Being Friends with Boys by Terra Elan McVoy

Being Friends with Boys by Terra Elan McVoy


Release Date: May 1, 2012
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Rated: YA 14+
Format: eGalley
Source: Simon & Schuster Galley Grab
Buy: Amazon ❘ The Book Depository
Goodreads ● Website

Charlotte and Oliver have been friends forever. She knows that he, Abe, and Trip consider her to be one of the guys, and she likes it that way. She likes being the friend who keeps them all together. Likes offering a girl's perspective on their love lives. Likes being the behind-the-scenes wordsmith who writes all the lyrics for the boys' band. Char has a house full of stepsisters and a past full of backstabbing (female) ex-best friends, so for her, being friends with boys is refreshingly drama-free...until it isn't any more.

When a new boy enters the scene and makes Char feel like, well, a total girl...and two of her other friends have a falling out that may or may not be related to one of them deciding he possibly wants to be more than friends with Char...being friends with all these boys suddenly becomes a lot more complicated.

I have McVoy's other book After the Kiss on my shelf, but haven't been able to get to it yet. But after reading Being Friends with Boys, I feel the need to pick it up immediately. I loved this book! For me, it's such a fresh contemporary voice, so different from others, yet still has those YA contemp clichés we all have come to love and want.

❝That's your problem, Char. You're friends with all these boys.❞

I feel as though I could totally relate to Charlotte. And I've come to realise that I'm a lot more like her then I actually knew. I mostly have girl friends, but I've had my share of guy friends. Like Char I also do write some songs (true fact: give me a title and I can probably come up with a song for it), but sadly I've never been in a real band (that's a long story). However, Char is totally surrounded by boys, and has never thought herself to be anything other than one of them. I really love the depth to which McVoy portrays her. Her emotions are amazing and the realness of her character never ceases to astound me. She has her faults and her strengths, and that's what I find to be essential in a character. She's got it all!

Oliver and Trip, the main reason the band broke up (kinda), pissed me off at times. I mean, with Trip, I had a love-hate relationship with, but Oliver, just full on annoyed me. GAH and what was with Trip? He hardly made an appearance in the book. Two of the characters, Abe and Eli? I really wish they'd made more of an appearance as well. I would have really loved to have gotten to know them! I know, but it isn't really fair on the writer, because you can't push all the supporting characters forward, because that would totally disrupt the meaning of the word "supporting" :P
Benji was one character I loved from the start, other than Char. He's totally hilarious, and surprisingly sweet, I ended up falling head over heels for him. Bad boy with a really good side? My favorite! I wasn't too attracted to Fabian too much, but it turns out ending up...quite differently then you imagine.

OMG I totally wish I had Char's sisters! Gretchen and Darby are Char's stepsisters and they are so adorable, and really cute. Kinda remind me of Cinderella's stepsisters, only nicer and pretty. I mean, they bicker and everything! Oh, the household of my dreams. But I did hate Char's real sister, Jilly. Really annoyed me, and you'll see why if you read the book.
I love how all characters seemed so normal! It was so refreshing (as I mentioned before) to see such a mixed cast with everyday people. You could really relate well to almost all characters, if not all of them.

What I didn't like about this book however, was that it was too... spacy. I mean, that ending was totally out of the blue. I was like, 'that was random', cause it didn't seem to go too well with the story and seemed to interrupt the story's natural flow. This was the only problem I had with the book, but I guess the ending was okay in the end, and it was good to see the story tie up without too many faults.

Being Friends with Boys is exactly what it states: the problems and troubles, as well as the fun of being friends with guys. Terra Elan McVoy has written a fabulous contemporary, which fans of Meg Cabot and of Katy Perry's song "One of the Boys" will completely devour in one sitting. I love this book, McVoy's writing is gorgeous and I'm sure to adore anything written by her.

If you like this, try...

• When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle ◆ Goodreads
• The Sweetest Thing by Christina Mandelski ◆ Goodreads
• Populazzi by Elise Allen ◆ Goodreads