30 Days to Getting over the Dork You Used to Call Your Boyfriend: A Heartbreak Handbook by Clea Hantman

Reviewed by Katie Hayes for TeensReadToo.comby TeensReadToo

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

October 25, 2008: A breakup can seem like the end of the world to a teenage girl. Clea Hantman, author of the new book 30 DAYS TO GETTING OVER THE DORK YOU USED TO CALL YOUR BOYFRIEND, realizes this and treats her readers with sensitivity. But along with offering some advice and perspective, Hantman also offers a lot of fun.

When you're mourning the loss of a relationship, she writes, you go through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The book is divided into parts based on these five stages, and for each of the thirty days, she offers an activity.

At first these activities include things like putting all reminders of ?the dork? in a box and writing down all the things that were wrong with him, but eventually they move on to things like exercising, volunteering, even feng shui. Every day also has a song that's relevant to that day's activity and is, usually, pretty cool. (I made some additions to my iTunes after reading this book!)

The book is also sprinkled with pop culture references that teenagers can relate to and concludes with the lists, ?Girls Who Have Dumped with Aplomb,? ?Girls Who Have Been More Famously Dumped Than You (And Lived to Tell!),? ?Movies About Being Dumped,? ?More Break-Up Songs,? and ?Books About the Ups, Downs, and In-Betweens of Relationships.?

I don't know how effective this book would be for getting over a serious relationship that lasted for years, but I think it provides a lot of guidance and sympathy for most teenage girls dealing with breakups. For everyone else it will, at the very least, provide a smile.