"Lola and the Boy Next Door" Review

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK SPOILERS SPOILERS OKAY

Despite the unhappy tears I shed inside whenever I look at the title and cover of Stephenie Perkins' two books -- they do such a disservice to the stories inside; I never in a million years would have picked up Anna and the French Kiss had it not been recommended to me by John Green (well, not personally) and a million other people (I suppose thus negating the million years) -- she really does know how to write a good romance story.

Lola and the Boy Next Door was cute, it was funny, and it does nothing to give real-life boys a boost, if you know what I'm saying. It definitely convinced me that I should continue to make an exception for "chick lit" when it comes to Stephanie Perkins.*

However, what kind of reviewer would I be if I didn't skip over the good parts and go straight to the critiques? (Oh, a normal one, you say? Shut up.)

Problems:

- The conflict. The reason why she was initially so wary of Cricket seemed way overblown. I get the feeling that this could conceivably cause a huge rift in the friendship of a teenager, and I'm sure if I were in that situation I would feel the same way, but when you're reading about it, you're just like, really? That's why his house causes you painful palpitations of the heart? Maybe it's just because I'm not one for believing in "ONE TRUE LOVE," but man, it would have been nice if there had been, you know, an actual interesting reason for their estrangement. It wasn't too big a deal as the book progressed, but it was sort of off-putting in the beginning part. Points for not dragging out the "mystery" of their estrangement for too long, though.

- Max. It was a little hard to put up with Lola fawning over him since you knew they were obviously going to break up -- I think their relationship went on for too long. It seemed to serve as one of the main tensions in the story, but I feel that a lot of time was wasted with him when it could have been spent better developing the Lola/Cricket relationship, which seemed a tad bit superficial, to be honest. Also, like, Max is a jerk (though I guess that was pretty clearly emphasized in the book)... The age difference started feeling weirder towards the end. Yuck.

- Repetitive plot. I suppose this is why I normally avoid fluffy romance literature. You could totally see where this book was going... and I guess it's the sort of book that you read more for the content than the ending, since it's predictable and easygoing, but I still would like to have had something with a bit more oomph, something a bit less of the "quirky, unpopularish main girl gets the dreamboat" plot to every teenager romcom ever.

- Andy, Nathan, & Norah. I don't have gay parents, so I can't speak from experience on this one, so don't take this as an absolute truth (as if you would anyway, right?). The gay parents thing was fine, but I felt like having Norah there kind of undermined them. Now, the book is not focused on the gay parents, but I assume that at least part of what Perkins was going for was the assimilation of LGBT characters into normal contexts, which is cool, but I think having Norah there sort of made it seem like you do need a mom after all. It's just that Norah ended up becoming closer to them, and mentioning how she couldn't take credit for Lola, and how Norah sometimes slightly corrected Andy and Nathan's parenting styles. It's not that these aren't legitimate actions for the character, and maybe these are things that happen to some gay parents in real life; it just felt a little weird to include Norah doing them, as if the actual parents couldn't totally handle Lola on their own. I know that wasn't the intention and I don't think it was a huge deal, but I could have done without her.

- The too-perfect boy. Cricket is great, sure, and I liked him, but I felt he wasn't super developed, other than being ~the nice perfect boy.~ Even that was okay; it was mostly just that he never got mad at Lola, really, or anything. Like, fine, that's cool, but maybe it's my rejection of the one true love thing, but it just felt a little too fantasy-world-romance for me.

- Lola's costumes. I just couldn't get over them. I'm sorry. She was a likeable enough character, but I couldn't help but cry a little whenever she donned a wig. Crazy outfits I can deal with, but wigs just don't do it for me. Superficial, I know. And sort of important to the character... still. However, I did appreciate how she didn't stop it with her outfits at the end to show character growth.

Despite these flaws, I sped through the book faster than AATFK, even though I like the first book a lot more. Don't get me wrong, it was still an enjoyable read, and there's certainly nothing wrong with allowing yourself to escape into the semi-plausible fluffy romantic world of a girl your age. I did snort from laughter quite a few times; it's definitely entertaining. However, it lacked the depth that AATFK had -- not that either was a difficult read, but I felt an ability to relate to Anna, to feel that her hemming-and-hawing with St Clair was plausibly understandable and still good. Although in both it was obvious that they were going to get together, I feel that in AATFK, it was altogether more realistic, and thus overall better. I don't mean to compare the books so much, but since they're fairly similar in style, I definitely feel that AATFK was executed a lot more successfully. Still, if you liked AATFK, I certainly recommend Lola and the Boy Next Door as well!

*a) Obligatory "'Chick lit' is a stupid term" reminder. Probably I should just come up with another way to describe such books.
b) I say that as if I have actual rules as to what I read. I don't -- excluding my vow to myself that I will never read Nicholas Sparks for any reason other than so that I can validly criticize his books.