It’s a constant refrain of mine that there’s a problem with the way boys read. Girls have their own problems too (and delight in discussing those and many other problems at length). But when it comes to reading across the full range of fiction, lads are bit, well . . . squeamish.
This is a particular problem as boys become interested in girls. In order to go beyond the ogling stage, one needs an understanding of how girls think. Boys, who are, for the most part, quite straightforward in their reasoning and motives, find themselves emotionally confused when faced with the tangle of desires, insecurities, passions and complex motives that is the mind of the teenage girl. Frankly, adolescence is a bewildering experience for both sexes and from the boys’ point of view, it’s all the fault of the fairer and more capricious sex.
Having said that, if teenage boys were completely open about their motives and drives, they’d probably make the girls gag with disgust, send them into peals of laughter or scare them shitless.
But at least lads are easier to understand.
A really, really handy way of understanding the mind of a teenage girl is to read the kinds of books that teenage girls read. Boys may recoil in horror at the thought, but let me say this: Girls talk about everything – and some write it all down. There’s a treasure trove of insight and useful facts – vital intelligence in the war of the sexes – just lying beneath all those pink and glittery, or black and broody covers, just waiting to be exposed. If you want to get off with hot girls, do some research.
And I don’t just mean books that are written by female writers, or books that have a girl on the cover. I mean books that are marketed specifically at girls, and are adorned with covers that boys would run a mile from. The books that are no-holds-barred girlie and proud of it. That’s where you’ll find the useful stuff. Outlandish as it sounds, if you want to get past first base with girls, you have to say the right things to them – and definitely avoid saying the wrong things.
Lads, you’ve got to read some girls’ books. And girls, if you want the types of guys who know the stuff you need them to know, you have to give them the right incentives to read.
So, on that note, there is currently an uninhibitedly pink website asking for you to vote for the Queen of Teen. I’m voting for Sarah Webb because she’s a friend of mine, she’s a great writer with a lively style, and because the Amy Green series is the kind of mine of information that boys need.
And ‘cos she’s Irish, and we need to stand up for our own. Vote for Sarah Webb now!
