The Readventurer
  • Home
  • YA Reviews
  • Adult Reviews
  • Contests and Giveaways
  • Policies
  • About Us
    • Flannery's Challenges
    • Catie's Challenges
  • Contact Us

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

8/8/2011

0 Comments

 
Lola and the Boy Next Door cover
Lola and the Boy Next Door
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publication Date: 9/29/11
Publisher: Dutton

Blurb (GR):

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 neighborhood.

When Cricket -- a gifted inventor -- steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

Review:
Did you read Anna and the French Kiss?:
A.YES, I loved it!
B.YES, it was okay.
C.YES, and I didn’t like it.
D.NO, but I intend to.
E.NO, it’s not for me.

If you picked A, B, or D, please proceed to review #1.
If you picked C or E, please proceed to review #2.
__________________________________________________
Review #1:
LOVE! This book is fun, fun, fun (til her daddy takes the T-bird away). It has a very similar feeling to its companion novel Anna and the French Kiss—a teenage girl who already has a boyfriend falls for a guy who seems practically perfect in every way, except his family doesn’t appreciate him as much as they should. The current boyfriend is sort of a douchebag and plays in a band and the protag is quirky. The main character in this one, Delores (Lola) Nolan, lives with her two dads in San Francisco. (Remember that show ‘My Two Dads’? I totally forgot about it until this moment) She loves fashion and spends a ton of her time designing and sewing costumes and putting together all sorts of crazy outfits. In the first few pages, Lola sees a moving truck and I think it is no spoiler who is moving in NEXT DOOR-- her love interest. (see: title of the book) Cricket Bell is tall, stylish, and always inventing all sorts of things. His family’s been on the move a lot because his sister is a world-class figure skater and her career dominates the family. Lola’s never gotten along with Calliope but she got along fine (*winkwinknudgenudge*) with Cricket before they moved away two years prior. That is, except for the last day she saw him. Now he’s back and it is reconciliation time. There’s only one boyfriend standing in the way.

Lola frustrated me a bit because several of her problems are self-inflicted. I know it isn’t always the easy thing to do but if you are dating someone and totally have the hots for someone else, you are a huge d-bag if you don’t break it off. Sure, the other person’s feelings will be hurt but no one likes looking like a fool after the fact.  I did like Lola as a character but I wish/ed that she would man up, stop leading Cricket on, and be a better friend to Lindsay.

Anna and St. Clair make much more of an appearance than I thought they would. They actual show up throughout the entire novel and it was a plus and minus situation for me. I was happy to see characters I knew but I have probably read 100 books since Anna and I no longer remembered the details of their true love always and forever relationship so their constant togetherness was a bit off-putting to me. Like those newish couples who are always PDAing all over the place.

I’m a pretty huge sucker for boy next door stories. Or really any situation where someone awesome has been under the protag’s nose for years. I hope I am not making it sound like I hated this book. I was annoyed with Lola quite a bit but I really LOVED most of this book. And you know what made this book even better for me? That my friends sent it to me with their comments written in it. I absolutely adored reading their thoughts and adding my own for people later on the tour list.

I really enjoyed this and will keep reading anything Stephanie Perkins writes…but a little more than a little of me wants to see how she handles something other than this storyline.

Thank you so, so much Arlene for sharing your copy with me!

Review #2:
You probably won’t like this book. Move along, nothing to see here.

3.5/5 stars

Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011

    Categories

    All
    Abuse
    Addiction
    Angels
    Anthologies
    Audiobooks
    Aussie Ya
    Boarding School
    Bullying
    Cancer
    Catie's Y.a. Reviews
    Catie's Y.A. Reviews
    Christmas
    Contemporary Ya
    Cowboys
    Crime Solving
    Cross-dressing
    Deafness
    Death And Dying
    Depression
    Divorce
    Drugs And Alcohol
    Dystopia
    Dystopian
    Fairy Tales
    Family Issues
    Fantasy
    Favorites
    Friendship
    Frustrating
    Funny
    Geniuses
    Ghosts
    Graphic Novel
    Graph/Pic Review
    High School
    Historical Fiction
    Illness
    Illustrated
    Lgbtq
    Magic
    Middle Grade Fiction
    Music
    Mystery
    Necromancer
    Newbery Medal
    Paranormal
    Parent Issues
    Problems
    Psychiatric Issues
    Published: 1963
    Published: 1978
    Published: 1991
    Published: 1992
    Published: 1994
    Published: 1998
    Published: 1999
    Published: 2000
    Published: 2002
    Published: 2003
    Published: 2004
    Published: 2005
    Published: 2006
    Published: 2007
    Published: 2008
    Published: 2009
    Published: 2010
    Published: 2011
    Published: 2012
    Publisher: Aladdin
    Publisher: Allen & Unwin
    Publisher: Black Dog Books
    Publisher: Blackstone Audio
    Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
    Publisher: Brilliance Audio
    Publisher: Candlewick Press
    Publisher: Candlewick Press
    Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab
    Publisher: David Fickling Books
    Publisher: Delacorte
    Publisher: Delacorte
    Publisher: Del Rey
    Publisher: Dial
    Publisher: Dutton
    Publisher: Farrar Straus And Giroux
    Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
    Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
    Publisher: Feral Dream
    Publisher: First Second
    Publisher: Harlequin
    Publisher: Harper Children's Audio
    Publisher: HarperCollins
    Publisher: HarperTeen
    Publisher: Henry Holt
    Publisher: Hyperion
    Publisher: Katherine Tegan
    Publisher: Knopf
    Publisher: Lee & Low Books
    Publisher: Little Brown
    Publisher: Lothian Books
    Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
    Publisher: Penguin Australia
    Publisher: Point
    Publisher: Puffin
    Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
    Publisher: Scholastic
    Publisher: Simon Pulse
    Publisher: Simon Spotlight
    Publisher: St. Martin
    Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
    Publisher: Subterranean Press
    Publisher: Tor
    Publisher: Viking Australia
    Publisher: Viking Juvenile
    Publisher: Young Picador
    Pusblisher: Arthur A. Levine
    Relationships
    Religion
    Reviewed: 2010
    Reviewed: 2011
    Reviewed: 2012
    Road Trip
    Romance
    Science Fiction
    Setting: Boston
    Setting: California
    Setting: Canada
    Setting: China
    Setting: England
    Setting: Germany
    Setting: Minnesota
    Setting: New Jersey
    Setting: New York
    Setting: Ohio
    Setting: Oregon
    Setting: Paris
    Setting: Pennsylvania
    Setting: Prague
    Setting: Seattle
    Setting: Seattle
    Setting: Turkey
    Setting: Virginia
    Setting: Washington
    Setting: Wyoming
    Sex
    Sexual Abuse
    Short Stories
    Space
    Surfing
    Time Travel
    Unicorns
    Urban Fantasy
    Vampires
    Verse
    War
    Werewolves
    World Building
    Young Adult
    Young Adults
    Zombies

    RSS Feed


Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.