A review by sapphistoire
The Girl Next Door by Chelsea M. Cameron

2.0

Unfortunately this is the lowest-rated book I've read this year because this book is only just okay. I couldn't differentiate the two main characters, Jude and Iris, from any other romance book protagonists. They were so bland - Iris' personality was just owning a dog, and Jude's was being closed off and riding a motorcycle. There was absolutely no plot to speak of, which I normally don't mind because I love character driven books. However, the two main characters were too boring and there weren't any good side characters to save the book at all. To add to that, the writing was so lacking in emotions. Writing doesn't need to be flowery for it to be good but there were no complex sentences, no similes, everything was straight to the point, subject, verb, object, next sentence and repeat. Even the small town atmosphere was lacking, which was a real shame. I did, however, enjoy the pacing of the romance, but that's about it. I'm really sad that I was disappointed by this read as I was really looking forward to it but I'm sure there are many other f/f romance novels out there with much better characters and much better writing that you could read instead of this one.