Title: Lola and the Boy Next Door
Series: Anna and the French Kiss #2
Series: Anna and the French Kiss #2
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile, an imprint of Penguin Books
Genre: Young Adult Fiction - Contemporary, Romance
Release Date: September 29, 2011
Source: Audiobook borrowed via library, opinions are honest and my own. – review policy here.
Hello Lola,
I wasn't crazy about you girl but I can appreciate your identity struggle and very awesome family unit. I would like one of your dad's pies.
Lola is a spritely high schooler with a much older rocker boyfriend. She has two dads and an estranged birth mother. She love fashion and dressing up everyday. She often makes her own creations. She's very San Francisco. She's quirky and her friendship with the Bell twins is something for the books.
Lola is a spritely high schooler with a much older rocker boyfriend. She has two dads and an estranged birth mother. She love fashion and dressing up everyday. She often makes her own creations. She's very San Francisco. She's quirky and her friendship with the Bell twins is something for the books.
The Bells did not invent the telephone.
Cricket Bell is the star here. He's an amateur inventor with an artistic eye. He's riddled with guilt that his family fame is based on a lie. He's a devote brother to his Olympic-bound twin sister. He'd rather be a great friend than not be in the picture at all. He's perfect, not in the sense that he doesn't make mistakes, but rather than he is selfless and giving without expectation. He's a bit mopey but hey he's got to have a flaw somewhere and it's not cuddling.
My heart aches for a story with him and his sister as the focus. Calliope is a bit more rigid for the both of them. Partly because she's a competitor but also because Cricket is so endearing.
My heart aches for a story with him and his sister as the focus. Calliope is a bit more rigid for the both of them. Partly because she's a competitor but also because Cricket is so endearing.
There are issues and they're not where you'd think.
What I enjoyed most about Lola and the Boy Next Door is yes, there's a love story here but it's not always about Lola and Max/Cricket. There's sibling love, parent love, love that is ending, love that is beginning and love that is solidified at birth. It's all of these other dynamics that make the central story what it is. It also leads into the writer's strength...
Perkins = real love
I don't mean this as in some love is less real than others but more than love really is messy, complicated. In real life the timing is not always on point. Sometimes we are the other person and other times we just don't know what we want. I applaud Perkins for continuing to challenge fair tale beginnings and demonstrate teenage competency in relationship development. It's not always clean cut but there's swoons all the same.
I really enjoyed seeing Anna and St. Clair again. Can't wait to continue on with Isla and Josh's story!!
Perkins = real love
I don't mean this as in some love is less real than others but more than love really is messy, complicated. In real life the timing is not always on point. Sometimes we are the other person and other times we just don't know what we want. I applaud Perkins for continuing to challenge fair tale beginnings and demonstrate teenage competency in relationship development. It's not always clean cut but there's swoons all the same.
I really enjoyed seeing Anna and St. Clair again. Can't wait to continue on with Isla and Josh's story!!
3.5 Stars – The central love story was predictable but it's all the other love that I can appreciate.
I really, really need to read this series! I like that there was a focus on other relationships! Honestly, I think that is why I have been putting the series off for so long, but knowing that there are all kinds of other dynamics going on here makes me want to read ASAP! Great review :)
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ReplyDeleteLoved this book, although I loved Anna just a bit more. Your comments on how Perkins writes about love was very thoughtful - I hadn't thought about the bigger picture of all the relationships in this book that way! I haven't read Isla yet, but I hope we'll both find it a fitting ending to the set! :)
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