Review: The Other Boy by Hailey Abbott

Title: The Other Boy

Author: Hailey Abbott

Published: May 27, 2008

Pages: 280

Source: purchased

Amazon Summary: Maddy’s Boy Pros & Cons …

Brian—Super cute / hangs with my friends / goes to my high school / my boyfriend!

David—Says I’m a spoiled princess / hates my friends / has amazing blue eyes / cooked me an unbelievable dinner / annoyingly irresistible!

Summer for Maddy Sinclaire starts as a blur of house parties and dips in the pool—until she’s caught throwing an unauthorized beachside bash. As punishment, her parents send her off to Napa Valley, where she’ll spend her free time working on the family vineyard. Even with her boyfriend, Brian, miles away, Maddy’s about to discover that the vineyard is a very romantic place. It’s vast, sunny, magical … and there’s another boy just waiting to steal her heart.

**REVIEW**

This was a sweet book - sweet, light, typical beach read. If you're familiar with Abbott you'll know her writing style is very light and simple.

Sure, from the description of the novel it’s already obvious what’s going to go down and how things are going to turn out so there won’t be any surprises along the way. The story rolled on fine, keeping you interested and entertained.

I definitely have a pet peeve with heroines who has a boyfriend when meeting “the new guy” because VERY rarely does it all turn out in a realistic way. Usually the boyfriend goes from being Mr. Perfection to a jerk so that the choice for the new guy over the boyfriend will be natural and realistic. Abbott did okay in this case, I must say.

Even though Maddy was supposed to portray a spoiled brat, I still found it believable and would think people are able to relate to her as the typical confused teenager. I never had a problem with not liking her. Parallel to the light feel of the book all the characters were light and likeable - there weren’t any outstanding or conflicted personalities, hence extremely little to no drama.

I loved the vineyard setting and found it so dreamlike and easy to imagine - the hot weather, the cool lake, even the fresh vegetables. It was indeed a romantic location.There wasn’t a particular scene or chapter I liked or disliked more than the other nor did anything necessarily stand out from the storyline.

Just as a silly side note I have to add that the cooking/food/lunch/dinner in the book made my mouth water - Abbott described it all very well and delicious.

'The Other Boy' was a fast read. It was an all-around sweet novel and I don’t regret picking it up. Definitely decent.

(3/5)