The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

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Ruby is seeing a shrink to deal with the panic attacks that she has been having.  (Five in one week is really too many.)  After Ruby starts explaining that she lost her boyfriend and all of her friends and became a social leper her doctor suggests that she make a list of all of her boyfriends, even if she thinks they don’t count.  She uses the list to tell the story.

This book is fantastic!  It really nails the pettiness and randomness of friendships in middle and high school.  It shows how one mistake, even something small, can change your whole world.  The characters are realistic, not over the top, and the situations are believable for the age group. There is no one “mean girl” that ruins the main character’s life.  She makes bad choices, and some other characters make bad choices.  That does not make them “bad people”.  (I would recommend this book to high school age girls that like realistic fiction.)