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THE BOY NEXT STORY by Tiffany  Schmidt

THE BOY NEXT STORY

From the Bookish Boyfriends series, volume 2

by Tiffany Schmidt

Pub Date: May 21st, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3436-6
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

The Campbell girls’ (mis)adventures at Hero High pick up without missing a beat in this follow-up to Bookish Boyfriends (2018).

Merri has adjusted to high school and is now dating Fielding, the headmaster’s son. She’s also assisting older sister Lilly with her upcoming nuptials. Meanwhile youngest sister Rory is feeling like the odd-man out. Rory’s sophomore mentor, Toby, who is supposed to help her acclimate to the school, is so smitten with Merri that he does not always seem to remember Rory; Toby certainly doesn’t notice that Rory has fallen for him. Merri and Lilly leave Rory out of wedding planning, and ordinarily, Rory would escape into her art, but upperclassmen jealous of her talent are deliberately sabotaging her work. What’s a girl to do? If English teacher Ms. Gregoire has anything to say about it, Rory will take a page from a classic. If The Great Gatsby, with its pining protagonist, doesn’t suit her, then how about Little Women? Told in the first-person, Rory takes cues from literature, attaining great insights about her self-worth and expectations for love. The love focus is so exclusive that secondary characters and plotlines fall into the background, including the possibility of a life-changing opportunity to study with an illustrious New York City artist. The Campbells are white, Toby is Latinx, and ethnicity is difficult to determine for other characters.

Even if one-note, Rory’s story will still ring a chord with die-hard romantics.

(Fiction. 12-15)