Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky

Anatomy of a Boyfriend:
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.

While this could be considered simply written, Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky was one of those contemporary, coming of age and self-discovery books that has one of the most realistic endings I’ve read in a while. Daria does a lot of “telling” in this book, but that seemed to really work for the story. Dominique and Wesley are two teenagers discovering their bodies for the first time, and through frank descriptions the reader is taken along in this journey of discovery. I enjoyed the characters and the path leading up to their relationship, and the sex scenes, while sometimes awkward they were also full of exploration and honesty.

Dominique (Dom) never really thought about guys the way some of her friends did, she was always too busy concentrating on her education. That all changes when she meets Wesley. Suddenly her thoughts are consumed by more carnal imagery and while school work is still important, she cannot get Wesley out of her mind. Over the next few, achingly slow, months Dom and Wes become closer and soon their friendship turns into something more. Experiencing everything for the first time together makes it all the sweeter, and the intensity quickly grows as they bare themselves completely to each other and cross into new territory. But their relationship quickly begins to break down over the distance of their separate collages. Alone and heartbroken, Dom returns to school determined to forget Wes and become successful in med school.