Author: Meg Cabot Title: The Boy Next Door
Publication: October 8th 2002
Publisher: Avon Books
Rating: 5 out 5
Synopsis: To: You (you)
From: Human Resources (human.resources@thenyjournal.com)
Subject: This Book
Subject: This Book
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Review: What the heck did you read in the summary? It's not your average paragraph. That's because The Boy Next Door is all written in emails. That's an example of an email that is given to a character. The format is also email based. On top there's a "to", "from", "subject", and body so it looks like a legit email. In order to know who's talking you have to look at the "from" line. It's hard to get used to at first, but once you get the hang of it the book is really fun to read!
This book starts off with Mel who is a reporter for the New York Journal. She has a lovely older lady next door to her apartment, but one day her grandson -- Max -- came to visit and she "fell down" into a comma. Max, to put it bluntly, is an ass hole. He's self centered and a player who photographs naked women as a job. He freaks out and calls his friend John and asks him to take his place. John agrees and takes the identity of Max. Shortly after he moved in meets Mel and finds her very attractive, funny, witty, and all around a good person. John works for the New York Chronicle which is the rival journalist company to Mels. The challenge is to keep his identity is safe, but it gets harder when his family gets involved. All of this is sent via emails. They talk about their day and what they think about people to their friends and family so that's how you understand the plot.
This book made me laugh multiple times; Megs humor never fails to amuse me. Mel is a smart woman who doesn't care for romance in her life but get's it anyway. Same with John, he doesn't think about love until he meets Mel. All of the secondary characters (like Max, Mels best friend, all of her co-workers) play a huge part in the plot. It's not just John and Mel creating emails to each other, sometimes the secondary characters have an email chain of their own. The Boy Next Door is very clever, and I recommend it!
2 comments:
OMG! Read this book YEEEAARS ago. Absolutely loved it. Meg Cabot is definitely one of the authors that got me in to reading :) Her 800-missing and mediator series definitely got me into UF and PNR. And of course, I ventured into her Contemp Romance and loved that too :)
Great review!
Ana♥ @ Beach Bum Reads
I love Megs Mediator series, and the synopsis for this one is definitely intriguing. It sounds like it has lots of humor, and I love that. I may have to check this one out one day!
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