The Boy Most Likely To Review

The Boy Most Likely To
Huntley Fitzpatrick
Dial Books
August 2015
4/5

I've loved both Tim Mason and Alice Garrett since we were introduced to them in My Life Next Door. More specifically, I loved Tim, but Alice is still a memorable character. I found Tim's crush on her in MLND to be endearing and hilarious. I loved getting to read Tim's story where he is the main character. I also liked that Fitzpatrick had both Alice and Tim's point of views included as they altered back and forth. She didn't do that with her first two books, so I liked that she mixed up the narration a bit. As a whole, this wasn't what I was expecting going in, but it was still charming in its own special way.

Tim has been kicked out of his house and is now living in the garage apartment outside of his best friend Jase's house. Tim is currently doing his best to get on his feet and get away from drinking and doing drugs. Not even 18 yet, Tim feels as if he's screwed up enough of his life already and he's making a huge change in his life. Not to mention, it seems like he's finally getting the attention of Jase's big sister Alice. All of a sudden, his life takes an unexpected turn and Tim is forced to stop everything and take responsibility for his past mistakes.

I could probably just make this entire review about my love for Tim. Yes, he's a screwed up kid, but he has the best heart. He also is just straight up hilarious, he's always making the funniest jokes. He uses them as a defense mechanism but not in an annoying way. Alice is a lot more rough around the edges, she can be rather scary when she wants to be. But Tim sees through all that and that kind of catches Alice off guard. I like Alice, I think she's a complex and likable character. She and Tim are also pretty different on the surface and I like that. Beyond the two main characters, we also have the whole Garrett clan making some pretty important appearances in both Tim and Alice's lives. I thought that baby Patsy's obsession with Tim was the cutest thing ever. My one complaint about the Garrett family is that we didn't get enough of scenes with George, or even Jace and Samantha. Sure they showed up many times but were mainly just there, they never really said anything important or memorable. However, this is supposed to be just Tim and Alice's story, Samantha and Jace already had one so I get why they weren't such key players.

I really did want to see more of the relationship between Alice and Tim. Whenever they seemed to be getting somewhere, drama would go down and the relationship would pretty much be placed on pause and we didn't get many scenes of them just being together. However, the scenes that we do see of them are still very adorable and similar (in a good way) to Fitzpatrick's other books. Meaning, this one doesn't leave out sex, just as the other two didn't. It never gets downright explicit, but it's still extremely real between them. I kind of thought they said I love you a little too fast, but maybe I'm just being picky.

While there was a lot of drama that I don't want to include so I don't spoil anything, I still enjoyed this story. I also felt like Tim really grew as a character and that's one of the most important things in any Young Adult books. I find myself unable to relate to characters that just stay whiny or screwed up the whole time and Tim isn't like that at all. I do think that if you read this, you should read My Life Next Door first, but don't expect this one to be like that book. They are both different but still great reads in their own right.