Anatomy of a Boyfriend Review

TITLE Anatomy of a Boyfriend (Anatomy #1)
AUTHOR Daria Snadowsky
PUBLICATION January 9th 2007 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers
READ May 19 to 20, 2013
SOURCE From the author for review

Before this all happened, the closest I'd ever come to getting physical with a guy was playing the board game Operation. Okay, so maybe that sounds pathetic, but it's not like there were any guys at my high school who I cared to share more than three words with, let alone my body.

Then I met Wes, a track star senior from across town. Maybe it was his soulful blue eyes, or maybe my hormones just started raging. Either way, I was hooked. And after a while, he was too. I couldn't believe how intense my feelings became, or the fact that I was seeing—and touching—parts of the body I'd only read about in my Gray's Anatomy textbook. You could say Wes and I experienced a lot of firsts together that spring. It was scary. It was fun. It was love.

And then came the fall.

I was recommended this series by my good friend Christina of A Reader of Fictions so when I got a review request from the author I was quick to accept. Am I ever happy that I did! I ate this book up. I couldn’t put it down and ended up finishing it in a day. I think what I loved the most about it was how authentic it all felt. I loved the characterizations and how I found myself thinking “been there, girlfriend” so many times throughout.

Dominique starts out as an inexperienced high school senior and we get to follow her into college and through her first serious relationship. I could totally relate to so many things Dom went through. We get to watch her experience so many firsts; her first boyfriend, her first time, her first time with herself, her first days at college and it’s all done in a completely relatable voice. Dom isn’t perfect and she doesn’t know how to handle everything that is thrown at her which was perfect in the story. She was flawed and had some super selfish thoughts as the story wore on, it brought me back to when I was in her shoes and feeling the same things.

The relationships in the novel are well done too. I absolutely loved Dom’s friendship with Amy. They were besties and so honest with one another. Their conversations were brutally honest and came to show that they were very opposite of one another. While Amy was always ready to throw caution to the wind and jump into everything headfirst, Dom was much more calculated in her actions and I loved what they brought out of one another. Dom also has a solid relationship with both of her parents who are very present in the story, yay for the rare appearance of parents! Her dad’s reactions always garnered a chuckle from me because he was such a dad, nobody was good enough for his little girl.

The main relationship to take the stage here is of course between Dom and her first boyfriend Wes. The growth of their feelings for one another and the attachment that Dom felt to him was spot on. When you have your first love and give yourself to a person for the first time there is definitely an attachment that could be seen as pretty frightening. The clinginess was definitely something that I remember and also the awkwardness. The sex scenes in this novel are plenty and they aren’t uber sensual scenes that turn a reader on, but real first times never are. I appreciated how there was always a curiousness and a want to explore everything but also an underlying nervousness. I mean these are things that our bodies are made to do but at first they are definitely frightening and I think Daria captured that almost perfectly.

This is a new series that I will be recommending to everyone and I can’t wait to finish writing this review because I am going to be jumping straight into the second book. I’m excited to see how Dom fares in college and for the series to take on a much more New Adult feel as we see her out on her own. This was a super fun novel to read and if you are looking for a real story about firsts then definitely pick this on up.