“Wow!” I said to myself after reading this book, “that was terrible”. This book was Lola and the Boy Next Door, and it took a real effort to finish the book. More than 90% of this book was about a forbidden teenage romance, and I hate romance novels.
The
book starts off fast when Lola’s first crush, Cricket, moves back to San Francisco.
He moved away to support his twin’s, Calliope, figure skating career. Calliope
is an incredible figure skater, even making the US Olympic team later. Anyways,
when Cricket moves back to town, Lola is conflicted by her feelings for him. On
the one hand, she hates him because when she confessed her crush for him when
she was younger, he rejected her. However, Lola is still in love with him even
after he rejected her. Life becomes even more complicated because Lola’s boyfriend,
Max, is not happy with Lola hanging out with Cricket. Max is Lola’s boyfriend,
and they have been dating for a while when the book begins. Max is also a lead
singer for a band, and, interestingly, he is 5 years older than Lola.
Things
with Max become complicated when about halfway through the book, Lola runs into
Cricket at a record shop. There, Cricket confesses to Lola that he has feelings
for her and that he always has; however, Max overhears this conversation. This
is the turning point in Lola’s relationship with Max and Cricket. Soon after
this, Lola dumps Max and starts making excuses, to her parents and Calliope, to
go see Cricket.
Despite
life seeming to be uncomplicated, Calliope starts to get in the way of Lola’s
relationship with Cricket. She does not like that Lola is toying with Cricket’s
emotions, and she wants Lola to cut all ties with Cricket. Lola ignores her,
and at the end of the book, Lola and Cricket finally get together.
As previously
mentioned, I hated reading this book. This is partially because I do not like romance
novels; however, Lola and the Boy Next Door, was a horribly written
book. There was little to no character development, and the foreshadowing was
awful. The reader could easily out deduce the outcome of the book, Lola and
Cricket get together. In addition, Lola’s parents did not change at all throughout
the book. They were always the same caring, intrusive parents throughout. The
only character that changed was Lola, and this was when she dumped Max because
she still loved Cricket.
If
there is one good thing about this book, it is the way it discusses adoption.
Lola’s mom, Nora, gave Lola to her brother because she was not ready to raise a
child. In conclusion, I would not recommend reading this book unless you enjoy
reading cliché romance novels.
~ Ezra
I've been there. Some romance books are really tedious and annoying to get through. This one seems like one of those as well, and I'm fine with you making a review saying how bad it was, regards to that I haven't read it before. Good review. Surprised, you actually finished a book that was bad, by your standards.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting and refreshing review. I think it's important to voice that not all books are for everybody; I've stumbled across many books that I disliked. Like you, I'm not a huge fan of most books that center solely around romance; I find them to be shallow and hard to read.
ReplyDeleteYikes, this book sounds pretty bad. I also dislike romance-centered novels, but the fact that there didn't seem any character development throughout the book really makes me want to avoid it. This post was fun to read though, Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteOof that sounds like it sucks. As someone who also doesn't tend to like mainly romance novels, that one sounds pretty hard to get through, especially if the lack of character development was a bad as that. Good job for getting through it though!! It's been harder than usual for me to get through books that i don't like, even if they were assigned.
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds like it was terribly written and also terribly executed. Thanks for bringing out the nuances concerning the overall quality of the book, and for highlighting the ways the book failed to deliver.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, this book sounds horrible. The sarcastic tone I constantly sensed throughout your summary of the book depicted the book as terribly written even before you outright said it. One example that stood out to me was how Cricket confessed his feelings to her, saying he liked her the whole time, even when he rejected her earlier. I'm sure there has to be some sort of explanation for that, but based on how you're describing the book, it's probably an insufficient answer. Another example that stood out to me was how Calliope didn't like Lola toying with Cricket's emotions and was getting in the way of the relationship. Then Lola was like "Nah", and they "lived happily ever after". Yeah no I'm never reading this book ever. Great job on the review though, your writing made me feel a disliking to the book without even reading it myself.
ReplyDeleteGreat review! I definitely wont be reading this book after reading your review. This was so honest.
ReplyDelete