Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Page Count: 272 pages, Paperback
Date Published: January 9th 2008
Find it on Goodreads: Anatomy of a Boyfriend
Source: Received for review from author in exchange of honest opinion
Before this all happened, the closest I'd ever come to getting physical with a guy was playing the board game Operation. Okay, so maybe that sounds pathetic, but it's not like there were any guys at my high school who I cared to share more than three words with, let alone my body.
Then I met Wes, a track star senior from across town. Maybe it was his soulful blue eyes, or maybe my hormones just started raging. Either way, I was hooked. And after a while, he was too. I couldn't believe how intense my feelings became, or the fact that I was seeing—and touching—parts of the body I'd only read about in my Gray's Anatomy textbook. You could say Wes and I experienced a lot of firsts together that spring. It was scary. It was fun. It was love.
And then came the fall.
When the author had contacted me to read and review her books, I was so excited. I had been wanting to read this novel for a long time as I had heard it was 'this generation's Forever by Judy Blume,' a book that I adore. I went into it excited and came out exceptionally pleased!
Let me just start off by saying, Anatomy of a Boyfriend is a book for older teens, or at least people that are comfortable with talk about sex, relationships and things like that. One of my pet peeves in books is when authors gloss over the physical side of a relationship in the story and make it all seem like a wonderful amazing fairy land. This book did not do that. Anatomy follows a couple who meet, start to talk a bit more and get to know each other and then eventually begin dating. It was brutally honest in the subjects that a lot of authors swerve away from and that is much appreciated. As a teenage girl, a lot of stuff we learn is from what we read, what we watch and what we listen to. And while aw-lovey-dovey perfectly romantic scenes make my heart swoon, they're not all that realistic. Anatomy handles the subject of losing your virginity in the way that I think it should be. It's not graphic or erotic or anything like that. It's just what everyone kind of says their first time was like.... awkward. Sometimes, romantic 'awwwww' scenes are awesome, but a lot of times, I don't want that to get into my head to be what I should expect. I commend Snadowsky for going a bit further with the subject and diving deeper than just candles and roses.
I'm not going to go into too much more detail about the book, but I will just say that while the writing was not perfect, the story and the book in general was extremely well done. I enjoyed it immensely, it made me think, it taught me things and it was also just an incredibly amusing story to read. I loved it and I think every teenage girl should read this, along with Forever by Judy Blume, for all the things that they don't really tell you in sex ed class...
I apologise if this is an extremely awkward review for some of y'all, but I just really want to get the word out about this book, because I think it's amazing. I think it discusses a lot of important issues about sex and how it should be handled. This is not an erotica, but it is definitely a bit more detailed than other books that just kind of gloss over those types of scenes, so if you're not comfortable with that, don't say I didn't warn you!
.5Happy reading!
~Kristy
I would read this but I think my mum would go into cardiac arrest if she saw the title of this book. Great review!
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