A BFF Novel: The Guy Next Door by Carol Culver
Release Date: July 2008
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 208
Maggie grew up next door to her best friend Ethan Andrews. When her parents divorced, she chooses to live with her mom, and away from Ethan. Now, in High School it seems that Ethan no longer knows Maggie exists.
How could he forget all the time that they spent together? Maggie just doesn’t understand. She blames it on her fair looks and her ugly metal braces. She can’t compete with the other girls in school to catch the eye of the extremely popular Ethan.
By chance Maggie becomes Ethan’s fencing coach and then they are both headed for Hawaii for spring break, maybe this is the chance for Maggie to show Ethan exactly what all he has forgotten.
I have mixed feelings with this book. Besides the fact that it really has absolutely no substance the story was extremely rushed. For most of the time the story is told from Maggie’s POV and then there are little snippets of Ethan in there. But they give absolutely no insight into his character, I think it would have been better just to keep Maggie’s voice apparent throughout the novel.
Okay so Maggie has these braces, and OMG if you can believe it she is a Junior! There are no Juniors with braces ever! And then when she finally gets the clear plastic aligners then it’s like a total 360 in her character. Speaking from experience from someone who didn’t get their braces until she was a sophomore and didn’t get them off until April of my senior year I know how they can damper your self confidence, But and a big BUT here, I felt more confident when I had my braces on because I knew my smile was getting fixed rather then going around all snaggle tooth. Basically for me to believe Maggie’s “transformation” I needed a little bit more than getting the braces off. I know she goes to a very wealthy school and it was apparently looked down upon to have metal braces, but still.
The whole book is building up to Maggie and Ethan finally getting together. They start out talking, then do more talking, then hang out a little bit and then bam he is in her hotel room and the shirt and bra is off and then literally it goes to “Five days later the plan took off...”. That’s all I get!? After these two playing around the whole story you going to leave me hanging just like that! Aloe Vera, rubbing and then nothing. I mean I’m not saying I wanted then to get it on, I just wanted to see the relationship finally blossom... “hey I like you,” “oh really, I’ve been lusting after you.” Total story meltdown.
The novel wasn’t bad, I liked it even, but I’ll probably forget it by tomorrow. It just doesn’t have anything that sticks with you. Which takes me back to my initial observation, lack of substance. Although it was entertaining to read and sometimes it’s nice to be able to read purely for enjoyment and not have to think much!