Review: Anatomy Of A Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky

Title: Anatomy Of A Boyfriend
Author: Daria Snadowsky
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Sex, First Love
Pages: 259
Rating: A-




Synopsis: Before this all happened, the closest I'd ever come to getting physical with a guy was playing the board game Operation. Okay, so maybe that sounds pathetic, but it's not like there were any guys at my high school who I cared to share more than three words with, let alone my body.

Then I met Wes, a track star senior from across town. Maybe it was his soulful blue eyes, or maybe my hormones just started raging. Either way, I was hooked. And after a while, he was too. I couldn't believe how intense my feelings became, or the fact that I was seeing-and touching-parts of the body I'd only read about in my Gray's Anatomy textbook. You could say Wes and I experienced a lot of firsts together that spring. It was scary. It was fun. It was love.

And then came fall.

First Impression: I've seen this book around for a while now (it was published in 2008) but had never truely looked into it until just this year. Shortly after Christmas I was at Borders with all the money I had received in gift cards, when I noticed it. I'm not going to lie, it's the fact that this story has to do with first love and first sex and all those firsts that I picked it up. One the back, above the summery, it reads "Snadowsky’s debut novel is an unusually honest portrayal of a teen girl’s sexual discovery . . .  Like Forever, this sensitive, candid novel is sure to find a wide audience among curious teens." — booklist This was a good enough reason to buy it for me. 

Full Impression/Review: Dominique Baylor, a high school senior from Fort Meyers, Florida, aspires to be a doctor and cares more about reading Grey's Anatomy (the actual medical book, not the TV show or anything to do with it) then she cares about boys. When not competing on her school's science quiz team, she can be found at home playing the board game Operation with her parents. That all changes when she meets Wes, a shy fellow senior and local track star. Instantly she's hooked. After a couple months of exchanging hundreds of IMs and a dozen or more e-mails, she finally admits her feelings for Wes and makes the first move. And so starts their relationship.

     Both unexperienced in love (and sex), they prove to be eager to learn and so things get pretty hot and heavy just on their first date (they run past first base and explore second to the fullest). After a couple more months, they are ready to go All The Way Home and lose it on Prom Night, as cliché. 

    At a first glance, this novel could sound redundant, cliché, and overdone a million and one times, but I'm not writing a review from the perspective of a first glance. Even going so far as naming her an inspiration for the novel, it's obvious that Snadowsky is a fan of Judy Blume and took a hint from Forever... (1975), a novel that also follows the first love and the exploration of sex from the point of view of a couple in their senior year of high school. 

   Dom is mature and goal-oriented. She has her sites set on getting excepted into Stanford and becoming a doctor. On the other hand, her experience with guys is limited to kissing party games from her earlier teen years and the bodies of the drawn male figures in her medical books. In many ways she is the polar opposite of her best friend Amy, a rather free spirited artist who is saving her virginity until college, but does everything else. When Dom meets Wes at the big football game the day after Christmas, she finds herself really falling for him. As the months pass they start dating, exploring, and loving each other. By Prom they do feel ready and decide to take that next step. Everything seems to be going well for the happy couple who, though are off to different colleges in the fall, strongly believe they will weather the tempest of long distance relationship and come out on top. But then fall does come and things change.

   While this book is filled to the brim with sex, it's not the racy and sensual sex that is the making of a hardcore romance novels. Instead it's very realistic, frank, insightful, graphic, and even somewhat scientific -- as are the thoughts that come to Dom as she sees a certain where-the-sun-don't-shine part of Wes (of any guy) for the first time. Dom's view on sex shine through clearly -- she's the type of girl who believes in love before sex, another thing that makes her the opposite of her casual hookup type best friend. The novel isn't the most original idea put out there, but Snadowsky brings a fresh and new look onto this theme. Unlike many books, Wes is neither a loner/outcast, or jerk/ jock. He is simply the average teen male -- good and bad included. 

    In her debut novel, Snadowsky weaves together a story that feels both old and new bring up many of the essential and basic questions of relationships: Is sex love? Is there a difference between first love and true love? How can you tell? Like Forever... before it, Anatomy Of A Boyfriend an authentic and candid story sensitively but frankly explores sex in our modern day society, experiencing it for the first time, and dealing with it in a mature way. 

                                         ~ XOXO, 
                                                Ariana

Don't Shoot! I Come Bearing Gifts

Dear Bloggie,
     It's been a while since I last blogged. Life has been hectic. I've been trying to write (that's going OK) but I'm only on chapter five. The first chapter is here on inkpop. That's all I'm putting up until I've finished the book. I've made more friends at school. They're the type I don't go into detail about to my mom. There used to be a time where I thought if you did drugs, drank alcohol under-age, and had sex outside a real relationship, you were a bad person. Over the years that idea has changed, but was until I started high school that I actully met people who do all three. Most importantly, I have friends who do all three. *gasp* I know, what shame and shock! But seriously, all joking aside, they aren't bad people.

     Let's use this girl I know named Holly (not real name) as an example. She does weed, has taken ecstasy, and probably has tried other things. She's not an addict to anything, but she sure as hell has dabbled in a lot. I was talking to her and this guy named Hayden (real name) I know. They had gone to the mall one day with her friend Jennifer (I can't remember the girl's real name) and Jennifer had given Hayden a, well, you know, under the table with her hand. He said she wasn't good at it and Holly said she was going to have to teach Jennifer better. Even though  love how I have met people who are so free and unafraid of saying things like this without thinking, I wasn't quite sure what to say. But what I find really interesting is that I don't think less of Holly for having an sexual history at only the age of fifteen. Because I know her and know what she's like, I don't consider her a slut, even though I have considered other girls that for a lot less. I just thought it was interesting how we, as people, can have double standards and not always realize it.

    Now, onto non-sexually related topics. I had no school today because of Presidents Day (though I do have school for the rest of the week because of the over kill of snow days that caused the school to take away our February vacation) so I watched TV all day. MTV had on five hours of My Super Sweet Sixteen: Blingest Bash 2 Countdown, parts 1 though 5. I, being a My Super Sweet Sixteen fanatic, watched all of it. Well, almost all. During the last hour I became distracted.

    Next month, March 13th, is my fifteenth birthday. As much as I enjoy being fourteen (I've decided it's one of my top five favorite ages -- the list doesn't only include ages I have been, but also ones I'm looking forward to) I must age to fifteen. Plus, ageing to fifteen means I'm only a year away from being my favorite age and the age I've been looking forward to being for years: sixteen.

    I've known for years that I was going to have a masquerade for my sweet sixteen, but, while I watched the marathon today, I realized that I also wanted to rock out. I came up with this phrase that embodies what I want: I want to party like a Victorian rockstar. Of course, "Victorian" and "rockstar" don't really go together. So, I decided to Google it and see how these two things could be merged. I know, let me Google that for you. As you can see, it brought me to a very awesome thing that, while I love, never crossed me mind for some stupid reason: Steampunk!

    After spending an thirty minutes trying to explain steampunk to my mom (which is why I won't explain it here; instead, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, just check this and this and this out) she agreed that she liked that idea, though she is a bit apprehensive. I think she's mostly apprehensive because what she took away from my explanation is that it's "Poor and dirty Victorian England. Like when Jack the Ripper was around". I'm not sure that I like her comparing my party theme to Jack the Ripper. I'm also not sure how I'm going to pull it off, but I'm sure I'll get by with a little help from my friends.

    Officially, my party theme is a steampunk masquerade, or "A Clockwork Ball". No, I didn't come up with the name. When I was doing research to try to explain to my mom what steampunk is, I came across this party people throw down in North Carolina by the same name. I've decided to throw my own for my birthday. I wanted to host my party at this place called The Pound House, but I'm not sure how I'm going to decorate it to go with my theme. It's this restaurant in the middle of Elizabeth Park in Hartford. But not grungy Hartford, I mean rich Hartford. Around that area there are streets of mansions, all equip with tall, spiky fences and long drive ways. When I drive by, I like to imagine what it would be like to live there and have grown up there. I never can, but I always try.

     Now, onto the gifts part. First, is my FSotN (Favorite Song of the Now).



    I just love this song! I've loved Panic! At the Disco since they came out, but their second CD just didn't do it for me. The first was fun and full of music that made me want to dance. Like "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" and "Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" and "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage" and "London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines" and "Time To Dance" and "But It's Better If You Do" and "There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought Of It Yet" and "Build God, Then We'll Talk" and "Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks" and "I Constantly Thank God For Esteban" and  of course "Camisado". OK, I just named the whole CD. Yeah, I loved it a lot. But then they came out with a second CD and it was totally different and I just didn't really like it. It was older, more inspiration form classic rock like the Beatles then modern rock. While I love the Beatles (as you can tell from my little sorta-but-still-not-so-hidden reference to them in one of the earlier paragraphs) it just wasn't what I wanted or expected.

     But after hearing the single for "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" (video above) I am just so excited. The video also is helping me with inspiration for my party, seeing as it is done in steampunk fashion. You see, more Victorian rockstar colliding things. Yay!

    Two more gifts. The first is a picture of my new hair color. 

                        Before                                                                     After

Year book photo with my red/brown hair.
I had paid extra for them to take out my
zits in the year book photo...

 ...I wish I could do the same with my camera. You don't get the full
effect of the black color in this picture, but it's pretty dark. 
My bathroom lighting is just sucky so you can't really tell. 

I found both these pictures on Cat's blog, but I loved them so much that I had to reblog them. 

.

I have this picture saved on my computer as
"Johnny Depp And His Multiple Personality Disorder".

So true, so sad. I Feel bad for these new generations.

     Hope this makes up for my long absence. I'll try to be better from now on. Hopefully. Who knows.

                                               ~XOXO,
                                                          Ariana