Product Description

Gretchen Griner is an underpaid, underappreciated photographer for the Austin (that’s Texas) Grackle, part-time lover of Peter Overton Treadwell III (known as “Trout”), and major consumer of Cup O’ Soup. That is, until she meets Lizzie Potts—otherwise known as Viveca Lamoureaux, romance writer extraordinaire. Lizzie has a plan for Gretchen’s life—and it includes Lizzie’s brother Gus. But Gretchen has her own plan, and it does not feature a “wispy goon” named Gus. Of course, fate also has a plan for Gretchen, and it doesn’t care what Gretchen wants. So Lizzie will give Gretchen Gus, Gus will give Gretchen the man of her dreams, and among this oddball cast of marvelous misfits, someone just may discover the secret to true romance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #628597 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-23
• Released on: 2003-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Gretchen Griner, overworked photographer for the Austin Grackle , isn't thrilled when her deadbeat editor and tomcatting boyfriend Trout sends her to Dallas to shoot the annual romance writers' "Luvboree." But she returns to Austin fired up to write a "bodice-ripper" after meeting Lizzie, a romance queen who speaks in an irritating medieval patois, and Juanita, who touts her books as "wet dreams for dry dames." Though Lizzie offers her gentle brother, "the Wisp," as an antidote to the no-good Trout, Gretchen thrusts him aside in order to catch a hood on a motorcycle. Bird lets loose with the manic sense of humor demonstrated in her first novel, Alamo House . Here the hilarity is even gamier and more strained. While Gretchen racks up points for charm when evading her landlord, trading smart-aleck repartee and cruising Austin's streets in a lumbering Delta '88, the novel is heavy-handed and somewhat sophomoric. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Bird's first novel, Alamo House (LJ 9/1/86), was a hilarious female version of Animal House . Now she's once again written a hilarious novel, but this time it's a warm send-up of sorts of romance writers. Gretchen Griner, a dedicated journalist and photographer working for a semiunderground newspaper, is forced to cover the "luvboree," a romance writers' convention. Expecting the worst, Gretchen instead finds her subjects interesting and intellectual, if a little eccentric. Two of them, Juanita and Lizzie, become her friends and attempt to turn Gretchen into a real-life romantic heroine by finding her a boyfriend . Bird is emerging as a writer to watch, and though her wit is piercing and cuts right to the core, it is always tempered by warmth and good intentions. Highly recommended. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections.
- Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
?Falling-off-the-chair hilarious . . . Sarah Bird is a fearless madcap.?
?Los Angeles Times


?SARAH BIRD IS A RIOT OF A WRITER. . . . THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNNIEST BOOKS IN A LONG TIME.?
?Cosmopolitan

?Laced with the bite of good girl-talk, Bird?s observations are as acute as they are entertaining. At once silly and thought-provoking, The Boyfriend School is a literary slumber party, where probing metaphysical discussions overlap manic girl-antics.?
?Austin Chronicle


?ENTERTAINING FROM START TO FINISH.?
?The Houston Post

?BRILLIANT AND HILARIOUS.?
?United Press International


Praise for the novels of Sarah Bird

The Boyfriend School
?Bird possesses the ability to see life?s oddities and continually be entertained. Her humor is not a mean-spirited sarcasm but more an earthy sassiness.?
?Houston Chronicle

?[A] witty, scathing satire.?
?The Daily Texan

Alamo House
?More than just belly laughs. Bird?s stinging observations of human and sexual foibles provide frontline pictures so clear you can read the license plate numbers.?
?Austin Chronicle

?A zany, fast-paced novel . . . The author?s snappy dialogue and pungent characterizations poke fun at everything from rodeo regulars to mass-murderer Charles Whitman, all with a dry wit.?
?Chicago Tribune

The Mommy Club
?Bird outdoes herself with this hilarious, deadpan account of a Texan artist?s attempt at surrogate motherhood. . . . A warm, wise and witty comedy.?
?Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

?A dear and touching and very funny novel about love.?
?The Boston Globe



-- Review

Customer Reviews

cute with a good personality
I read this on recommendation from a reviewer of Olivia Goldsmith's Bad Boy, who claimed that Bad Boy was just a regurgitation of Sarah Bird's book. Now that I've read both, I must agree that The Boyfriend School is the superior book. I thought that the beginning was somewhat sluggish and Gretchen's "special friend" incredibly irritating (overblown and undergroomed). However, after the plot gained speed and the special friend faded out, I was drawn into Bird's quirky characters and Gretchen's angst about her true romantic nature. This is a really charming book that shouldn't be out of print when so many Bridget Jones copy-cats are littering the shelves. And coincidentally, I didn't think that Bad Boy shares much more than a plot device with The Boyfriend School.

This should be a best-seller
Why is this book out of print, and so hard to find. I read it many years ago when I stumbled across it in a library in Vernon, B.C. I loved it so much, and recommended it to all my friends, but could never find it... anywhere. No other library seems to have heard of Sarah Bird. Well to all readers who like to have fun with characters and laugh out loud, go out of your way to find this one. It is delightful. A reporter is sent to cover a romance writers conference (porbably the worst assignment in the newsroom that day. No one in a newsroom has very high regards for these books or writers.) But little does our reporter know she is in for the ride of her life. What can fans do to get this book back into print??

Where are you, Sarah Bird?
I am not a person who usually rereads books, but I just read THE BOYFRIEND SCHOOL for the third time in ten years, and it's one of my absolute favorites. Funny and yet touching, as well. I'm so glad that this book was recommended to me years ago. What I'd like to know is, what happened to Sarah Bird? After 1993, I can't find any record of her having written anything.