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Friday, January 14, 2011

Guest Post with E. Lockhart, Author of the Ruby Oliver Series

I'm thrilled to be part of the blog tour for author E. Lockhart! As part of this tour we're celebrating the Ruby Oliver series, which currently consists of three titles:

The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them (Ruby Oliver Quartet)The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver Quartet)The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon--and Me, Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver Quartet)
Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, plural. If my life weren't complicated, I wouldn't be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver Quartet)
A fourth title in the series: Real Life Boyfriends recently released in December. Check out E. Lockhart's guest post below!


"I am the author of three Ruby Oliver books:  The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, and The Treasure Map of Boys — plus a fourth, Real Live Boyfriends,  that comes out December 28, 2010. Other books: Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and How to Be Bad.

Disreputable History was a Printz Award honor book, a finalist for the National Book Award, and recipient of the Cybils Award for best young adult novel.
My books have been translated into 10 foreign languages. Or maybe more. I have a doctorate in English Literature from Columbia University and have taught composition, literature and creative writing courses at Columbia, Barnard and NYU. I have given guest lectures on writing for children at places which include Hamline University, VT College, and Kindling Words."
Visit me at www.e-lockhart.com.
Or come read the blog at www.theboyfriendlist.com.

Real Live Boyfriends is the fourth in the series that started with The Boyfriend List -- and in these books, the neurotic, hyper-verbal Ruby Oliver plunges from social butterfly to leper and famous slut. She's got to rebuild her reputation and her mental health with the help of little but her therapist and her sense of humor.

Since you are Book Butterfly, I thought you might like the animals in these books. In The Boyfriend List, there are ceramic frogs (given to Roo by her ex) -- but no actual animals. However, in the second novel, The Boy Book, Roo gets an internship at the local zoo. She gives lectures about the habits of penguins, and while lecturing ends up witnessing her ex in a compromising situation. She also gets to know a couple of llamas called Laverne and Shirley, and a hot guy named Angelo who lives with fifteen dogs. Book three, The Treasure Map of Boys, has Roo acquiring a great dane called Polkadot and  befriending a pygmy goat called Robespierre, both of whom appear quite a lot in Real Live Boyfriends as well. Ruby writes Robespierre a number of letters when she has no one else to confide in.,

Below, for your amusement, is  one of Ruby's letters to the goat (all the animals in the farm section of the zoo are named after infamous characters).  Thanks for having me visit your website!

xo
E. Lockhart


Dear Robespierre,

How have you been?
I have been completely rotten...

We have a dog, now: a Great Dane called Polkadot. He is an idiot, but his heart is in the right place and his ears want scratching. I think the two of you would get on together well. You're both inclined to eat things you aren't supposed to eat....

Anyway: I was wondering, Robespierre, do you ever get in fights with Kaczynski over the lady goats? Like, if you want to be with Mata Hari, and so does he, do you butt your heads in fury? Or does one of you back down and let the other one win?

How do you work it out, because I know you all have to live together in the indoor pen, at night when the zoo is closed? Do you and Kaczynski forget your differences? Does one of you say sorry?

Please write back as soon as you can. Which I do understand is probably never.

Check out these fantastic blogs for more from E. Lockhart!

January 10th — Confessions of a Bookaholic
January 11th — Random Acts of Reading
January 12th — Books on the House
January 13th — Figment
January 14th — Book Butterfly
January 17th — Bookworm Book Lover
January 18th — Robin’s Roundup

3 comments:

Zombie Girrrl said...

I love E Lockharts books! She's one of my favorite contemporary authors.

Tales of Whimsy said...

I like neurotic characters :)

Bere said...

Hehe awesome post! Love the letter. Way too funny. I've always wanted to read the Ruby Oliver series. Maybe now is the time. Awesome post, Kim =D.