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Lit Chicks Challenge pick: Babe in Boyland

When high school junior Natalie Rowan gets a rude awakening—her Dr. Aphrodite school newspaper column is lambasted for being too sugar-coated and unrealistic—she decides to take matters into her own hands. It’s time to make a pilgrimage to boyland to find out what’s really going on in the brains of HS boys everywhere. But when her lightbulb moment inspires her to cut off her long locks, lower her voice and sport tighty whiteys, she might have gone a hair too far.

Transformed as geeky Nat Rodgers, Natalie enrolls at Underwood, a local guys’ prep school. She’s forced to room with drama god Emilio and eat lunch with the nerds, and that hottie her BFF Chloe is crushing on? That popular sleazebag won’t give her the time of day. But she’s got a mission to complete: chat up as many dudes as she can to get the inside scoop on the inner workings of the teenage guy’s mind.

Jodie Gerhman’s novel is hysterically funny (and a wee bit inappropriate for our younger readers, given the sprinkling of crude language and mature situations). If you’ve read Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the plot will be familiar—a refreshing take on a classic girl-in-disguise story. Natalie is an adventurous and true-to-life heroine that you can get behind. And while her incapability to curb the girly blabber while parading as Nat is a little frustrating—I mean, come on already. Get with the program!—most of the dialogue and behavior is right on.

My favorite part? There were quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, but my numero-uno has to be her initial transformation from Natalie to Nat. Prepare to be ROFL, babes as our fave girl-turned-guy struts her stuff…with a sock in her shorts.

Thanks for sticking with me, sweeties! This is the last Lit Chicks Challenge pick of the summer—see ya next June!

TALK BACK: Tell us what you think

Let’s get the conversation going with a few discussion questions. Feel free to address them (or not) in the comments!

1. What did you learn from Natalie’s exploits?

2. What do you think would be the hardest thing about pretending to be a guy for a week?

3. What was your favorite scene?

Word to the wise: If you haven’t read Babe in Boyland yet and don’t want your experience with the novel to be spoiled, do yourself a favor and don’t read the comments to this post ‘til you’ve read the last page of the book!