BOOK REVIEW: LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR BY STEPHANIE PERKINS

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Genre: YA Contemporary

My Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads link:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16101168-lola-and-the-boy-next-door

Okay, so I have NEVER gotten goosebumps, butterflies and knots in my stomach while reading a book. OH MY GOD Stephanie Perkins just made my day because I have never felt this way about fictional characters before. She has a crazy amazing gift that warms my heart when I read her words.

So this story is amazing because it was so REAL and HONEST. The way her characters grew throughout the story and faced real life problems in a beautifully written way was just perfect. This novel is perfection. I LOVED Anna and the French Kiss as well but for some reason, I liked Lola just that little bit more. At first I didn’t connect with either of the characters because a) Lola was a bit crazy for me and I couldn’t really relate to her and b) at first Cricket reminded me of somebody I know that I don’t like :P but OH MY GOODNESS after the first 50 pages I fell in love with both of their characters and my previous views on both of them changed DRASTICALLY. I felt SO connected to them it blew my mind. I just wanted to sob when Lola sobbed and I felt physical pain when Cricket and Lola were emotionally pained. Stephanie Perkins, I commend you. Oh ma lord. 

Another thing that I absolutely LOVED was the fact that Lola has gay parents. This isn’t usually touched upon in contemporary novels but this just added to how real this story is and how times have changed (and I am so happy times have changed!) Lola would not be the amazing person she is without her dads. (Oh wait, I forgot she isn’t real… AGAIN). I also loved how she intwined characters from Anna and the French Kiss into this novel, because I could not get enough of Anna and Etienne in the first book. They weren’t major characters at all but just having them there and connected to this story made the connections run even deeper to all of the characters. This was absolutely genius! 

I don’t really have anything else to say except that if you haven’t read Anna and the french kiss and Lola and the boy next door, you need to. And even if you don’t like them, I hope you can appreciate the true beauty and honesty of Stephanie Perkins writing. So well done. SO well done. Thank you Stephanie Perkins. Thank you.