Author: Stephanie Perkins
Summary: Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn't believe in fashion... she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit – the more sparkly, more wild – the better. And life is pretty close to perfect for Lola, especially with her hot rocker boyfriend.
That is, until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket return to the neighbourhood and unearth a past of hurt that Lola thought was long buried. So when talented inventor Cricket steps out from his twin sister's shadow and back into Lola's life, she must finally face up to a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door. Could the boy from Lola's past be the love of her future?
Review
Stephanie Perkins sure knows how to write an adorable and easy-to-read romance novel. Lola and the Boy Next Door was almost everything I could wish for in a romance story. I will admit I enjoyed Perkins' previous book- Anna and the French Kiss more than Lola however it was still excellent in its own way.
I think the first sign that this book wasn't as good as Anna and the French Kiss was the main character. Quite simply I just didn't relate or empathise with Lola as much as I did with Anna. I felt Lola was a bit too quirky and also sometimes acted like a bit of a brat. I also didn't sympathise with her fallout with Cricket whatsoever I felt the fact that Cricket was moving and he hadn't told her was an unjustified reason to declare him her sworn enemy. From the blurb I was expecting a huge scandal and the truth felt disappointingly anti-climactic.
I will compliment the way Perkins accurately creates developed teenage characters- Lola similarly to Anna was realistic and flawed ( as any teenager is). Even though I sometimes found Lola's personality and habits over-eccentric I did enjoy the originality of the character.
This uniqueness was replicated in Cricket as well. Cricket was a fantastic love interest. I loved his quiet nature and his kind heart and it was lovely to read about an insecure and timid guy rather than an overly-confident and obvious love interest. To make Cricket seem even better we have the character of Max. I hated Max throughout the entire book. The whole 'Lolita' name calling thing sickened me and I was so happy when him and Lola broke up.
Perkins wrote some really adorable chapters/ moments within this book. A few examples would be:
-The picnic in the forest
-When Lola goes to visit Cricket in college
-When Cricket spends the night with Lola
-Cricket giving Lola his moon/stars invention
-Lola going to the dance dressed as Marie Antoinette and Cricket as her date!
I found Calliope's character to be really interesting in this book. I loved how she cared for Cricket so deeply. The slow reveal of her intentions to keep her brother happy was fantastic and made me go from disliking her to loving her. The costume disaster was such a good chapter and that's when my feelings about Calliope really changed.
One of the highlights of this book for me were the snippets of Etienne and Anna. The last book left off right as Anna and Etienne got together and this installment gave readers the chance to see how their relationship had progressed. Also they were still as adorable as ever and I couldn't wait to get another chapter with them in.
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