The Boy Next Door: A Novel [Paperback]

I read "Boy Meets Girl" before this one, so I enjoyed reading about the characters that reapper in "Boy Meets..." However, I still couldn't get past the fact that this was written in emails. I wish it had been written in novel form. Also, the story line is repeated in "Boy Meets Girl." It was entertaining enough, but not entertaining enough for a second read.

The book The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot is about a girl named Mel, who had a neighbor who was an old lady. The old lady was knocked on the head by an anonymous person and she went into a coma. This old lady, named Helen Friedlander had two cats and a dog. Somebody had to take care of the animals so Mel had to do the job but it interfered with her life and her work. Helen's only relative is her nephew Max Friendlander. Mel e-mailed Max and asked him to come and stay with the animals. He said yes, but he secretly sent one of his friends in his place, John. Mel and John fell in love, and there are even more hardships and conflicts from there on. It was a fun book to read. The author, Meg Cabot used very great details.The whole book is e-mails back and forth among different people. Meg Cabot always kept me wanting to keep turning the pages; this book was never boring. I felt like I was actually there in the book it was so real. I think teenage girls would like this book, and maybe even women in their twenties or thirties.

The Boy Next Door
By Meg Cabot
Reviewed by Johanna Saunders
The Boy Next Door is a book that is filled with emails about people's lives. The main character, Melissa Fuller, tells about her life after her eighty-five year old neighbor has gone into a coma. Melissa must then decide how to balance work, and taking care of her neighbors pets. Until she realizes that her neighbor has a grandson who's a famous photographer. And must then try to find out how to track him down. After finally finding his email address, she emails him to ask if he could come up (from the Florida Keys) to look after his grandmas pets. Although he says that he can come up, he doesn't. And instead, decides to send up his best friend in his place, without informing Melissa that it really isn't him. He only did this because he wishes to stay in Key West with the beautiful supermodel Vivica. Not only did Alex see no harm in sending his best friend in his place, but the last thing that he even imagined happening, came true. And now his best friend, John Trent, is in love with Melissa. Now they are in the tightest situation possible, they could either tell Melissa all that has happened, and that he isn't really Alex. Or his other possibility is to get out of there as quickly as possible, without even warning Melissa or Alex about his problem. Not only that, but now John has been showing up on many different scenes that might suspect that he isn't really who she thinks, for example, showing up on crime scenes, so that he can write some of his newspaper articles for The New York Post. What will happen between Melissa and John? Read The Boy Next Door to find out!
This book really appealed to me because of the main plot. It's always fun to read about people with different, untrue identities, and how they deal with telling people that it's not really them. And the many scenes when it was a close call for Melissa to find out that John's not really who he appears to be. The Boy Next Door would definitely be a good book for anyone who enjoys reading an interesting romance novel.