The Good Girl's Guide to Mean Boys
This is a sassy, wicked, sexy, gossipy look at life as lived under the influence of ego, raging hormones, and insecurity.
Diva, devoted Mariah Carey fan, and consummate gentleman Prince P. has lots of female friends and really, really cares what happens to them. After many years of listening to his BFFs share their “guy issues” with him, he put together The Good Girl’s Guide to Mean Boys, a delightfully scandalous, funny, and right-on guide to recognizing and avoiding “bad boys.”
Raised in a conservative Asian family and sent to study at an all-boys school, Prince developed an early aversion to “boys being boys”—he found his peers to be “wild, vile, and like little rogues.” The book covers his medical school days, and reveals how his belief that the school only welcomed gentlemen like himself was proved to be totally wrong. “The vast majority were unevolved monsters,” he writes, good at regurgitating textbook knowledge, but self-obsessed and totally lacking in empathy.
Prince revels in his friendships with girls, and serves as their ally and confidant; he credits these friendships as having done a lot to relieve the otherwise unrelenting stress of medical school. He is generous in praising the fine qualities he sees in his female friends, and is ecstatic when they show that they know what they want and refuse to engage in self-sacrifice just to please a boy.
His anger is aroused at seeing so many of his female friends hurt by guys, and he wonders if guys date girls “only to use them as mirrors to reflect their personal egos and boost their morale each day.” He lambastes his fellow male med students with a wicked sense of humor, describing one who is so cheap that he brings food from home rather than shell out at the restaurant where a friend’s birthday is being celebrated; he dishes on guys who are false in their relationships and get to know a girl just to take what she has, including her self-esteem, and then dump her; and he is furious when guys harass girls by posting sexually suggestive, hurtful material over social media. He issues strong, heartfelt warnings against involvement with such guys, and though he knows they won’t always listen, he tells girls what to look out for so that they don’t blindly fall for them only to get hurt.
Prince’s conversational tone owes a lot to the black, gay, and youth subcultures, and he uses their riffs and phrases with skill and lots of humor. His vignettes are brought to life with frequent references to icons of pop culture, especially his favorite singers and their songs, and his descriptions of himself alone in his room energetically shaking his booty to their rhythms are vivid and fun. The book contains a great many errors in grammar, syntax, and punctuation, and the frequent use of “haha” and other such expressions does little to enhance the text. Errors in spelling and word usage are also frequent. The interior design and layout, though not typical, add visual drama to the book.
Prince P.’s The Good Girl’s Guide to Mean Boys is a sassy, wicked, sexy, gossipy look at life as lived under the influence of ego, raging hormones, and insecurity, all compounded by the stresses of med school. Reminding girls of college age of their strength and beauty, it calls those who wish to find love to first learn how to love themselves.
Reviewed by
Kristine Morris
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
