Easily Amused by Karen McQuestion

3 fly

Lola, is a single, twenty-nine-year-old editor of a parenting magazine and the center of our story. Lola inherits a house from her Great-aunt May and soon finds out that, along with the house, comes an entire block of characters. The neighbors immediately worm their way into her life, all except for one; the mystery man who lives directly across the street from her.

Quickly, Lola learns that her life is no longer hers (not that it ever was) and she now has all of the neighbors looking out for her best interest. Not to mention helping her run her life.

Before she can even unpack, she comes home to find Hubert, a friend from High School, in her house. It seems his girlfriend Kelly evicted him and so, Lola takes him in until he can make up with his girlfriend or make other living arrangements; neither of which is going to happen. Why you ask? Because Hubert’s girlfriend doesn’t want him back, he is immediately adopted by the neighbors and he is showing no signs of leaving.

In the meantime, Lola accidentally starts dating the mystery man across the street, and yes, Hubert and the neighbors don’t like him and try to warn her off.

The central focus of the story is that Lola is not in charge of her own life and is just along for the ride, thanks to her well intentioned neighbors, best friend and surprise house guest.

I love the premise. However, I’m afraid the story falls short in many areas.

The first of which is a very predictable plot with a few twists and turns that you can see coming very early into the story.

While there are a few places that made me chuckle, there were numerous events and scenes that should have been funny but weren’t. For many of them, it seemed like the author set the stage but then missed the boat on the punch line. Still other opportunities went completely missed.

Character development was just okay and I found most of the characters very hard to believe. The neighbors weren’t funny and they didn’t border on annoying; they were annoying! Anyone living there would have set them in their place quickly. Then, there’s Lola and Hubert; both of whose actions I found very hard to believe. (Along with the ending.)

So, what should have been a cute, funny story became dull and hard to finish around one third of the way through.

Recommendation: A so-so read that’s hard to get through.

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