Review: The Boys series by Meg Cabot

Finally!! I have something to blog about LOL :) Unfortunately, probably everyone's off due to Thanksgiving... well except for us Canadians. Seriously, I can't wait till the week-end... and I have only what... hmmm, 7.5 hours of work left? My plans for the week-end? Cleaning my room and reshelving my books... Sounds familiar right? LOL :)

We had our first snow fall this year... which turned into freezing rain/ice. Ewwww. however, traffic wasn't too bad... at least for me :P I hope it all melts, but apparently, more freezing rain on Sunday :( The tree at the neighbor's house succombed under the weight :( Some big branches broke off and it kind of "split." so sad...

Anyway, onto my review now! November hasn't been a great reading month... every book turned out to be a meh reading, until I started reading the Boys series by Meg Cabot. I picked up the 3 books (The Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl and Every Boy's Got One) a few week ago at the McGill Bookfair... now, I remember buying Every Boy's Got One at the McGill Bookfair a few years back and not getting into it... However, the girls at Book Binge, especially Rowena, seem to have enjoyed Meg Cabot, so I decided to give her another chance... and I bought another copy of Every Boy's Got One because I didn't know what I did with the previous one.


The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot
published by Avon in October 2002

Who is... The Boy Next Door? (Melissa Fuller desperately needs to know!) Is he really Max Friedlander, notoriously wild, famously self-centered fashion photographer-nephew of poor old comatose Mrs. Friedlander? (But he seems so nice!)

Has he come to relieve Mel of the burden of having to walk (or be walked by) Mrs. F's monster Great Dane, Paco -- so maybe she can start getting to work on time and maybe keep her job at the "New York Journal"?

He's not really trying to find out who assaulted his "aunt" in her own home and why, is he? All by himself? Isn't that a bit dangerous?

And how can one man be this gorgeous, funny, charming, fearless, sexy and mysterious? (And why the heck does he want Mel to call him "John"?)

Anyone with information, please e-mail melissa.fuller@thenyjournal.com -- and hurry... because she's headed for BIG trouble!

Although this book took me a few days to read, I really enjoyed it... which was a surprise :P See, the whole book is written in e-mail format, i.e. various ppl e-mailing each other. I didn't think I'd enjoy the format, but I did... a lot. It was such a riot to read all those e-mails. So basically, Mel's old neighbor is attacked in her appartment. Mel is a kind-hearted girl and decided to walk the Great Dane dog named Paco... but because of it, she's been getting in trouble (arriving late to work, missing outings with her best friend)... so Mel e-mails Mrs. F's nephew, notorious bad boy photographer Max to see if he'd dog-sit for his aunt. Max is not interested, but his aunt turns out to be a millionaire... so he doesn't want Mel to tell his aunt if she ever wakes up from her coma that her only relative wouldn't come rushing... so he sends in John Trent, his roomate in college who owns him a favor. John is instantly attracted to Mel and even moves in in Mrs. F's appartment... John and Mel fall in lust and in love, but there's just one problem... Mel thinks John is Max...

It was a very fun book, seriously. There's tons of secondary characters that meddles in our H/H's lives... best friends, co-workers, family and you don't just get to read e-mails from the H/H or to H/H... you have co-workers discussing whether Mel should have sex with John (that was hilarious), family wondering what the hell is John thinking/doing and etc. I really liked John, he's really a nice guy, the kind that cares. As for Mel, she was just soo cute. I think if you've never read Meg Cabot, this is a good starting point.

Grade: A-


Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot

published by Avon in 2004

Meet Kate Mackenzie. She:
- works for the T.O.D. (short for TyrannicalOffice Despot, also known as Amy Jenkins,Director of the Human Resources Divisionat the New York Journal)
- is sleeping on the couch because herboyfriend of ten years refuses to commit
- can’t find an affordable studio apartmentanywhere in New York City
- thinks things can’t get any worse.
They can. Because:
- the T.O.D. is making her fire the most popularemployee in the paper’s senior staff dining room
- that employee is now suing Kate for wrongfultermination, and
- now Kate has to give a deposition in front of Mitch Hertzog, the scion of one of Manhattan’s wealthiest law families,who embraces everything Kate most despises ... but also happens to have a nice smile and a killer bod.
The last thing anybody -- least of all Kate Mackenzie -- expects to findin a legal arbitration is love. But that’s the kind of thing that can happen when ... Boy Meets Girl.

This book was published about 2 years after The Boy Next Door and takes place in the same environment, the New York Journal, but in a different department, the HR department... I think that what happened is Ms. Cabot realized she had found a good recipe with The Boy Next Door and decided to re-use it... so again, the book is written in e-mail format with the addition of Kate's journal which gives more insight to the readers. Also, Kate and Mitchell remind me a lot of Mel and John. Kate is nice, kind and a bit klutzy while Mitchell is a bit of the black sheep in the family, he's also smart and rich. Although Boy Meets Girl is similar to The Boy Next Door, Ms. Cabot is able to make it different enough so the readers don't really mind. The storyline is also different enough for the readers to enjoy, what with Mitchell's dysfunctional family and Kate's ex who tries to win her back. Many characters from the previous book also make a come back which is always fun :) All in all, I also enjoyed this book very much... my only complaint about the book is that in the middle of it, there's a problem that arise btw Kate and Mitchell... and Kate was very stubborn about it. Seriously, are you going to let love passes by because he did a stupid mistake that he didn't even mean it? NO!!

Grade: B+


Every Boy's Got One by Meg Cabot
published by Avon in 2005

To: Jane Harris
Fr: Claire Harris
Re: You

Hi, honey! It's me, Mom. I know it's a big secret that your friend Holly and her boyfriend Mark are eloping in Italy, and that you and Mark's friend Cal Langdon (the handsome New York Journal reporter with the big book deal) are going, too, as their witnesses. But I just saw Holly's mother at the Kroger Sav-On, and I thought I'd warn you: She doesn't seem to like Mark very much at all. Just wanted to let you know.

PS I don't understand why you don't like that nice Cal Langdon! He seemed so smart when I saw him being interviewed on Charlie Rose. And so handsome!
PPS Don't forget to wear a sweater!

Cartoonist Jane Harris is delighted by the prospect of her first-ever trip to Europe. But it's hate at first sight for Jane and Cal Langdon, and neither is too happy at the prospect of sharing a villa with one another for a week—not even in the beautiful and picturesque Marches countryside. But when Holly and Mark's wedding plans hit a major snag that only Jane and Cal can repair, the two find themselves having to put aside their mutual dislike for one another in order to get their best friends on the road to wedded bliss—and end up on a road themselves ... one neither of them ever expected.

Usually, third time's the charm, but in this case... This is the book I bought a few years back at the McGill bookfair and the one that I wasn't able to finish... which is why I thought i wouldn't enjoy a e-mail format book. Although I finish it this time around, it just wasn't as good as the previous two installment. First of all, this book did contain e-mails, but there were also Cal's PDA notes and Jane's journal... I don't know, it just wasn't as fun to read their journals as it could have been, reading their emails... I thought there were too much of it too (the journals) and their emails were shorter and less funny :( Also, transporting the whole book in another country might not have been such a good idea, I think the storyline would have been better if they decided to elope in Vegas or something. I didn't really like Jane too much either, I thought she was a bit too idealist and also, self-centered. There's a lot of stuff that I thought was a bit over the top, but it still could have been okay... but the whole "Cal doesn't believe in love and marriage and thinks that Mark shouldn't marry Holly" became old very quickly and when Cal realized that he was in love with Jane and that suddenly, he was okay being in love and marriage was good for certain ppl... yeah, that, I didn't believe. It was too rushed... All in all, I didn't really like the H/H relationship (I mean, they spent their time arguing and there was no sweet moments btw the two really before the ending, so I can't figure how suddenly they are in love) and that really ruined the book for me.

Grade: C-

Although I didn't really enjoy the last book, I thought the first two were great. Light, entertaining and funny, they're just perfect to get you out of a slump. Also, although they are connected, they do stand alone very well :) So any other Meg Cabot I should try?