Lola and the boy next door – Stephanie Perkins

Book review

Read: March 11 – 17, 2017

One of the series I want to finish this year is Anna and the French kiss. A super cute romance novel. I expected for the other two novels of these series to be the same in that regard and so I chose to read Lola and the boy next door during a more stressful time.

I wasn’t disappointed. Lola and the boy next door took some time to introduce the characters and they needed that to understand the history and way of thinking of the main character Lola. Nonetheless, it wasn’t as a success for me as the first book was. By having such a normal environment with the family and having no way to identify myself with the main character Lola nor the other characters, it made the whole story just a happy story.

Synopsis

Lola Nolan is dresses differently than most people. Everyday is a new opportunity to be someone else, to show what you stand for, to stand out; simply by chosing her outfits and wigs accordingly. No one can say Lola is a basic girl.

After a terrible event Lola doesn’t want anything to do with the Bell family next door. Luckily for her the Bell family’s moved away and Lola went on with her life. She found the guy of her dreams, a lead singer of band called Max, she knows how she wants to dress up for prom, and together they’ve planned out their lives together. When the family Bell moves back next door Lola is confronted with her past. Not just because of the boy next door, but also her because of her family.

My opinion

What I didn’t foresee was a very nice surprise. Anna and St. Claire are both in the book. Lola works at the same place as Anna and they get along friendly enough. Lola is even a bit surprised about their relationship and sees theirs as a thing to aspire to have. I do, however, expect to see all main characters in the last book now.

Another thing I liked was that Lola asked St. Claire for his opinion on the matter of relationships and St. Claire used his own experience as an example for Lola to figure things out for herself.

Lastly of the things that I really liked were the builds of the characters. Everyone had their own back story and development during the book and they were pretty unique. The vagabond, the pastry maker, being an architect, clothing designer, detective, athlete, et cetera. Where is the simple businessman working at the office?  Not being missed I can tell you that.

A thing that I liked less was the whole relationship with Max and how Lola actually “led Cricket on”, even after saying that they should be only friends. I don’t think that Lola has a good idea of how a relationship works in the beginning and that sort of resolves near the ending, but the whole thing still felt off.

Rating

As I said in the beginning, I couldn’t identify with any of the characters which made the whole story one star less for me than Anna and the French kiss.

★★★☆☆