The Boy Next Story (Bookish Boyfriends #2)

by Tiffany Schmidt

Release Date: May 21st 2019

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Synopsis:

The second book in a series where your favorite literary characters come to life, inspired by the timeless classic, Little Women!

There’s no one better than the boy next door. At least not according to Aurora Campbell, fourteen, who has been in love with Tobias May since their very first sandbox kiss. The problem is, he’s in love with her older sister, Merrilee. And Merri is already dating one of his best friends.

Rory is learning all about pining as her class reads The Great Gatsby, a book she doesn’t find “great” at all. Also not great—her GPA, something she needs to fix, quickly, if she’d like to apply for the chance to spend a week studying art with her hero in New York City over winter break. But when Ms. Gregoire assigns her to read Little Women for extra credit, Rory discovers more than she expected—both about herself and Toby. Maybe she wasn’t in love with the boy next door. . . but the boy next story.

Love is complicated, and it’s all about to get even trickier for Rory at Reginald R. Hero Prep . . . where with the help of one quirky English teacher, students’ fantasies come true, often with surprising consequences.

Let’s start off by saying that you don’t have to read the first book in this series to read this one. Even though they are connected in a few ways, The Boy Next Story can be read as a standalone.

That being said, I have to sat that The Boy Next Story is a perfect summer read. We meet Aurora (Rory) who is an artistic type and quite talented. She’s more of an introvert and is having a hard time finding her place at school and maybe even at home. I loved Rory, because she isn’t the perfect teenage girl about to start a romantic journey. She has a hard time with school, works hard and is still insecure about many things. Rory works at it though and I think it’s amazing the author shows us a character like this as well. Your dreams still work even when you have to work a bit harder.

The Boy Next Story mixes The Great Gatsby and Little Women in the plot and even though I haven’t read either of these, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Enough is explained to understand why it’s used in the book, but it’s not too much. I could still pick up these books and want to read them. My favorite part of these books being included was the English teacher who seemed to know what books a student was needing. I love the idea of a book helping someone understand themselves more and their dreams.

On top of amazing connections with books, there are some awesome characters. Rory becomes friends with Huck and I loved his character. He seems really genuine and I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing him in his own story. Toby, the boy next door, is really fun as well. I liked getting to know him while reading this book and the romance between him and Rory was really cute. Not too much, but just enough.

Besides the friends we meet along the way, a lot of time is spent with Rory’s family. I felt bad at times for Rory, because she really felt left out. Their relationships do develop during this book and it was nice seeing Rory stand up for herself and start telling them how she felt.

All in all, this was such a cute story! I definitely plan on picking up the first one soon. If it’s anything like this one, I need to read it this summer.

Of course there are plenty of other amazing blogs participating in this blog tour. If you want to take a look at the other blogs, click here for the full tour schedule.

For the US readers there is a chance to win a print copy of The Boy Next Story. This giveaways starts May 21st and ends June 4th.

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

This was such a cute story and definitely the perfect summer read. What lover of books wouldn’t mind a book that reflects there life a bit and gets them where they need to be? I really hope we get a lot more stories like this one!