Girl Next Door is a truly fun romance with a great premise. Quick-witted and sparkly, it keeps readers fully engaged right down to the last drop, well-earning its A ranking. The plot is also romcom catnip in a way that doesn’t feel cloying or smug; a solid romance about a woman who doesn’t know how to explain what she wants and a woman who’s always known what she desires.

Mischa Celeste “MC” Calloway is in a huge pickle. Everything is going just fine until her lifelong best friend Joe hands her a copy of The Girl Next Door, a romance novel that’s been taking the whole world by storm. He clams the heroine of the book is based on her. MC goes into a tizzy – the author happens to be completely anonymous, so neither she nor Joe have any idea who the heck the person who wrote the book could be.

Joe has a sneaking suspicion, though; he thinks the author is Nora Pike, whom, when MC was a kid, was an annoying neighbor whom MC never got along with, and was rivalrous with throughout their high school days. This is one next-door enemy that MC never suspected might be harboring feelings for her. MC thinks that Joe must be right, because the author has reenacted several moments from her shared senior year in extreme detail; and the both of them know all too well what happened back then.

The only answer to the pickle is for MC to go undercover. That way, struggling copy editor Joe gets an exclusive and a possible breakthrough for the gossip website where he works, the Deux Moi-style Jawbreaker, and MC gets an answer to her conundrum regarding Nora. MC moves back into her parent’s house to get closer to Nora, but the woman remains as frustratingly cold and oblique as ever. Even worse, MC isn’t the only adult Calloway child in residence; her brother, Conrad, and her long-term crush, Gabby, who is now married to Conrad – now occupy the family home. Way too many secrets are threatening to spill over, and ultimately the answer as to who MC may end up with remains completely in doubt.

This is definitely a book that’s loaded with twists, humor and solid character observations. I really liked poor MC, who has spent all of her life doing exactly what everyone else wants her to. Even now, she’s just following Joe’s request that she get closer to Nora. But it’s Nora who lifts the lid on her potential as an individual, which causes MC to bloom and see another side of Nora.

And Nora! She’s so prickly but she definitely has an enjoyable tender side that makes her an interesting women. And OK, let’s be real – all of these characters are messes in their own way. But they’re not helpless, they’re fascinating.

This is such fast-paced but completely fun story about the twists, turns and rewarding imperfections that true love can bring on. The Girl Next Door is a whole ton of fun and I highly recommend it.