Booklist
What Boys Really Want.
Where Hautman’s The Big Crunch (2011) was an aching and soulful romance, this is the flip side: fun, sarcastic, blundering, preposterous, but every bit still a romance. The story is told in the alternating perspectives of two 16-year-old longtime friends, the optimistic, fun-loving Adam and the whip-smart but judgmental Lita. Though her dream is to become a writer, Lita’s romance novel has stalled, and she kills time as the “infamous power blogger” Miz Fitz, who anonymously doles out caustic advice to legions of readers. Adam, meanwhile, stumbles upon an idea to write a straight-talk self-help book for high-school girls, What Boys Want, which borrows liberally from the Miz Fitz site—but who would ever notice, right? True, it’s not the most original setup, but Hautman writes fearlessly from both male and female perspectives with little care about what’s politically correct, and he admirably resists the urge to bring Adam and Lita together as lovers. A smaller work from the always reliable Hautman, but one with its own set of predictable pleasures.
— Daniel Kraus
School Library Journal
What Boys Really Want.
Best friends since kindergarten, Adam and Lita are now high school juniors. While Lita anonymously runs a sassy advice blog as “Miz Fitz,” Adam hatches a plan to write a book about how boys and girls really think. With more advance orders from girls than guys, he decides to cater to his buying audience by focusing on what boys really want. He uses Lita’s blog as his main source for research, borrowing liberally from his friend without realizing it. Aspiring author Lita grows envious of Adam’s literary pursuits, so she turns her attention to helping her other BFF, Emily, lure mutual pal Dennis’s attention away from new girl Blair. The plot thickens when Emily warms up to Adam, and Lita falls for a university student whom she spies getting into a car with… Blair. As a supporting character observes, “You just never know who will hook up” (though the hook-ups are G-rated and sexual references are mild). Things come to a boil when Adam throws himself a book publication party, and Lita discovers that he’s plagiarized her blog. The book moves along at a snappy pace, with chapters alternating between the main characters’ points of view. Chapters open with Miz Fitz’s advice or excerpts from Adam’s book; these humorous snippets ring true. The novel’s tone may remind readers of the snarky but sweet movie Easy A, or Don Calame’s equally funny Beat the Band (Candlewick, 2010). This is fresh, realistic YA fiction at its best.
–Amy Pickett, Ridley High School, Folsom, PA
What Boys Really Want.
Where Hautman’s The Big Crunch (2011) was an aching and soulful romance, this is the flip side: fun, sarcastic, blundering, preposterous, but every bit still a romance. The story is told in the alternating perspectives of two 16-year-old longtime friends, the optimistic, fun-loving Adam and the whip-smart but judgmental Lita. Though her dream is to become a writer, Lita’s romance novel has stalled, and she kills time as the “infamous power blogger” Miz Fitz, who anonymously doles out caustic advice to legions of readers. Adam, meanwhile, stumbles upon an idea to write a straight-talk self-help book for high-school girls, What Boys Want, which borrows liberally from the Miz Fitz site—but who would ever notice, right? True, it’s not the most original setup, but Hautman writes fearlessly from both male and female perspectives with little care about what’s politically correct, and he admirably resists the urge to bring Adam and Lita together as lovers. A smaller work from the always reliable Hautman, but one with its own set of predictable pleasures.
— Daniel Kraus
School Library Journal
What Boys Really Want.
Best friends since kindergarten, Adam and Lita are now high school juniors. While Lita anonymously runs a sassy advice blog as “Miz Fitz,” Adam hatches a plan to write a book about how boys and girls really think. With more advance orders from girls than guys, he decides to cater to his buying audience by focusing on what boys really want. He uses Lita’s blog as his main source for research, borrowing liberally from his friend without realizing it. Aspiring author Lita grows envious of Adam’s literary pursuits, so she turns her attention to helping her other BFF, Emily, lure mutual pal Dennis’s attention away from new girl Blair. The plot thickens when Emily warms up to Adam, and Lita falls for a university student whom she spies getting into a car with… Blair. As a supporting character observes, “You just never know who will hook up” (though the hook-ups are G-rated and sexual references are mild). Things come to a boil when Adam throws himself a book publication party, and Lita discovers that he’s plagiarized her blog. The book moves along at a snappy pace, with chapters alternating between the main characters’ points of view. Chapters open with Miz Fitz’s advice or excerpts from Adam’s book; these humorous snippets ring true. The novel’s tone may remind readers of the snarky but sweet movie Easy A, or Don Calame’s equally funny Beat the Band (Candlewick, 2010). This is fresh, realistic YA fiction at its best.
–Amy Pickett, Ridley High School, Folsom, PA