Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Anna and the French Kiss #2

Publisher: Speak

Publication Date: September 29, 2011

Rating: 4 Stars

Source: Purchase

Pages: 384

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Summary (from the back of the book):

Could the boy from her past be the love of her future?

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion… she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit—the more sparkly, more fun, more wild—the better. And life is pretty close to perfect in Lola’s world, especially with her hot rocker boyfriend. That is, until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood and unearth a past of hurt and anguish that Lola thought was long buried. When talented inventor Cricket steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feeling for the boy next door.

This probably contains what could be considered minor spoilers?

I'm not a huge contemporary fan, but I read Anna and the French Kiss earlier this year because one of the people I follow on Tumblr posts like 500 pictures a day of these books. I'm glad I did. I loved Anna and the French Kiss and I liked this one a lot too. They're easy reads.

Lola Nolan is pretty well happy with her life in the beginning of the book. She has a wonderful relationship with her two dads, she's got a hot older boyfriend, and she's planning and creating an incredibly elaborate gown for her winter formal at school. Generally, she's just an all around good kid. Her only problem in life seems to be getting her dads and her best friend to accept that Max is the one. Even though she's 17 and he's 22. So basically everything is smooth sailing for her until the Bells move back in next door. Then she is forced to decide between her first love and Max, whom she thinks is the one. 

So when the Bells come back, Lola is really concerned about having to see Cricket again. Because he apparently broke her heart into a million pieces two years ago before he moved away. The way she talked about it, you'd think that he did something completely horrible to her. But what really happened isn't nearly as unforgivable as she makes it sound. For most of this book, I thought that Lola was just being ridiculous.

But I think Lola is just kind of an over the top person. She dresses in outfits that sound like she should be performing in the circus or something. She really exaggerates everything. Her indecisiveness about Cricket is really the most ridiculous thing about her. He's so OBVIOUSLY the one.

Cricket... He just sounds absolutely adorable. He's kinda shy and nerdy and always blurts stuff out at inappropriate times when he's talking to Lola. It's so endearing. I just kind of want to snuggle him. I felt bad for him for most of this book because of his giant crush on Lola and she was all playing hard to get. And he is living in the shadow of his twin sister, Calliope. Everything in that family revolves around Calliope and her hopefully Olympic ice skating career. Lola helps Calliope see that Cricket doesn't feel appreciated at all in his family.

Calliope comes off as kind of a witch, but deep down she really just has her brother's best interests at heart. He's her best friend and doesn't want to see him get hurt by Lola. But she eventually warms up to Lola and then I kinda started to like her.

Max is a giant tool. Enough said.

I don't really even know what to say about this book. I enjoyed it, but it drove me bananas that it takes the WHOLE BOOK for them to get together (basically had the same problem with Anna and the French Kiss). For the whole book I just wanted to scream, "KISS ALREADY!!"

I love that you get to see more of Anna and Etienne in this book. I really like when books by the same authors have books where characters from their other stories show up again. I hope Lola and Cricket get to be as happy and blissfully in love as Anna and Etienne.

So yeah, I gave it 4 stars for the simple fact that I was ripping my hair out waiting for my ship to sail.

What did you think of this book if you've read it?