Here is how things stand at the beginning of Ruby Oliver's junior year at Tate Prep:

Lockhart has created a fun character in the spirit of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones -- Elaine Baran Black School Library Journal Sharp delivery and expert teen inflection Publishers Weekly

E. Lockhart has had nine official boyfriends, if you count the boy who asked her to go out with him at a seventh-grade dance and then basically never talked to her again. In a drawer somewhere, she's got a list of every boy she ever kissed. She has never been on a sports team of any kind and got excused from gym class by going to ballet lessons. She has a tattoo, cuts her own hair, and has worn the same perfume since high school (Kiehl's Chinese Flowers). In her office are Betty and Veronica dolls, a photo of a particularly fat bulldog, an official business card from 'Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective' and the 1920s flapper dress she wore to the prom.