Guyaholic (V Valentine #2)

Reader reviewed by Stephanie

V Valentine, the insuppressible anti-hero from VEGAN VIRGIN VALENTINE, is back in a story about her own growing up and falling into love. All her life, V has flitted from one boy to the next at breakneck speed, never stopping to allow any possible emotions to cling to her. Then one fateful hockey game she crosses paths with Sam. Somehow things with him are different.

Could it be that Sam is V's first real boyfriend? V isn't so sure. And given her own mother's history with numerous men, she's pretty certain that love, the kind of emotion that causes you to remain faithful to only one person, doesn't exist. So she constantly pushes Sam away, denying her feelings and, finally, permanently wrecking any relationship they had.

Ashamed, V decides to take a cross-country car trip by herself to visit her mother, whom she has not seen for a while now. Her adventure is nothing spectacular, but it's the thinking that V does on the trip that causes her to realize how she's different from her mother, and how she's grown and is, just maybe, ready to open up to love.

While not one of my favorite books of hers, Carolyn Mackler's novel GUYAHOLIC is nevertheless entertaining, a heartwarming overture for a girl who, despite her faults, we love. It's impossible not to cheer for V as she survives her car trip and learns about herself in the process.

Reader reviewed by mlecompt

V has moved all over the country with her mother and has finally settled in with her grandparents in Brockport, NY, where her mother sent her when she decided to move to Costa Rica to follow some guy. V hooks up with guy after guy until she meets Sam, whom she dates for five months. She won't acknowledge that they are de facto boyfriend and girlfriend and eventually drives him away. Her solution to her heartbreak is to drive all the way to Texas to visit the mom she hasn't seen in 18 months.

V's behavior is sometimes annoying, at times I wanted to reach into the book, grab her shoulders, and give her a good shake, but she has reasons for keeping everyone at arms width. This is a sort of fluffy book with some deeper themes and it was a pretty good read. It's a companion books to Vegan, Virgin, Valentine, but you don't need to read that first in order to understand what happens in this book.