Book Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Out of curiosity, I read Anna and the French Kiss a few months ago and was painfully reminded of how old I was. Although I didn’t like Stephanie Perkin’s first novel, it didn’t deter me from reading her companion book, Lola and the Boy Next Door. Maybe because deep in my heart I’m still a young girl who faints and feels dizzy.

Unfortunately though, despite the raves and blackouts of most of the reviews I’ve read, Lola and the boy next door never made me black out or dizzy. At most, probably the best description I can think of of how I felt while reading this book is that I stuck it out to the end. Only on rare occasions did I drop a book without finishing it, and in Lola and the Boy Next Door, my stamina was severely tested. But I must give it to Miss Perkins, she came up with very tempting titles for her books.

So what is the story about? I’m too lazy to make my own recap, so here’s one I got from Goodreads:

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion… she believes in wardrobe. The more expressive the outfit, the brighter, funnier, wilder, the better. But even though Lola’s style is outrageous, she is a devoted daughter and friend with big plans for the future. And it’s all pretty perfect (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 of his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

This book is just skimming, in my opinion. First of all, I can’t fully understand what a big problem there is about the age difference between Max and Lola. Come on, five years age difference? Is that a big deal? And then there’s the little problem of the misunderstanding about what happened during Cricket’s birthday party the year before, which was the reason why Lola was hugely mad at Cricket. Right. what a thing Read the book and see how shallow this book is.

And as much as I want to keep an open mind about the topics covered in the book, I can’t just ignore the fact that most, if not all, of these topics are contrary to my beliefs. Lola and the Boy Next Door, despite its cute cover and seemingly innocent feel-good premise, is a book brimming with lust, definitely not a book I’d recommend to my own young daughter.

One thing I noticed is how Stephanie Perkins seems to have something with a child’s hair. Etienne in Anna and the French Kiss has “lovely, perfect hair” and in this book, Miss Perkins doesn’t seem to run out of adjectives to describe how pretty Cricket’s hair is.

Yuck. Maybe I am too old.

1 star