A review by nanvazq
My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick

3.0

This promising YA debut novel about a girl who falls in love with the boy next door is somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. Fitzpatrick uses the boy-next-door cliche to tell a story that looks intelligently at family life, moral responsibility, and politics, as well as young love. The romance here is sweet, even if--pet peeve of mine--I'm never entirely sure why one of the characters falls for the other. The novel's secondary characters--including the Garrett family and Tim, the best friend's alcoholic brother--are really enjoyable, sometimes more so than the couple themselves. I was fully engaged with the novel up until the author's attempt to resolve the story's BIG THING. That event brought with it a lot of messy emotions for all involved, emotions which the author conveniently swept away at the ending, much the way the heroine's mother determinedly vacuums away all trace of her family's life. Readers, especially YA readers, deserve a more honest, if less neatly-packaged ending.