Lola and the Boy Next Door, by Stephanie Perkins

Lola and the Boy Next Door, by Stephanie Perkins
(Companion novel to Anna and the French Kiss)
Author Info: Website / Twitter / Facebook / Tumblr / Blog
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Release Date: September 29, 2011
ARC: 338 pages
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Buy: Amazon
Read it in: 2 days
Source: Won it in giveaway from Andra
Challenge: TBR Pile, ABC Reading
Rating: ★★★★★
To learn more about my rating badges, click here! 

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.

I've been dying to read this since I finished Anna and the French Kiss back in August 2011. I won this in a Twitter giveaway from Andra and it took a while to get here because of the stupid mail people, and I was SO excited to have it in my possession. But once I finally had it, I couldn't read it! I wanted to SO badly, but I wanted to save it for a time that I got into a major reading slump. Which, I did! And I joined a    read-a-thon and read it during that time and it definitely got me out of my slump, though now after I've read it nothing else compares and it really sucks!

It took me a couple of pages to really get into this new character. You can obviously tell Stephanie Perkins wrote this book, she has a certain unique voice to her that makes you fly through the pages of her books before realizing you're already a hundred pages in. But this wasn't Anna, and I was worried she wouldn't be able to compare to her. Which, she doesn't. I do like Anna better. But I absolutely LOVE Lola. She's definitely unique! I'd definitely want to be her friend.

It was hilarious when Anna and St. Clair pop up in this book. At first when I saw the name Anna and the whole thing with Anna's banana necklace, it didn't click for some reason. I was too into the story to notice. But when I read St. Clair's name, oh boy. I freaked out and had to go back a page or so to read where Anna showed up again. And then I was all, "Yay! Anna and St. Clair." and gosh, they are SO freaking cute. And hilarious. Just makes me so jealous!

I love my husband to death, but sometimes I'd love to go back to fresh new love where we wanted to be EVERYWHERE the other way. Sooo cute! But anyway, the characters are so real in this book. For a while Lola was annoying me a bit, I was screaming at her asking her what the hell was up with her with Max. Yes, he's a hot rockstar. BUT he wasn't right for her. I'm not going to go into anymore details about that....

But, oh, Cricket. He's so awkward and cute and makes you want to just snuggle up to him and give him a HUGEEE hug. *le sigh* I'm SO happy with the ending!

Overall, yes, I do love Anna and the French Kiss more. But this definitely was an amazing read and definitely one of my favorite contemporarys. I can't wait for the next companion novel. I'm going to be sad about getting into yet another characters head, but I know it will be great. =D Don't stop writing, Stephanie! You're amazing! I recommend this cute companion novels to EVERYONE! Especially if you're a hopeless romantic and you love contemporary romances. *Sighs with stupid grin on my face*

The third and final companion novel to  Anna and the French Kiss & Lola and the Boy Next Door is called Isla and the Happy Ever After. It is set to be released in 2013. 

Read my review for the first companion novel:

Back When You Were Easier To Love by Emily Wing Smith

Back When You Were Easier To Love, by Emily Wing Smith
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Release Date: April 28, 2011
Hardcover: 304 pages
Age Group: Young Adult
Buy:Amazon
Source: BookDivas
Challenge: none
Rating: 

What's worse than getting dumped? Not even knowing if you've been dumped. Joy got no goodbye, and certainly no explanation when Zan - the love of her life and the only good thing about stifling, backward Haven, Utah - unceremoniously and unexpectedly left for college a year early. Joy needs closure almost as much as she needs Zan, so she heads for California, and Zan, riding shotgun beside Zan's former-best-friend Noah.
Original and insightful, quirky and crushing, Joy's story is told in surprising and artfully shifting flashbacks between her life then and now. Exquisite craft and wry, relatable humor signal the arrival of Emily Wing Smith as a breakout talent.

Wow. I don't really know how to explain my thoughts on this book. This is another book that is finalizing my decision to create a new rating system. Three stars doesn't seem enough and four stars seems like it's one of my favorites. I mean, yeah, at first when I started reading I was worried I wouldn't get into it. But it's one of those books that is just easy to read. Everything flows to where you read fifty pages and don't even realize it. Which makes it a fast read. 


Nearly 300 pages could seem like a lot to some people, but the chapters are very short. I mean, a few chapters were only a page and only a few sentences were on those pages. Some of them were just lists. 


It was fun to read, at first I thought it was kind of confusing because it was the start of the book and throughout the book it goes back in forth to when Jody was with Zan and then back to the "present" where Zan is gone. 


The plot had me SO freaking curious as to what happened to Zan. I got sucked in and couldn't stop. I'm really glad that I needed to read this one next for BookDivas, because it was refreshing. The last couple of books I have read have been some type of fantasy. The last real contemporary novel I read, that didn't have some sort of supernatural, or magical element to it was Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes and that was back in August. 


But anyway, on to the characters. At first I didn't really connect with any of the characters, even the protagonist/main character Jody. But after a while I started feeling bad for her. She had her heart broken, but she was also in denial. She was obsessed. So it made everything kind of 50/50 with me. I felt bad for her, but at the same time she could fix it and move on. She needed to face the facts! 


Noah was pretty cool, I liked him. Though in the beginning you don't learn much about him because Jody doesn't want to like him. She thinks she doesn't like him, even though she doesn't really know much about him other than he's a "Soccer Lovin' Kid". 


There are some religious references in here due to the fact that Jody is Mormon and basically the whole town she lives in, called Haven, is a Mormon town. It really kind of puts you into the life of really religious Mormons. Though that is by far NOT the main point. At all. So don't worry if you're a non-religious person like me. I mean, I'm Christian, I believe in God, but I'm not religious. And I don't like religions being pushed onto people. But I'm going to get out of that, because this book doesn't do that and I was very happy about that. It started to worry me a little in the beginning. 


Overall, this book was a good read. Not my favorite, but I overly enjoyed reading it. Though I wanted to smack the crap out of most of the characters 80% of the time. It kept me reading. I kind of wish there were a sequel in the making so I can figure out about Jody and someone I'm not going to name. =) Don't wanna giveaway any spoilers! 


The cover is kind of cartoonish, but it works. It's pretty. =)