Lola
and the Boy Next Door – Stephanie
Perkins
Pages: 338
Publisher: Dutton
(Penguin US)
Release Date: 29th
September 2011
Budding designer Lola Nolan
doesn’t believe in fashion...she believes in costume. The more expressive the
outfit – more sparkly, more fun, more wild – the better. But even though Lola’s
style is outrageous, she’s a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans
for the future. And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker
boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the
neighbourhood.
When Cricket – a gifted inventor
– steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must
finally reconcile her feelings for the boy next door.
As
soon as I finished Anna and the French
Kiss, I ordered myself a copy of Lola
and the Boy Next Door with a promise from Keris
that I’d love it even more. I loved it – I’m fast becoming a Stephanie Perkins
fan-girl.
I
think that one of Stephanie Perkins’s strengths is in the little things – the
details and side plots of her characters. With the synopsis alone you’re led to
think that Lola and the Boy Next Door will
be a cute, swoon-worthy romance with not a considerable amount of substance.
While it is most definitely swoon-worthy, Lola
and the Boy Next Door is a lot more than that. Lola has two dads for a start and it isn’t even made a big deal of,
it just is; her birth mother has serious problems; and Cricket has a
fascinating family and family history and he draws and writes things on the
back of his hand constantly. It’s with these details that flesh out the
characters to become people that I would love to get to know.
Lola
is funky, quirky and incredibly cool; Cricket is beautifully tall, an ingenious
inventor and a total sweetheart; Calliope is a character that you don’t really
get to know firsthand, but I was incredibly intrigued by and Max has a ’64
Chevy Impala which makes him instantly cool for any fans of Supernatural. And then you have Anna and
Etienne from Anna and the French Kiss who
have a fairly substantial role in the novel and it was lovely to catch up with
them and see how they’re doing now they’re back in the US and going to college.
Like
Anna and Etienne, Lola and Cricket have a sizzling connection. I know she loved
Max, but it was so obvious how she felt about Cricket that annoyed me that she
couldn’t see that she should be with him. Even if Max did have an Impala.
Though I do understand why she had so much trouble, you couldn’t find two more
different guys who are equally lovable in certain ways. But she definitely made
the right decision in the end.
I
loved Lola and the Boy Next Door and
if Isla and the Happily Ever After turns
out to be as good as its predecessors, then Stephanie Perkins could easily
become one of my favourite authors.
Sophie
I keep getting Stephanie Perkins recommended to me..... it looks as if I may have to move her up my To Be Bought list.
ReplyDeleteI read this book recently as well and I absolutely adored it :) I thought Cricket was really sweet. No idea what the thing about Max's car is about though. I liked him for his literary tattoo!
ReplyDelete