior and then CJ and Tasha's boyfriends suddenly notice her one day. One of them makes out with her a few times and flirts a lot and the other is just flirty and says he LIKES her. There is no reason for this to suddenly happen, but it does. Genesis is self-deluded to a phenomenal degree. Almost unrealistically and totally ridiculously. "Oh, Nick is sitting right against me on the couch during this movie we're watching alone. So? Nothing romantic about it. Just touching sweaty teenage bodies, like everyone else. How is that wrong? Oh, Chi calls and says he wants to meet up at a restaurant. So? People do that. But let me put on nice clothes and makeup. Platonically. Then when I get there, I think his hoodie and casual clothes make him look "romantic". But just as friends." Retard. And the drama could've been so much better, so much more interesting, more emotional/intense, and exciting. But it wasn't. No, ma'am. Not even a little. I've read books I didn't like for class, but this is the first I've really struggled to FINISH reading. I can't wait until lit class tomorrow to find out what the possible cultural relevance of this book is and why on earth it was assigned. I just didn't like anyone in this book. I didn't relate to anyone. I didn't understand how any of this could've happened. It was fucking stupid.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-12 00:00:00 Robert P Ohlmacher 2.5 stars. Genesis is one of the three "Terribles", the plain friend of two popular and self-absorbed friends who've dubbed themselves with this nickname. While her friends are out of town during school break, Genesis - who's always been a friendly shoulder to cry on for their boyfriends - hangs out with their boyfriends and ends up kissing one of them. Scared of what it's going to do to her friendship with the other Terribles, yet excited that life is actually happening for her instead of just around her, Genesis blogs about what really happened before her friends can tell their side of the story. The entire book was written in blog entries by Genesis, followed with comments from "readers" of the blog. The format seemed more of a gimmick than anything else, since the comments at the end of each entry/chapter were basically from three anonymous readers, giving their opinions on whether Genesis is to blame for whatever she wrote about. The comments didn't add anything and didn't seem particularly realistic either; if her blog was as popular as she made it seem, she should have been getting more comments, from more readers, as the blog went on. But it stayed with just the three commenters, who failed to offer up anything important or interesting. I found myself skimming the comments and eventually skipping them altogether. I liked Genesis's voice. She sounded fairly authentic and relatable, and although the plot of this book was on the weak side, it was understandable why this could seem like such a huge, monumental event in her life, since she also sounded so young. I'm a little unsure about the target audience of this book, since it felt so young, yet some of the stuff included wouldn't be completely age appropriate for younger readers. Perhaps that's the main problem of this book - it felt really light and frothy, but it also tried to be more mature than actual readers would appreciate, satisfying no one. The characters in here weren't particularly well-developed, but it wasn't the sort of book where one would expect as much. Instead, all the characters fit neatly into molds: the bitchy friends, the lovestruck boyfriends, the cheating boyfriends/girlfriends, the immature mom and sister... I was fine accepting each character as having a stock personality, but at the same time, none of the stories seemed to really go anywhere. The main plot of Genesis being conflicted about the guys and her friends wrapped up but in a way that made you wonder why it was worth writing an entire book about (although, to be fair, this sort of conflict is exactly the sort of thing so many people angst over in high school!). There was also a subplot about Genesis wanting to be a filmmaker, which seemed to be kind of blown out of proportion (everyone loves her work and thinks her new documentary might make it onto MTV!); then again, for the target audience, why not include a bit of wish fulfillment? And finally, there was a subplot involving Genesis's mom and sister, who are serial daters and completely irresponsible. I'm still not exactly sure why they were included in here except to try and round out Genesis's life. For all my complaints, however, this wasn't a bad book. It wasn't great, and it was definitely forgettable, but it was not bad. I'm guessing that while younger readers won't love it, they'll probably enjoy it slightly more than me as a quick read.