M's boyfriend list made me laugh out loud. Figures. I can't reveal her real name, but her new novel will be on shelves sometime soon!
(For more reader boyfriend lists, click on the link to the left, under "categories".)

M'S LIST

Ted. The college boyfriend, also know as the gay one (but it sure was fun before he switched teams!)

Joe. The in-the-middle-of-his-first-divorce one (20 years later, he's on wife #3 but we're still friends!).

Stan. The one from Texas who smelled like horses and claimed to be a vegetarian except for the chicken-fried steak, who called me darlin', who gave up his sublet and showed up at my apartment with his clothes and his guitar after the third date, who THANK GOD moved to L.A. to pursue his film career so I got to break up with him over the phone!!!!

Bill. The one I married. Fast forward about 14 years, which brings us to:

Daniel. The depressed one who spent all his time comparing me to his ex (and of course they got back together, which is fine, except don't you think he should have broken up with me FIRST?)

Jack. The crazy one who told me the truth when he said he would be a ROTTEN boyfriend. Thank goodness I listened! We stayed friends and now he's a rotten boyfriend to someone else!

Matthew. The current one. My double-edged Gemini, always full of surprises. Just the way I like him!

I just read The Insiders, by J. Minter. Check out the website here. It's like Gossip Girl, only about BOYS -- a group of five gorgeous, hyper-cool dudes who run wild in Manhattan, canoodling with each other's girlfriends and generally doing all kinds of things your mother doesn't want to know about.

I went to college with a lot of boys just like this -- Minter really nails that kind of over-priveleged scene. It's a great beach read -- similar in tone to the the Jonah Black books. If you want the boy's perspective (and who doesn't), read it -- and maybe weep. These guys are a pretty kettle if fish, if that makes any sense.

Adbooks, an online discussion group for young adult literature (or adolescent books -- hence the title), has an awesome website. My favorite part of it is that they round up all the award-winners. The Horn Book awards, the Coretta Scott King awards, the Alex awards -- all the winners are listed.

They've also got a great list of "recommended contemporary realistic fiction" which includes a lot of my favorite books.
AND
a very comprehensive list of YA and middle-grade author websites -- which has a much wider range than my own list here. Mine tends to writers of contemporary novels, most of them funny in some way.

I could quibble that the Adbooks list of recommended "humor" books contains mainly books for quite young readers (stuff like Superfudge, by Judy Blume) -- but it's such a great site, why kvetch? Go there. Find some good stuff to read.

Sunday Brunch is a site that asks five questions every Sunday and people with blogs are encouraged to answer the questions and post them. I'm giving it a try.
This week's questions are in celebration of the fact that Sunday Brunch is a full year old.

1. How do you usually celebrate your birthday?
Cake is always involved. Sometimes I have a small party, and I'm always glad I did. Last year I had people over and this amazing cake with red and yellow frosting flowers all over it; I was eating leftovers for days afterwards.

2. Do you ever lie about your age?
No.

3. What is your favorite flavor(s) of cake and ice cream?
This bakery near my house has the most incredible cake: chocolate with coconut frosting. It is to die for. But recently I gave a friend a baby shower, and we had hazelnut cake with mocha filling and caramel icing. That was pretty incredible, too. I am not a hard-core, chocolate through and through person. Nor am I a fluffy-all-white person. I like cakes from a mix, but cheap bakery cakes with slightly bitter icing -- I'd rather have no cake at all than have those. Ice cream: dolce de leche. Peppermint is good, too.

4. Have you ever completely forgotten the birthday of a family member or friend?
Never.

5. What was the most memorable birthday party you've attended?
When my friend R. turned thirty, his father threw him a party in a funny restaurant with a dance floor. At first, it was kind-of formal and awkward, the generations weren't mixing, R's friends didn't all know each other -- and I was there with my new boyfriend (at the time). But once the DJ started up, we were all given leis to wear around our necks, and we ended up dancing conga lines and doing the macarena. All the walls were mirrored, too, so we could see how goofy we looked. R. died at the age of 36, which is one reason I will always remember that party.

Need something good to read? Check out the Tiny Little Librarian's list of good YA novels. She's got great taste, isn't afraid to read series as well as more serious stuff, and recommends a bunch of books that never show up on those lists you see on Amazon.

Oh, and why the gummi bears? In The Boyfriend List, the very first present Roo ever gets from a boy is a packet of gummi bears from Hutch. He leaves them for her in her mail cubby at school, and she makes them last a whole week.

The cool book designers at Random House took gummi photos for the title page of the book, and then sent them over to me to use on the site!

You're a Plot writer!


What kind of writer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I wanted to be a funny writer, but the quiz didn't seem to have questions allowing me to praise my own sense of humor. :)