E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

Q. Jackson is horrible at giving gifts. What is the best gift you’ve ever received from a boy? The worst?

A. The worst: Well, the half-carnation on Valentine’s Day really did happen to me, my senior year of high school. But the worst gift ever was a USED OFFICE TELEPHONE (with several lines, etc.) that my boyfriend shoved, UNWRAPPED, under my pillow on Valentine’s Day.

I already had a telephone.

This one involved wood veneer.

It was a random thing he found in the junk room of his office!

The best: There was a guy in college who later became my boyfriend. He graduated two or three years before me, and every now and then he used to just send me a letter, chatting about stuff. On my birthday one year, he sent me this tiny pin made out of a dead fish. It was a good-looking little fish, and it had been varnished or something, and mounted on a pin. I wouldn’t wear it now, but at the time it seemed hilarious and punk rock and pretty all at the same time. It was small and it was a surprise, and I could tell he’d thought about my taste (questionable as it may have been). It worked much better than a dozen roses.

Q. Ruby loves movies, and the novel has fun movie references sprinkled throughout. What is your all-time top ten movie list?

A. I can’t put them in order. Too stressful! But here’s the list:

Gregory’s Girl

Repo Man

Annie Hall

Grease

His Girl Friday

Bringing Up Baby

Cabaret

Moulin Rouge

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Singin’ in the Rain

Q. This is your first novel for teenagers. Was there anything surprising about the process of writing it? Did you learn anything new?

A. I had a terrific amount of fun writing this book, but writing it was not so different from writing for adults or for younger kids, both of which I’ve done. I just try to write the best story I can.

Q. What were your favorite books as a teenager? Did any books or writers influence you while you were writing this book?

A. I read all the great early young adult authors when I was twelve and thirteen: Paul Zindel, S. E. Hinton, Judy Blume, M. E. Kerr. But I was more of a drama girl in high school and didn’t read as much as I had in junior high. I fell back in love with books in college, reading great nineteenth-century novelists like Dickens, Austen, and the Brontës.

Writing The Boyfriend List, I was influenced by Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, which is about this guy who’s always making lists and mix tapes. He goes back and visits his major old girlfriends to try to figure out what went wrong with his current relationship. I loved Hornby’s book—it’s tremendously clever and engaging—but parts of it didn’t ring true for me. I thought there might be something fresh I could do with a similar concept.

Q. What is your writing process?

A. I write every weekday morning at my computer in my home office. A plump cat or two for company. More coffee than is good for me. I wear pajamas and look rather unattractive. I do not answer the phone, I do not clean the house, I check my e-mail only as a reward for doing my job. Sometimes I offer myself other ridiculous little rewards for writing—like: I can go out to the drugstore and buy toothpaste if I write two pages! It is borderline psychotic.

Q. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

A. Go to college. Read as many books as you can. Try to get an internship at a publishing house or magazine. And write. It is very easy to say you are a writer and not write. But if you actually write stuff—then you are a writer, whether published or not.

The Boy Book • E. Lockhart • 978-0-385-73208-6

It’s the beginning of Ruby Oliver’s junior year at Tate Prep, and things are not off to a good start. But the year turns out to be full of surprises—along with many difficult decisions—that help Ruby see that there is indeed life outside the Tate universe.

Fly on the Wall • E. Lockhart • 978-0-385-73281-9

At the Manhattan School for Art and Music, where everyone is “different” and everyone is “special,” Gretchen Yee feels ordinary. One day, Gretchen wishes she could be a fly on the wall in the boys’ locker room—just to learn more about guys. (What are they really like? What do they really talk about?) This is the story of how that wish comes true.

Not Like I’m Jealous or Anything: The Jealousy Book Edited by Marissa Walsh • 978-0-385-73317-5

We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt that pang. It’s hard to stop the green-eyed monster once it rears its ugly head. In this collection of short stories, essays, and one poem, thirteen writers share their visions of jealousy.

Girl, 15, Charming but Insane • Sue Limb 978-0-385-73215-4

With her hilariously active imagination, Jess Jordan has a tendency to complicate her life, but now, as she’s finally getting closer to her crush, she’s determined to keep things under control. Readers will fall in love with Sue Limb’s insanely optimistic heroine.

Counting Stars

David Almond

978-0-440-41826-9

With stories that shimmer and vibrate in the bright heat of memory, David Almond creates a glowing mosaic of his life growing up in a large, loving Catholic family in northeastern England.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Ann Brashares

978-0-385-73058-7

Over a few bags of cheese puffs, four girls decide to form a sisterhood and take the vow of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The next morning, they say goodbye. And then the journey of the Pants, and the most memorable summer of their lives, begin.

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Ann Brashares

978-0-385-73105-8

With a bit of last summer’s sand in the pockets, the Traveling Pants and the Sisterhood who wears them—Lena, Tibby, Bridget, and Carmen—embark on their second summer together.

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Ann Brashares

978-0-385-72935-2

It’s the summer before the Sisterhood departs for college … their last real summer together before they head off to start their grown-up lives. It’s the time when they need the Pants the most.