Tim Mason was The Boy Most Likely To find the liquor cabinet blindfolded, need a liver transplant, and drive his car into a house.
Alice Garrett was The Girl Most Likely To … well, not date her little brother’s baggage-burdened best friend, for starters.
For Tim, it wouldn’t be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the “smart” choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.
Then the unexpected consequences of Tim’s wild days come back to shock him. He finds himself in a situation that isn’t all it appears to be, that he never could have predicted … but maybe should have.
And Alice is caught in the middle.
Told in Tim’s and Alice’s distinctive, disarming, entirely compelling voices, this novel is for readers of The Spectacular Now, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and Paper Towns.
Publisher: Dial Books
Page Count: 425
For those of you who don’t know, The Boy Most Likely To is the companion novel/sequel to My Life Next Door, but told from the alternating POVs of Tim Mason and Alice Garrett. I’ve mentioned Fitzpatrick’s book a couple of times in the past and even though I guess it’s not strictly necessary, I would really recommend everyone to read My Life Next Door before reading The Boy Most Likely To. We basically pick up right where the other story left off and I guess all the relationships and what happened could be difficult to grasp without the prior knowledge of the first book.
All the while I was reading the book, I was thinking about how I could review it without spoiling absolutely everyone and it’s mighty difficult, I can tell you that! While My Life Next Door was a romance with a twist, I felt like The Boy Most Likely To was a series of twists in life with a dash of romance. In my opinion, there were so many things that were way more important and actually also more interesting than the relationship between the main characters. But where Sam and Jase’s love felt so innocent and sweet, Alice and Tim were definitely more steamy and bold, constantly flirting with each other. Since this is a YA novel though, I just want to point out that there is no explicit content and I am glad about that, because it wouldn’t have fitted the story.
I am not quite sure how I feel about the alternating POVs. My Life Next Door was told only from Sam’s perspective and I didn’t feel like it was lacking anything. Even though it was sometimes interesting to see Alice’s side of things in The Boy Most Likely To, I think her perspective was not really necessary. If you take a closer look at the book, you can also see that there is way more Tim in there than her, simply because he has more to tell. I am afraid this is as far as I can go without giving away too much of the story.
***SPOILERS***
Whether you’ve read the book yourself, or you simply don’t care about Spoilers, this is the part where I tell a little more about the story, because there is so much more to say. As mentioned in the blurb, Tim’s wild days come to haunt him – in the shape of a girl, Hester, he can’t remember sleeping with and the baby that she presents to him as his son. I absolutely adored little Cal and all his scenes with Tim together. His interpretation of Cal’s mood an thoughts was the cutest thing ever and I loved to see Tim grow like that. Even though it took him a long time to realise that he actually wants to be Cal’s dad, I was so proud of him and it broke my heart that he couldn’t actually keep him. Nonetheless, Cal and Tim, their time together and Tim getting his act together, that was my favourite part of the book! (Except for when Hester was there! I dislike that girl just as much as Grace Reed and Tim’s dad.)
As for the rest, I feel like there is still so much unresolved. Did Sam and Jase find a solution concerning their future? Will Jase get a scholarship for college? Will Sam’s mother continue to mess with their relationship? (Probably!) Is Brad still stalking Alice? Is Joel really able to live together with his girlfriend? Will Patsy ever accept that her older sister took away Tim from her? Okay, I wasn’t serious about that last one, but a lot of topics have been touched upon, but except for the Cal-storyline not many of them have been giving a proper solution.
*** SPOILERS OFF***
Fazit: 4/5 stars! I really enjoyed re-visiting the Garrets and would recommend it to anyone who liked reading My Life Next Door! I can’t give it 5 stars though, because I feel like there are still things unresolved in the end.
Did you read The Boy Most Likely To/My Life Next Door? Are you planning on reading it? What are your thoughts?
you did it! mostly non spoilery 😉
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YES! I think it’s also one of the longest reviews hahaha It was really difficult, but I made it! I was really vague most of the time though, but I hope my point still comes across!
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it does and I got curious 😉
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Cool! I really like those books, the first one a little more, but they were both great!
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i’ll add them to my list. do they have special formatting? if not, I can be on the lookout for good edeals
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No, not really. I think they’ll work fine as ebooks 🙂
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😀 that’s cool. I got a lot of good ones this month for 1.99$
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That’s such a great bargain price!!!
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yeah, and now I totally see the kindle’s worth…
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Yep, I can see that too! I got some money for Christmas and I think that’s what I’ll be spending it on. I am just still torn between a Kindle Paperwhite or a Kobo ….
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ohhhh, yeah, i don’t know… i got the most basic kindle possible, it was only 69€ and I’m super happy with it. I think amazon/kindle has a lot of deals, but I don’t know if kobo does too
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I really want to read that book, mainly because I loved My Life Next Door, and I’m curious about that one. I’m glad to see that you liked it, it makes me want to read it even more! 😀
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I think it’s VERY different from the first book, in so many ways. It’s not bad at all, just different. I would love to hear your opinion on it!
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I’ll make sure to tell you when I finally get that book 😀
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Yay 🙂
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Omg I loved this book so much! It definitely wasn’t as good as My Life Next Door, but that’s probably because Tim and Alice aren’t Jase and Sam. I can see what you mean about some things not being fully resolved. I wanted to know more about Jase and Sam!! But at the same time, those things weren’t integral to the story so I didn’t mind that they weren’t wrapped up. All of the Cal and Tim scenes made me want to cry but I’m glad that Tim will still get to see him 😀
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I really, really liked it too, but as you said, not AS GOOD as My Life Next Door. I wanted to know more about Sam and Jase too, because I thought that if they introduced them having problems, they shouldn’t just leave it open. However, you are right! It wasn’t integral to the story. On the other hand though, I feel like Brad is still lurking around some corner even after Alice told him about getting a restraining order. I feel like that part of the story wasn’t finished at all.
I thought Cal was adorable!!! I am so happy he will be part of his life!
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Yeah I felt the same way about Brad. That whole thing was super creepy. I’m sure now that Tim has more time, he can go take care of that problem XD
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Yeah, I like the idea of Tim looking out for Alice, even if we all know that she can handle herself.
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[…] The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick I didn’t like it as much as My Life Next Door, mainly because it was very different in it’s tone, but I still enjoyed it very much! Tim and Cal forever! […]
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