My Life Next Door

My Life Next Door
Huntley Fitzpatrick
395 pages

“One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

Samantha Reed is the daughter of the Connecticut State Senator but has always questioned her life at home. Her mother is never around, her father left before she was born, and Tracy is away with friends for the summer. On the other side of the fence live the Garretts. A family with eight kids, and two parents who seem to be the happiest around. Samantha has never talked to any of them, until one night when Jase climbs up the trellis to her bedroom window, and things begin to change for the better, and the worse.

I finished My Life Next Door in just two days. It is the perfect comfort read; the perfect story if you need to forget about yor own problems for a little while (Hurricane Sandy) and read about someone else's.

Fitzpatrick created characters that were laugh-out-loud funny, interesting, and genuinely real. Samantha is a girl any teenager could relate to; Jase the ideal neighbor and friend; and then there's George, the little brother who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This story of family, second chances, and first love will surely have you captivated.

My Life Next Dooor was written for the teenage audience, the kind who like that sweet contained romance, with a hint of drama and real literary spark. This debut novel was written in that kind of page-turning fashion that leaves you saying "Just one more chapter..." and before you know it, you are up way, way too late.

I usually don't like to jump to conclusions, but this might have just made the top spot on my Best of 2012: Fiction list.