a definition:
A real live boyfriend does not contribute to your angst.
You do not wonder if he will call.
You do not wonder whether he will kiss you.
And he does not look at his phone while you are talking, to see if anyone has texted him.
Of course he calls. He’s your boyfriend!
And, so, there you have it. For any reader who can get into an R-rated movie without a parent or guardian who was wondering exactly what a real live boyfriend is—and, possibly, also wondering if this is a zombie-related tale—now you know. These opening lines of this book are really all anyone of any age needs to know to make a decision on whether it is for them or not. Sixteen and ready to move on from the Alice McKinley series? Then Ruby Oliver is for you. Divorced at forty-five and enjoy nothing more than the company of Virginia Woolf, but thinking about online dating? Not so much, maybe. This is a trick that certainly doesn’t apply to every book, but a scan of the opening page of will often be a spot-on determiner of whether the book is for you. It is especially efficient in this case. If this definition of a real live boyfriend makes you laugh or swoon or anything but roll your eyes, then dive in, because you are almost certainly going to enjoy everything that comes next.
“I warn you, I like to be evasive, inscrutable and generally send mixed messages.”
Funny stuff. Or is? There is a reason that Ruby Oliver is popular enough to span a series of at least four books. Try your best to avoid using the dreaded Q-word as you might, there is little doubt ‘bout it: Ruby is quirky to the max. Is she being sincere in this self-assessment? Or is she being, you know, the Q-word by messing the mind of the fellow with whom she is flirting? Cool thing about Ruby O is that you never know. A common problem with book series like these is that in order to make the main character accessible to all, the really memorable characters are the supporting players. Alice McKinley, for instance. And that Potter kid, for sure. But in the Ruby Oliver books, nobody outshines Ruby.
So I wrote back, but I just wrote about regular stuff. I told him about my birthday presents, and joked about the foul barley cookies, and told about Hutch and the cupcake. Actually: I’m not telling you the whole truth.
See, that’s quirkiness right there of the type that is pretty okay. Let’s face it, quirky sometimes just means annoying or weird for weird’s sake, but in this case those don’t apply. Ruby is quirky in its best sense of the word: she can surprise you with a mix of humor and pathos. The humor is there in the sense of a record-needle-scratch moment in which everything you have just read turns out not to be the whole truth. Almost as if she was being…evasive…about something. The pathos is related to the fact that this passage occurs at a very intense emotional moment for her regarding behavior that simply does not fit into her definition of what a real live boyfriend means. Remember that advice about basing an entire book upon the first page? Actually, that rule of thumb never applies. It is actually entirely possible to enjoy Virginia Woolf and Ruby Oliver.
