Review: Being Friends With Boys by Terra Elan McVoy + Best Friends Romance Week Giveaway!

I was always excited to read this for the Best Friends romance so I'm not sure what took me so long!

Past Reviews
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin
The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker

Upcoming...in no particular order I might change things up...
Winter Town by Steve Emond
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
Hunting Lila & Saving Lila by Sarah Alderson
Addicted To You & Ricochet by Krista & Becca Ritchie
Frigid by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Being Friends With Boys 
by Terra Elan McVoy

Release Date: May 1, 2012
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 368
Genre: YA Contemporary
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
Haunt Author: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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.

ADD TO GOODREADS

Being Friends with Boys is about friendship. It explores friendships with girls, boys, and sisters. It shows that being friends with boys isn't always greener on the other side. All relationships have problems, arguments, fall outs, and boys are not always easy to understand or communicate with. They lie, keep secrets, and shut you out just the same as girls. The other huge plot point of the book is the dynamic of a being in a band. I wish the synopsis had mentioned this as a bigger part of the story because I love books about bands and would have definitely picked it up sooner.

Charlotte has been best friends with Oliver since 5th grade. She writes the songs for their band, Sad Jackal, which also includes her friends Trip and Abe. They had a great summer jamming together. Then when school starts Trip wants to leave the band and begins ignoring her. Trip was really hard to read. They planned to stay in touch and had a great Saturday together and planned to see each other every weekend. At first I thought there was definitely more between them and then he just disappeared and began ignoring her.

Fabian and Eli join the band to replace Trip and Charlotte begins to have feelings for Fabian. Rumors also spread that she is dating Oliver. She starts a friendship with Benji and is thinking about dating him. Boys are really beginning to complicate and confuse Charlotte's life. Charlotte's sister just moved away to college this year and her old best friend Lish ignores her for other cooler friends. Lish was such a bad friend as she only wanted to hang out with Charlotte when Charlotte was doing something interesting or cool. With Charlotte's sister away she does begin to have a closer relationship with her two stepsisters.

The band dynamic is such a huge part of this story as well. Charlotte feels like Oliver doesn't appreciate her as much as he should. She writes the songs but he doesn't give her enough credit. She begins to sing for the band and thinks maybe she should join a girl band that appreciates her more. But the bands don't both take it as seriously as Charlotte would prefer. As confused as Charlotte was for so many things I thought she was really smart and honest with herself and others. She also stands up for herself and doesn't let her friends walk all over her. That is very difficult to do in high school.

Best Friends Romance

So much of the book is about Charlotte figuring out who is a good friend, who she should date, that some friends she wish she could like romantically but she can't, some boys turn out to be gay, some she realizes she likes more than a friend and needs to admit it to herself. I honestly wasn't sure which guy she would end up with! At first I thought I was pretty sure but all the boys were really great and I had wanted her with all of them at one point during my read. I will say that I think it ended perfectly although a little short on the big romantic ending I prefer. But a really touching story of friendship!




"I will rise above her, and them, and all of this high school bullshit, and they'll realize what a mistake they made."

"I wasn't aware that was how I felt, either, until it was out. And now that I've said it like that, I'm not exactly sure it is how I feel. But this isn't a piece of paper I can crumple up and throw away. They aren't words I can cross out to start over. Now they're out, and I know they'll hang here, between us, maybe forever."

"That’s your problem, Char. You’re friends with all these boys . . ." 

Rating: 4/5 

~Giveaway~
To celebrate the week I bought some extra books for giveaways!
There will be at least 5 winners. 2 US & 3 INT.
To keep things open INT I am offering two of the eBooks that will be reviewed this week as well. May pick extra winners for eBooks depending on entries. 
You can comment every day for extra points! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway