Contempo-May Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

In One Line:  Stephanie Perkins is my favourite and my best *shoves this book in your face*

Genre: Sumptuous and Sparkly Swoon

The Gist:

Lola’s life is pretty good. She has the most awesome Two Gay Dads, lives in a gingerbread-looking Victorian house in San Francisco, the best taste in clothes with an ambition to be a costume designer and an older super-rocker boyfriend with bleached hair. Life. Is. Sweet. Until the moving truck arrives. That’s right, the Bell twins are moving back into town after two years away. One of the Bell twins is super ice-skater and super ice-bitch Calliope, the other is Cricket. *huge romantic sigh* How will Lola react when the boy next door, the boy who once broke her heart, moves back in to her life?

The Cover:

Oh God America. WHY?!?! I hate having the cover designer’s idea of what the characters look like plastered on the cover, because it ruins half the fun. Mostly because Cricket is blatantly Andrew Garfield (pre-Spiderdude) and the Lola on the cover here looks like a goggle-eyed alien wearing a black sack. Stop ruining the fantasy for me American publishers! Just STOP IT!!! 

Why You’ll Love This Book

• We’re talking super-swoon here. Love, love, and then more love, except that this book isn’t like reading some soppy chic-lit. It’s intelligent, it’s quirky, and it’s genuinely fun.
• Nobody writes a moment of heart-pounding omagod will-they-won’t-they chemistry like Stephanie Perkins. You can hear your heart actually thump at certain points. She’s an incredible writer and has an unbelievable talent for writing LURVE. 
• It makes you want to change your life, in a good way. For example, when I finished reading this I bought a watch in the urban outfitters sale which has a purple glitter strap. And I went out wearing a bowler hat and felt cool. It makes you want to be Lola, and it makes you want to fall in love.
• It’s not often that I can actually promise you a darned good time with a book, but with this one, I honestly can’t see how anyone could possibly not enjoy it. It has the highest of my high endorsements. 

Why You May Not Love This Book:

• Everything is very blatant from the outset. You know what’s coming and it’s predictable. So if you like a bit of mystery I’d stay away from this book. Then again, Lola’s best friend is well into her mystery stuff, so you might get along with her. 
• Anna and St Claire from the first book are in it!!! And whilst some people might think that’s a good thing and gorgeously cute, I kind of like not knowing what happens to characters after their respective books are finished. I like to imagine my own ending. I’m already worrying that Lola and Cricket will make guest appearances in Ms Perkins’ next novel, because I want them to stay just in my own imagination forever, like they’re mine and mine alone. 
• You’ll look out of your bedroom window and get incredibly depressed that there’s not another house with another window close by with a Cricket sitting in it. 
• This book ends. This is a bad thing. It should go on forever and ever. 
• The realisation that your life isn’t a Stephanie Perkins novel. *sigh*

The Hypersomnia Test:

Passed. Passed. Passed. Mostly because this is the kind of book that I never wanted to end. I’ve had it on my To-Read shelf since it came out in the states ages ago, and I just didn’t want to read it because I knew that once I had read it, it would be over. Ugh. I feel so empty now. This book has broken me. 

Final Verdict:

If the zombie apocalypse came and I succumbed to the ravenous hoards (because I’m slightly fat and slow at running and anti-gun so they would blatantly catch me in the first wave) then I call dibs on Stephanie Perkins brain. I want to eat it. I want to consume it. Because I’m betting that it tastes of love-hearts and bluebirds and unicorns with rainbow-striped horns. Yup. I loved this book. And I love Stephanie Perkins. To the extent that I want to eat her brains. 

Further Reading:

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E Smith (read my review HERE!)

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn

To buy Lola and the Boy Next Door click HERE!!!