Putting Boys on the Ledge by Stephanie Rowe

      Putting Boys on the Ledge is the first book in The Girlfriend's Guide to Boys by Stephanie Rowe. The book centers on freshmen girl, Blue Waller with the help of her best friends in order to help Blue get "the most amazing boy", senior guy named: Heath Cavendish. Throughout the book Blue and her friends try to get Heath to notice her by trying a variety of tactics, from joining the school play to changing up her look. Meanwhile, Blue develops a friendship with Colin, the guy who's taking care of her barn chores while she's a part of the play. 
       When I started reading this book I realized that this book would have been better for a younger audience, mainly for kids in middle school. Despite the realization, I decided to continue reading it and I can honestly say that I didn't mind it! While reading the book, I definitely thought the book was quirky and cute and I couldn't help but compare my middle school self and even younger high school self to the over-dramatic main character, Blue Waller. To the young freshmen, Blue, a lot of the things that happened to her seemed like life and death situations even though they really were't. Most of us can agree that we used to have those moments all the time when we were younger, some still do it today as well, and when you look back at your younger self, you just can't help but smile and even laugh at how silly you were! That was what definitely happened to me as I was reading this book.
      Something I didn't like about this book was that the plot felt slow and there wasn't really anything unique about it that made this book stand out. It just followed Blue on her quest to get the guy which got a little boring and redundant at times (sidenote: for some reason a lot of the books aimed at younger girls these days have the female protagonist after a guy for at least half of the book. Talking about gender roles and media in AP Lang. and Comp. really gets me thinking about this kind of things now). The characters didn't seem to develop at all, such as Blue's friends, they just kind of popped up when they were needed for some reason. I would have liked to see more interactions and relationships between the friends instead of being told about them. Just because this was a novel aimed at younger kids doesn't necessarily mean that these kind of elements should be thrown out the window.
        Putting Boys on the Ledge by Stephanie Rowe did affect me as a reader because it really made me think about and look back at my middle school and younger high school self. It really hit me that I'm growing up, that I'm graduating next year and it made me think how it feels like I was just in middle school yesterday, being a complete drama queen back then and even sometimes today. Because it did have this affect on my I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

(523 words)