Notes to Boys

by Pamela Ribon

Watch the book trailer here! --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGHCn...

NOTES TO BOYS (AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULDN'T SHARE IN PUBLIC) is a "mortifying memoir" from best-selling author and tv/film writer Pamela Ribon. Miserably trapped in small town Texas with no invention of the Internet in sight, Ribon spent countless hours of her high school years writing letters to her (often unrequited) crushes. The big question is why she always kept a copy for herself. Wince along with Ribon as she tries to understand exactly how she ever thought she'd win a boy's heart by writing him a letter that began: "Share with me your soul," and ends with some remarkably awkward erotica. You'll come for the incredibly bad poetry, but you'll stay for the incredibly bad poetry about racism.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Humor, Biography Memoir, Comedy, Book Club, Biography

Audible Audio

First published December 30, 2013

About the author

Pamela Ribon is a screenwriter (Moana, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Bears), performer, TV writer, comic book writer, best-selling novelist, and a Film Independent Directing Lab Fellow.

She is currently adapting her original comic book series SLAM! — co-created with Veronica Fish — as an animated half-hour with Rooster Teeth and Minnow Mountain for HBO Max. She is attached to direct (with Paul Franklin) her live-action feature adaptation of her critically-acclaimed graphic novel My Boyfriend is a Bear (co-created with Cat Farris). She is also adapting her comedic memoir NOTES TO BOYS (AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULDN’T SHARE IN PUBLIC) as an animated series for FX’s CAKE.

Pamela was a flagship contributor to Television Without Pity, and is known as a pioneer in the blogging world with pamie.com, where she launched such viral essays as “How I Might Have Just Become the Newest Urban Legend” and “Barbie Fucks it Up Again,” the latter of which led to #FeministHackerBarbie, a revamp of Mattel’s products and marketing for Barbie, and the creation of Game Developer Barbie as “Career of the Year.” Pamela’s stage work has been showcased at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival and she created the accidental international scandal known as Call Us Crazy: The Anne Heche Monologues.

A former Austinite with a BFA in Acting from the University of Texas, Pamela has been entered into the Oxford English Dictionary under “muffin top.” That is not a joke. @pamelaribon | she/her

Reviews

[Pamela Ribon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since my mom isn't on Goodreads, I'm giving me her five stars. IT COUNTS.

[Monica Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

What did I think about this book Goodreads? I am so glad you asked! This book was freaking fantastic. You will at first find yourself shouting "Why!?" and "How?!" to present day Pam who decided to put all this in print, and by the end you will be thanking her for it. Being a teenage girl is hard, it was hard when Pam was a teenager, it was hard when I was a teenager, and it is hard for my students who are currently teenagers. There are moments that will make you laugh until you cry and even a few that will catch you off guard with their honesty and realness. It's true Little Pam wrote some interesting letters and stories, but I for one am sure glad she kept writing.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a librarian many of the books I read come in the form of advanced readers copies. I was lucky enough to get an ARC of Notes to Boys. I admit I was kind of stalking this book in the hopes of doing just that. I had read and loved Pamela Ribon’s previous four books Why Girls Are Weird, Why Moms Are Weird, Going in Circles, and You Take It From Here, the latter of which I named my favorite book of 2012. Thus when I heard she had another book coming out I was excited. I had also enjoyed the sort of sneak preview of the book in the form of the “Little Pam” posts on her blog, which ultimately turned into this book. I get most of my ARCs through NetGalley and knew that the publisher for this book puts some of their books up there so I started periodically searching for it to see if it was available just in case I missed it while browsing the list of new books available to request. Then the day before Thanksgiving I was browsing and saw that it was there. I was super excited to request it and then much to my delight I realized that Rare Bird Books is one of the publishers that has granted me auto-approval for their books so I didn’t even have to wait. I could download it immediately. Thus I spent my train ride to New York on Thanksgiving morning reading this book and loving it. It totally did not disappoint.
The book is a memoir of sorts based on the titular notes to boys that Ribon wrote as a teenaged girl. Apparently she made copies of many of the notes to keep for herself, so many if not all of these were actually sent. In addition to the notes themselves Ribon provides commentary on them including background information about the boys they are written to and what is going on in her life around the time they are being written as well as critiquing her writing style and what she is saying in them.
The addition of setting the scene for the notes provides a through story in the memoir so that it’s not just a series of notes with no backstory. The notes themselves are mostly cringeworthy, especially when you think about the fact that she actually gave these to people. I hate watching people embarrass themselves including fictional characters in books, movies, and television, so I kind of wanted to read much of this book through my fingers so I didn’t have to look. It makes me really glad that I never really gave any notes to boys as a teenager. Most of mine were sent to a friend. I would probably find many of them equally as cringeworthy, and I dearly hope she has burned all of them or at least thrown them away.
Lest you think you will be cringing in the fetal position the whole team you are reading this book let me assure you it is very funny as well. Ribon’s commentary on her notes is down right hilarious and I laughed out loud more than once while reading it. She puts humor in all the right places and does an excellent job sprinkling it throughout her commentary on the notes, which otherwise could have become very repetitive and boring to read.
She also deals with some tough issues in the book as well. Her home life had some definite difficulties and there was an incident of molestation she doesn’t go into much detail about, but does talk about in hindsight how it affected her relationships in the time period talked about in this book as well as into adulthood.
It’s a wonderful book, and I recommend it highly. If you were ever a teenaged girl you definitely need to read Notes to Boys.

[Jenn Morgans · Rating 5 out of 5]

At one point, reading this book on the commute to work, I started laughing so hard that I had to press my face into the bus window, and the elderly lady next to me got worried and moved away to sit somewhere else. So my first comment about this wonderful book is that you probably shouldn't read it in public, or around any other people at all, because of the peals of unattractive, deeply hysterical laughter that you will spill all over the place.

Pamela Ribon spent her adolescence writing love letters to boys. She's still got the first drafts in a box. In some cases, you hope that she's got the only draft in that box, because the idea of her delivering them - as she apparently frequently did - to the addressed recipients is delightfully horrifying. From the 200-page letter she wrote at 13 to her first love, through her 15-year-old pining angst letters and poems, and her 16 and 17-year-old toe-curlingly awkward "erotica", Pamela's got them all and reprints them here in all their excrutiating detail, along with anecdotes of her doomed love affairs with Holly Hunter Boy, Nice Boy, Soft Hair, Super Mario Brothers Boy and my personal favourite, Gumpubes Boy.

It takes a brave woman to bare her teenaged soul, and I admire Ribon whole-heartedly for sharing these notes with the world; yes, they are incredibly, gut-wrenchingly funny, but they clearly meant a lot to "Little Pam", as she refers to her teenage self, and in-between the laughter there are long moments where you want to cuddle Little Pam and tell her that boys are mean and this is never going to happen again and maybe she should put the metaphors down and step away from them for her own good. Most of us can still recall the seriousness of teenage love, and the awfulness of heartbreak, pining, and all that poetry we wrote and thought was so deep when it... really wasn't, and Ribon's memoirs here are a lovely and occasionally skin-crawlingly uncomfortable reminder of the universal experience of hormones, first love, friendship, pining, and negotiating the establishment of one's identity.

As with most things, it's not all hilarity and tricky metaphors involving bottles of rain: I'll add in here a trigger warning for some brief relationship violence, an uncomfortably controlling homelife, and a sensitively handled background of child molestation. And there's also a chapter about victim-blaming that I think everyone should be forced to sit down and read: for once, the tears in my eyes weren't from laughter. Ribon is a very funny writer, but she's also a smart, sharp one, and what I initially entered into as a light-hearted collection of teenaged letters ended up moving me far beyond what I expected.

Notes To Boys is rather like re-living your teenage years, actually: mostly it's hilarious to look back on how seriously we took everything, how clever we thought we were, how much we thought we knew, and how we recorded ourselves in the world, but there's a bittersweetness to it all, an underlying darkness and some real heartbreak in here. Some small part of me even wants to go back to being a teenager again, having read this; however, before I do that, there's a spiral-bound dark blue notebook that I need to find and destroy, just in case...

[Book Riot Community]

If you need cheering up or just need a reminder why you wouldn’t want to live your teenage years over, this book is for you! Ribon kept all the letters she wrote – and mostly delivered – to boys when she was young, and they are just as awkward and painful as you can imagine. But paired with her hilarious commentary, they make for a charming, thoughtful read. So cringe and laugh your way through her teen melodrama (while secretly being relieved that no one is publishing your teenage diary).

Backlist bump: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson


Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once in Seattle I went to a performance of the Salon of Shame. People read stories, poems, journal entries from when they were teenagers, and it was frickin' hilarious. I'll never forget the erotic story written by a young Cienna Madrid where her characters "started humping, tentatively." I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

Ribon's book starts out in that same vein. It's hilarious, but you wonder how this can form an entire book. And the answer is, it doesn't. Yes, the book is centered around these teenage writings, fueled by hormones, loneliness, and confusion ("It's really hard to be fifteen"), but "Little Pam" becomes a deeper and more complex character, as do the boys (some of whom she was still in contact with when putting this book together two decades later).

I have a strange sense of both continuity with and dissociation from my young self. I still feel like the same person I was when I was 14. It was I who wrote too many sonnets (and thought the distinction between Shakespearean and Petrarchan was important). But reading things I wrote back then, I do feel like a substantially different person now. Ribon artfully weaves horror at and mocking of her impulsive and logorrheic young self with a true affection for her and everyone else who's been in that situation of feeling things intensely but not quite knowing what to do (which I suspect is everyone who's been a teenager?).

Will flipping through these pages make me feel nostalgic, or will it remind me of the years I cried every day, wishing for a different life?

Maybe both.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can you imagine finding the diaries and letters you'd written when you were a teenager and reading them as a adult? Apparently the author did and this book is her analysis of them.

The book quotes the writings by date and the author cuts in to say what was going on at the time or make a snarky comment. And other times, the author provides detail about wanting to lose her virginity, her dad having the talk with her about the facts of life, the various boys she'd become obsessed with (some didn't know she existed), etc.

I thought this book sounded like it would be a hoot ... and it was for a while. But I found it was the same thing over and over and I got bored with it. And I found it hard to believe that a 15-year-old would actually put down on paper these ramblings. I felt kind of bad for her teenage self because she was so desperate to be loved.

This book wasn't for me, I guess.

Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2014/01...

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was unprepared for how much I would love this book. It's laugh-out-loud hilarious, but also sweet, sad, and awkward. Ribon uses her letters to boys to get to the heart of being a fifteen-year-old girl, in all its horrifying intensity.

There are a few triggering incidences (sexual trauma, self-harm) that are peppered throughout the book, but I think Ribon deals with them in a sensitive way.

I'll be reviewing this more thoroughly for Forever Young Adult, but in the meantime, make sure you pick up a copy. Unless, of course, you're afraid of flashing back to that poetry you wrote in spiral bound notebooks while candles burned next to rose quartz crystals on your dresser. (Now I know it definitely wasn't just me.)



FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from the publisher. I received neither money nor a pet unicorn for writing this review, despite how hard I wished for one.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Notes to Boys" is a funny and oftentimes humiliating look back at the silly and ridiculous notes that Ribon kept from her adolescence. Ribon kept a notebook filled with first drafts and notes that she actually sent to boys. Whereas most people would burn such embarrassing relics from the past, Ribon puts them front and center and shares her teen angst with the masses. Sometimes I laughed, other times I cringed out of humiliation I felt for her. Definitely an easy, laughable read.

[Abi Wurdeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first: this book is hilarious. You will laugh. That will happen, so pick it up and read it for that reason.

Second things second: it’s also beautiful and the type of book that’s so (entertainingly) honest about the experience of being a teenage girl (and a grown woman who can’t escape the memory of having once been a teenage girl) that it almost—almost—absolves the reader of all the mistakes, humiliations, and insecurities of youth. Those parts of your younger self that you’ve been trying to forget? Ribon has those, too. And she shows them to you. And you laugh. And suddenly, you’re strangely proud of that time you saved a recording of yourself reading a letter before you sent it to that boy in sixth grade. Or maybe “proud” isn’t the word. “Less ashamed,” maybe. Or at least “free to laugh about it now.”

My point is, read this book. But read it for the hilarity; let yourself be surprised at how good it is for your heart.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh gosh, I cringed from embarrassment-by-proxy and then I laughed and cringed and cried some more. This was actually kind of wonderful. I like that Ribon doesn't over-explicate the context for some of these letters and stories; there are references to pretty heavy things (abuse, sexual assault, depression) but where I would normally find Ribon's reluctance to engage with them head on to be kind of annoying, in this case it ended up making her experiences feel more universal. It's hard to explain. Reading this kind of made me want to get together with her and a box of wine and spend hours going, "OMG, and did you ever..?" and giggling and crying until 4 AM.

[Jenny]

I can't imagine sharing my teenage journals/letters with anyone, so I'm glad Pamela Ribon did it for us so we can all laugh along with her - we've all been there, girl. I also loved this book as a peek into what it was like to be a teenager in the 90s - Little Pam felt like a friend and a kindred spirit. An unfortunately rare female coming-of age story that's hilarious, vulnerable, and insightful.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lord, this book is funny. Funny and sad and true. I wasn't once a teenage girl but I was certainly young, stupid, full of big ideas that came out in all the wrong places and made a giant mess of everything but mostly me. I probably would've gotten further in my chosen career had I at least figured out how to write them out like Little Pam did instead of just blurting them and then being heartbroken when they didn't work. Then repeating.

Here's what you're in for: Letters Pam-in-high-school (c. early 90s in suburban Houston) footnoted and commented by present-day-Pam (screenwriter of Moana and Wreck-it-Ralph 2) interspersed with a half dozen essays what we are seeing (youth and gender roles from 30 years ago) via the straight gaze of the present. You probably won't be fully in-it for every moment (that's really only possible if you are very mean, hate whom you once were and enjoy cackling at the failings of youth)but a dip here, a sustained Sunday afternoon to follow (that's how I finished it) and "Notes to Boys" will be read but stick around inside you.

I hear it's also being adopted as an animated series. that makes so much sense

If you believe

[LitReactor]

There’s basically two main characters switching perspective throughout the memoir, although they’re ultimately the same person. Grown-up Ribon narrates us through her early ‘90s journey as Little Pam (LP), the wannabe writer who kept copies of the copious letters she sent to every teenaged boy unfortunate enough to look her way—and sometimes even to those who never did. Here and there we get sprinkles of (mostly bad) poetry and short stories. You can’t read too many chapters in one sitting, either because you feel too embarrassed at LP’s follies or too overwhelmed by flashbacks from your own adolescence. If you were ever a teenaged girl, at least.

Ribon’s a comedian at heart, so most of the book is funny, with just enough heaviness to remind you that you’re reading a memoir, not a Disney Channel script. There are some dark moments, although Ribon mostly glosses over them in favor of focusing on the more widespread embarrassments of adolescence. There were a couple places where this became an issue, because in our culture of rape and bullying, it’s no longer okay to play down the inflated feelings of angst that go along with the teen years, especially for young girls. But if you can get past the one suicide joke, in particular, she does get serious on the issue later on.

The letters are reported as-is, so there’s loads of distracting [sic]s in the way, and Ribon can’t help interjecting commentary every other sentence, leering at each of LP’s imperfections like a nitpicking mother. I remember being a teenaged girl struggling to be heard, and I just want to scream at Ribon, Let the girl speak already! But it’s just because Ribon’s made me see myself in LP, so that even while I’m annoyed by the girl I want to hug her and tell her everything will be okay, that I love Siamese Dream too, that I miss my K too, that we all find our Nice Boy one day and so will she.

So ultimately I enjoyed the book, and I rooted for LP even when I wanted to slap her. The last quarter of the book is the best, so hang around for the payoff.

--

Review by Tiffany Turpin Johnson

Check out more from this review at LitReactor (http://litreactor.com/reviews/booksho...)!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes to Boys is a hilarious look at how painfully embarrassing it is to be fifteen, but it also strikes an elegant balance between poking fun at Little Pam (or really, letting her embarrass herself) and reflecting on how real and hard these feelings are for teenagers. As Ribon says more than once in the book, being fifteen is the worst. And sixteen. And all those years when your hormones are conducting science experiments to see which combination will make you craziest.

Ribon may have been a dramatic teenager, but she was also a damaged one, and although this is primarily a humor book, she gives us glimpses into why Little Pam acted the way she did. These glimpses are brief but meaningful; Little Pam is a sensitive kid, perhaps a giant dork, but she's looking for something via connecting to these boys that is very real and necessary. As the book goes on it becomes more bittersweet. Seeing Little Pam become grown up Pam is an almost dizzying transition for those of us who embarrassed ourselves in high school (not that I ever did that). This book is hilarious, heartbreaking, and so so brave. I could never admit the things I said to and thought about boys at that age.

[Mike Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Notes to Boys" is a hilarious and often-touching memoir that does a great job balancing out the genuine challenges of teenage love with some of its accompanying absurdities. And the audio version - read by Pamela Ribon herself - is a true work of performance art. She not only repeatedly goes off script, but reads the 'notes' in such an over-the-top way that it's nearly impossible not to laugh along with her.

Mostly chronicling her teenage years and the many (unseen) letters she wrote to various crushes, the biggest laughs in 'Notes' come from the anecdotes featuring all of their characters (given nicknames like 'Super Mario Boy' to differentiate themselves). At times I cringed listening to some of the awkwardness she describes of her youthful experiences (my favorite story being when a cop caught her fooling around with a boy in a car). And while the tone is mostly light, Ribon's book is not all humor. The book (especially the second half) tackles serious issues - love, heartbreak, racism, abuse - all from the prism of a teenager years ahead in maturity.

The book is an easy 4 stars, but considering the extra 'oomph' she gives the narration in the audio version, I'm bumping up to 5!

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love about Pamela Ribon’s books is how they are simultaneously hysterical and heartbreaking. They’re like two, two, two books in one! Except they aren’t, because she manages to move between the two extremes—giving more time to the hilarious, thank goodness—in a way that feels completely normal.

In “Notes to Boys,” Ribon adult-narrates her teen dorkiness. Her notes to boys are exactly that: uncensored bits from her journals and first drafts of notes—some 200+ pages!—detailing her ascent into madness. And isn’t that how must of us entered our teens, mostly sane until the hormones hit? What she shares will make most readers cringe and nod and laugh along with her... and dig around in their parents’ attic for their old journals.

(That’s what I did anyway, and was disappointed to find that my teenage journals were far less interesting than Little Pam’s, though they were equally embarrassing.)

“Notes to Boys” is another Pamela Ribon hit. She has woven these excerpts from her journals into a story that, like her earlier books, is both realistic, relatable, and an absolute joy to read.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes to Boys is a book in which Pam Ribon shares, well, notes that she wrote to boys she liked. In between her notes she interjects commentary and offers context, usually with much wit and the ability to make the reader LOL in its literal state. For example, when she ends a letter very abruptly Ribon will add the context, "And then Little Pam through the letter and ran away to..." and though the sentence always stars the same, the ending is always different and appreciated.

Notes to Boys is admittedly an easy read. It won't take you long and it certainly won't challenge you in new ways. It could probably be classified as a beach read... except there's also a lot of unexpected heart here. Yes, Ribon is being silly, but there is also an undercurrent of pain and hormones and the struggles that being 15-17 turn into end-of-the-world scenarios.

Ribon not only delights readers with her humor but reminds them that teenagers struggle with shit. Sometimes it's as heady as molestation and racism or sometimes it's as stupid as the boy you play video games with won't kiss you already (unless he's asleep).

[Kdunbier · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, this book is hilarious. Like, "will alarm the people around you because they will think you are having a seizure" hilarious. There's some details that hit way close to the vest though man, so maybe it wouldn't be quite as hilarious to everyone as it was to me (my friend had that SAME nkotb lightswitch cover and I forgot entirely until I read it in this book!! I forgot that decorative lightswitch covers were a thing!!). That was amazing. Also I had such a weakness for skater boy hair too.
My favorite more-serious passage:
"We went to my house to pick up my Smashing Pumpkins CD. Siamese Dream had just come out so we needed it, as we couldn't imagine doing anything that night without that new album playing. Sometimes I miss that age in my life when a CD could be that important, that it could be something I couldn't go another minute without hearing. Music could once define the night's path, tell us how to feel, or simply give us a reason to make out."
In a nostalgic mood, I actually wrote a very similar passage in my own journal a few months ago about drugs.

[Helen Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Struggling between 3 and 4 stars for this one but since I have been a fan of Pamela Ribon (Pamie!) for many years I'm giving her the 4.

I listened to this as an audiobook and I think that's a good idea because she reads it herself and it's pretty hilarious to hear the drama of the old love notes read by Little Pam and the embarrassed, knowing voice of Grown up Pam interjecting from time to time.

Ribon does a great job letting you reimagine the total over-the-top drama and love sick nature of being a teenage girl. The real question is this: do you really WANT to remember that?

Her stories are funny but some are quite raunchy so that might not be everybody's cup of tea. She also uses code-names for all the boys in the book, which makes perfect sense, but gets a little annoying when read aloud because the names can be quite long "Super Mario Brothers Boy" for example.

My only real issue is that the book runs a little long. I don't think it actually IS a long book but the material is repetitive and after awhile I got the idea and I had had enough.

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pam (of Pamie.com) shares her teenage journals and notes and stories with commentary from her current self. Little Pam wrote a lot of notes to boys, and she saved all her first drafts, which are funny and sad and very very (squirm in your seat) awkward. Pam unflinchingly shares the intense feelings and words of Little Pam with great affection and gratitude for the things that she has learned since these tumultuous times, and that’s what gives the book such heart. I would love to give Notes to Boys to high school girls so that they could see that they are not alone in the intensity of their feelings and also to remind them to hang in there because life after high school is very different. I think I would have loved a book like this in high school. It’s not targeted as specifically young adult or new adult but I think it will find a lot of fans there. I also recommend it for anyone who works with teenagers or remembers their teen years as being particularly rough.

[lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really liked this and spent a lot of time crying laughing on the t and muttering "oh pam" under my breath, which are both things that strangers in a crowded subway car love!

i don't know how well it will work for someone who isn't already a fan of pam though? like, pam has been my real life hero for 11 years now, and even though all of her books are somewhat personal this one is (obviously) the most personal, since it's an actual memoir. but she's so smart and funny and great and i think what i loved best about this book was knowing that LP would figure it out and make it through and find whatever she was looking for, and...you only know that cos i'm telling you that?

BUT it is really funny and great and you might also find it funnier and greater if you spent your high school years chasing boys or whatever. it was more like a hilarious anthropological study for me.

[Jennifer Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

They saw something that truely makes you laugh out loud is usually something that really resonates with you personally. Little Pam and Little Me could have been best friends. BFF's for life. Notes to Boys is hilarious in it's awkwardness and heartbreaking in it's honesty. I wore my heart on my sleeve.... and pants, and sweaters, and socks and whatever else I'd be wearing on any particular day when I was an awkward teenager. I've got notes to boys, (which I thankfully 90% of the time DID NOT DELIVER TO THE INTENDED CRUSH DU JOUR) that are every bit as cringe worthy and hilarious and awkward as Ms. Ribon's. I can 100% resonate with "Pammie" with her stories as I was the same girl pining after unattainable boys. This book is awesome and I so WISH that I had this to read when I was 15... although I'm not sure I would find it nearly as funny as I do now.

Great book- highly recommend!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning parts of this book seriously might be the funniest thing I ever read - I can't ever remember before laughing so hard that I actually couldn't read! The book remains funny, though it also gets more serious and poignant at times. Essentially a memoir of the author's teenage years, told through the mechanism of excerpting, and commenting on from her present day perspective, her teenage writings, all of which she kept . Journals, stories, poetry, even the titular embarassing notes which she sent to boys, but kept copies of for herself. Anyone who was ever a melodramatic teenage girl will find something in here to relate to.

[Lisa Heiberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heart Pamela Ribon. I think we are kindred spirits. I used to follow her blog on pamie.com and I was so excited when I read about this book. She chronicles the notes she wrote to boys from ages 13-18 and comments on them now. It is hilarious and brings me totally back to that age and makes me want to find all the notes I saved from that same era. We are the same age and I felt like I was re-living some of the best and also sometimes the most embarrassing moments of being a teenager. This is a perfect summer book and I laughed out loud many times.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much. I read the entire thing in one sitting, laughing helplessly for most of the time, but with my hand clamped over my mouth in the way you do when what you're laughing about is sort of painful. Little Stacey and now Stacey both identify so much with this book that reading it was by turns mortifying and deeply cathartic. I wish I had been able to read this when I was in high school and realise I wasn't alone. If you've ever been a teenage girl or you've ever wanted to understand one you must, must, must read Notes to Boys.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was like revisiting all my high school diaries and notebooks. That is to say: unintentionally hilarious and mortifying in equal parts. I read it in one sitting.

Pam Ribon's post-mortem of her earnest teenage purple prose had me snort-laughing in a way that made me glad I was alone in the house, or someone would have thought I might be choking.

Thank you for doing this, Pam.

[Eleanore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny, and a great mix of personal and ridiculous (well, it's all personal). I never experienced so many feelings for boys as a pre-teen nor a teenager, let alone wrote so much feeling down, but it's fun to root through someone else's memory box, especially when she's got such a good sense of humor about it all.

[Lisagayle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little Pam goes from 15 to 19. I think her letter to her 6 mo old daughter is the best in the book. Some parts of the book are down right funny and self-deprecating but there are other parts that make you feel sad and amazed how she got to adulthood without to many scars emotionally and physically. I recommend this book to any one that has been a teenage girl or has daughters.

[Niki Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always have great respect for someone that can make fun of themselves.
I felt utter humiliation for this lady the whole way through, mostly because I have written my fair share of notes and journal entries that if I still has I would burn so no one could every see them.