Light hearted fun and romance
The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot
Book on Amazon | My review on Amazon
5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed February 5, 2010
Melissa Fuller, the heroine in this book, has a self-deprecating sense of humor that makes this book unique and charming. You not only get to know her cute quirks, you also get to know and love her friends and colleagues. Not to mention the totally “god-like” hero, John Trent (being ironic here – he is certainly human with all the adorable traits one falls in love with). His mad family, especially his aristocratic grandmother Mim, are characters I appreciated much. The entire story written in email format, was the first of its kind I have read (when I happened upon this book a couple of years ago). When I started reading it, I was almost like, “No! She can’t sustain this format throughout the book…. can she?” And not only did she sustain it, the format was a huge hit – at least with me it was.
I have read subsequent books from Meg Cabot, and one of them (“Every boy’s got one“) I detested particularly for the email format and characterizations – so “The guy next door” is really well done on both those counts.
Re-reading it for the 3rd time, it’s kept me in splits for the most part, and I’ve been looking for victims to whom I can read it aloud 😉
For some reason the edition I own is titled “The guy next door” – if you search for that title in Amazon you find the Audio cassettes of this book with the same pink cover that I have.
