Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Penguin/Dutton

Published: September 29, 2011

Pages: 338

Source: Bought

Rating: 5 STARS

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 neighbourhood.
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.

In short: Like Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins is a fun contemporary with memorable characters and dialogue.

I feel like I could copy and paste my review for Anna and the French Kiss here, change a few character names, and it would work just as well for my review of Lola and the Boy Next Door. Unique, memorable, and loveable characters and fun and meaningful writing and dialogue characterize both Anna and Lola. Several story elements were also similar between the two. But instead of it bothering me that Stephanie Perkins didn't try to do anything too different with Lola, I welcomed the familiar tone, eager to get back into the plots and characters she has crafted.

It's an altogether strange feeling for me, this wanting to escape back to a non-magical, non-supernatural contemporary world. What happened to my exclusive love for bleak, well developed dystopian worlds or whimsical, fantastical ones? Well, I may be a bit dystopian and fantas-ied out. It was such a refreshing change to read about the everyday problems of life and relationships. And just because it's contemporary doesn't mean the problems faced by the characters are any less interesting than those faced by characters in dystopians or fantasies. I was completed hooked and interested in the plot and the characters from page 1.

Though I was able to relate more to Anna personally, that does not mean I liked Lola any less as a character. I loved her quirkyness, her bravery to be herself, and her growth from a relatively immature and somewhat selfish girl to a grownup. And don't ask me to choose between St. Clair and Cricket. But I will say that Cricket, in all his nerdy sweetness, is pretty much my ideal book guy. This all being said, I wouldn't say Lola and Cricket's personalities - or anyone else's in Lola, for that matter - are particularly realistic. Stephanie's characters tend to be a bit on the cartoonish side - all with slightly exaggerated character traits and passions - but for me, it works because I have a lot of fun reading about them.

(Side note: What is it about characters with four letter names beginning with L who have a propensity for bold, unapologetic strangeness? In addition to Lola, I'm thinking of course of Luna from Harry Potter and Lily from Dash and Lily's Book of Dares.)

The take home message that I got from reading Lola and the Boy Next Door is that I need to start reading more contemporaries. I know I always say that, but somehow I still never actually carry it through, even though I always enjoy the contemporaries that I do read. It's time now though. I crave more variety in my reading. And I always appreciate recommendations!

Previously, my review of Anna and the French Kiss

Other Reviews:
The Bucket List
Hughes Reviews
Stalking the Bookshelves

Author Links:
Website
Blog
Twitter
Goodreads