It's very fitting and exciting that for my 100th post I get to talk about the most intriguing, unique book series I've ever read, The Boy series by Meg Cabot! This series is not unique and compelling so much for the ploys, but for the method the stories are told. I have never read anything novel quite like these.
The Boy series is written all using the third person, a perspective I haven't read in a while; especially from Meg Cabot. It also is the first series that's connected not exactly by the characters, but by the form of storytelling. (I found this was the stronger link to tie the series together.) The characters are connected in the series, though. And Meg Cabot manages to sneak characters from previous books into the other books naturally.
All three books use electronic communication between characters to tell the story. And I have to say I love it. I've never read a book --let alone three books-- that were told completely through conversations. Just think of any conversation you've ever had and that's how this series was written, only there's a plot that connects the conversations. I really have to applaud Cabot for doing that. I also believe it's the third person perspective coupled with the voyeuristic feeling of reading other people's conversations is what kept me hooked.
My favorite of the series is definitely The Boy Next Door, the first novel in the series. It's about Melissa "Mel" Fuller, a gossip columnist at the New York Journal, who finds her neighbor unconscious. After she asks her neighbor's nephew to pet-sit, you're in for a thrilling ride of romance and mistaken identities. (All that is nothing you won't read within the first fifty pages.) It was strictly told through emails which I found fascinating. I loved how little events from the day would come out through the emails. I also loved how you can really see how gossip is spread between coworkers, friends and family. It's really eye opening. Boy Meets Girl was the funniest out of the series and Every Boy's Got One was my least favorite. It strayed too far away from the third person narrative with all the journal entries.
The entire series was published five years before 2010 and I'm sure --even though I was really young and didnt use a computer back in the early 2000s-- that using email to tell a story was innovated and relatable. Not only in the publishing world, but also in real life. I'm sure the online world we live in now that has grow to such proportions was just starting up back then. This series may seem outdated and old --the characters could only email each other if they were on a computer!-- but it's a piece of history! Life before wifi and checking your email on multiple devices --which I am guilty of--. The Boy series is proof of a simpler time!
I also found that the style of writing made me read faster. I now consider myself a fast-ish reader because I've been reading so much and I'm always amazed at how much I've read in such little time. But reading the emails made every word zip by! It took me less than a week to finish the entire series. It was just so fun to read the emails, I guess I read faster. It's also definitely the voyeuristic feeling I mentioned before.
I did meet some resistance reading reviews of the book online about not liking it being written through emails only. I can see how it's hard to believe that no one would have a phone conversation and that the email style would get repetitive but I don't agree. As I said before I really liked how events were revealed through the emails and the fresh perspective. It is hard to believe that they hardly have phone conversations, but the way Cabot explains why a character didn't answer their phone is quite clever and believable. The only problem I had with the email style was I wanted it to be more authentic looking. I would've like to see time stamps and dates on the emails, instant messages, etc. I think it would've added an extra comedic effect to see that this email was sent at 11:05am but the reply didn't come until 11:10am...the next day. My only hypothesis to why no dates or times were used is maybe the publisher and/or Meg Cabot didn't want to "date" the book. But blackberries and DSL internet are mentioned. Everyone has iPhones and wifi now, you might as well have dated your book. I'm not convinced books are supposed to be as timeless as films "are". But I digress.
The Boy series by Meg Cabot was very refreshing and had me very excited throughout. It really has been a looooooooong time since I've read a novel in the third person and it's giving me life.
The novels in a series are (in order):
The Boy Next Door
Boy Meets Girl
Every Boy's Got One
**HAPPY 100th!**
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