Blog Tour: Bookish Boyfriends: The Boy Next Story by Tiffany Schmidt

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Boy Next Story (Bookish Boyfriends #2)

by Tiffany Schmidt

Publisher: Amulet Paperbacks

Release Date: May 21st 2019

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Synopsis:

The second book in a series where your favorite literary characters come to life, inspired by the timeless classic, Little Women!

There’s no one better than the boy next door. At least not according to Aurora Campbell, fourteen, who has been in love with Tobias May since their very first sandbox kiss. The problem is, he’s in love with her older sister, Merrilee. And Merri is already dating one of his best friends.

Rory is learning all about pining as her class reads The Great Gatsby, a book she doesn’t find “great” at all. Also not great—her GPA, something she needs to fix, quickly, if she’d like to apply for the chance to spend a week studying art with her hero in New York City over winter break. But when Ms. Gregoire assigns her to read Little Women for extra credit, Rory discovers more than she expected—both about herself and Toby. Maybe she wasn’t in love with the boy next door. . . but the boy next story.

Love is complicated, and it’s all about to get even trickier for Rory at Reginald R. Hero Prep . . . where with the help of one quirky English teacher, students’ fantasies come true, often with surprising consequences.

REVIEW

EXCERPT 

I wasn’t one of those artists who thought you had to be a tortured soul to create. I could concentrate on a painting while still remembering to eat, sleep, and shower. I liked both my ears where they were, so there was no risk of me going Van Gogh, and I was just as inspired when I was in a good mood as when I was in a funk. But if I did require torture, I was pretty sure driving to school with the boy I loved—and the girl he loved—qualified. Especially when the girl he loved was my sister. “Rory, come on,” Merrilee called from the front hall. “Toby’s beeped twice.” For the first two weeks of school, I’d been the one nudging her—and helpfully reminding her about things like coats, backpacks, and the annoying crossover-tie part of our uniform—but Merri had a whole new motivation for Hero High mornings: The faster she got out the door, the sooner she got to see her boyfriend, Fielding Williams. Have I mentioned she was oblivious to Toby’s feelings? And obliviously never shut up about how happy she was, dating his friend. 

“Come on! Come on!” she called from the open shotgun seat of Toby’s car. “Today’s the day Fielding’s wearing the socks I picked out for him.” That didn’t mean anything to me. Merri, my oldest older sister Lilly, and I had gone out for manicures two nights ago so Merri could fill us in on her newest boyfriend. But if she’d said something about socks, I’d missed it. Or it’d happened while I was in the bathroom. I was still surprised I’d been invited at all. Mom always said that three was the hardest number for including people—“It’s all points and corners”—and the default duo in our house was Merri plus Lilly. Fielding was an impressive upgrade from Merri’s first emo-jerk ex, Monroe expelled-from-school-already Stratford, but I had no idea why she was excited about his socks. Maybe my sister had a foot fetish? Ew, gross. I mentally deleted that thought as I opened the car door and slid into the back seat, passing Merri her forgotten crosscountry bag. “Hey, Toby.” “Morning, Roar.” The flash of a smile he directed at me as he turned around to back out of our driveway was better than any cup of coffee. Toby’s grin was 99 percent perfect, but the 1 percent that would keep him from starring in ads for orthodontists was my favorite part: His second tooth was just the teeniest bit crooked. The type of crooked you’d notice only if you’d sketched it dozens of times. Like, if maybe you had a portfolio hidden in the back of your closet that contained nothing but drawings of a certain olive-skinned, dark-eyed, dark-haired Latino boy whose eyelashes made your heart race and whose long fingers gripped the steering wheel of the car driving you to your new school. “What do you mean, socks?” he asked Merri as he turned down the stereo’s volume and pulled onto our street. It was some movie’s musical score—always. I don’t think Toby owned songs with lyrics. Sometimes I recognized which film and sometimes Merri commandeered the radio. This time she clicked it off. “Didn’t I tell you this story?” And, just like yesterday, I got to watch from the back seat as Merri—the copilot of Toby’s dreams, the girl with a permanent claim on shotgun and his heart—twisted the knife in his back. “It’s so cute—who knew Fielding Williams could be cute? But I don’t know if it’ll be funny to anyone that’s not me. Or him. It’s an inside thing— but make sure to compliment his socks today, okay?” She giggled. I wanted to growl. Because here’s the thing about my “big” sister: She was a peanut. Maybe five whole feet if she had on shoes and used her best posture. Her height paired with her personality (think sugar rush, no sugar needed), her looks (a complete checklist for adorable: freckles, perky nose, huge blue-gray eyes, pointy chin), and her intelligence (hello, Mensa) meant that she was irresistible. Merri was the type of girl people instantly loved. And it was a good thing she wasn’t evil, because she would’ve made an alluring cult leader. People leaned in when she talked, squished closer to her in crowds, raced for the seat beside hers at tables. Everyone got sucked into her orbit, because it was a place you felt entertained, safe, cherished.

Watching her giggle, wrinkle her nose, then reach in her backpack for breakfast bars I hadn’t known she’d packed for Toby and me—“Yours is vegan, Rory, I checked”—made me understand why everyone loved her. Why he loved her. Toby looked at the foil wrapper on his bar like he wanted to bronze it. Instead he ripped it open and took a big bite. There was a purity about Merri, a sweetness beyond all the sugar she consumed. I wasn’t bitter; I was exhausted. Because every time someone said, “Merri’s your sister? I love her,” they followed up by expecting me to be like her. I wasn’t. We had the same brown hair, but mine was six inches shorter, cut at my chin. And height-wise, I was six inches taller. I got the double take “You’re younger?” not just because of our heights but because I had none of the bounce and perk that radiated from Merri. She giggled; I laughed. She chatted; I fretted. She was impulsive; I was introspective. She was comfortable as the center of attention, and I was much happier standing in the corner. Preferably facing the corner with an easel in front of me. I loved her, but I didn’t want to, and couldn’t, be her. No matter how much our parents, teachers, and customers at the family dog boutique, Haute Dog, expected it. Toby didn’t though. He’d known us both since the day he arrived next door. Back then, Merri and I were the same height and our mom dressed us alike. His adoptive parents had joined the long list of people who assumed we were twins, but tiny Toby could tell us apart. He built sandcastles with me—and stomped them with Merri. Sidewalk art with me—hose nozzle 

 eraser with Merri. 

We swung on swings and sang songs—they jumped from the monkey bars and got ice packs. He wasn’t the first person to compliment my drawings, but his compliment was the first to make me feel special. I still had, hidden in the same back-of-my-closet portfolio, a crooked three-legged green cat painted in watercolors on warped paper. In the upper left corner, he’d stamped his approval with a prized Batman sticker. “Oh, we’re not getting Eliza today,” Merri said when Toby flicked on his blinker to turn down her street. “This day’s looking up already,” he said. “Be nice.” Merri poked him in the upper arm and he snapped his teeth playfully at her finger. “I’m always nice.” Toby couldn’t stand Eliza, Merri’s other best friend, but he still gave her a ride every day to make my sister happy. And Eliza, she hated Toby. Though I wasn’t sure she liked many people besides Merri and maybe her teachers. Eliza looked like the flippin’ snow queen from Frozen, which was fitting because her icy attitude was capable of giving anyone in a three-mile radius frostbite. And that was after her brains and beauty had given them inferiority complexes. I was firmly on Team Toby, but Eliza’s fierce protectiveness of Merri and refusal to allow any female around her to be trivialized was pretty endearing. I looked away and hid a yawn against my shoulder. We hadn’t even gotten to school and I was already tired. “Late night painting, Roar?” Toby was an artist himself— a musician—and he understood night owl creativity. But because he was practically perfect, I didn’t want him to know the truth. I’d been up late studying and staring at the bright yellow academic warning I’d gotten in math the week before. I was supposed to have returned it on Monday. But Monday at Hero High had been mayhem. The entire school had been dealing with the fallout from the Rogue Romeo party thrown last Friday by Merri’s ex-boyfriend. It was the type of party that was already part of Hero High lore—Remember that time Monroe Stratford broke into the school theater and stole the costumes from the school play, and got in a fight with that new girl onstage, and then the party got busted? Unlike most of the people who lied and said they’d been there, I did remember, because I’d had the starring role of idiot new girl who threw paint on him. I had two Saturday detentions to prove it. Eventually Mrs. Roberts was going to remember to ask for the academic warning. I could easily forge a signature—handwriting wasn’t that different from line drawing. But forgery was purposefully deceptive. Forgetfulness was passive. So I’d been crossing my fingers through every sixth period and hoping it was contagious. “Hey, sleeping beauty!” Merri turned around in her seat and held out her I like big books and I cannot lie travel mug. “You awake back there? I’m out of princes to kiss you. Want my coffee instead?” “No, I’m fine.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and gritted my teeth. Rory might be short for Aurora, but Merri knew I hated Sleeping Beauty jokes. “You sure? It’s good.” Merri shook her mug, which would’ve been a better idea if she’d had the lid closed. Instead  it splashed all over my uniform, landing in fat milky plops on my white blouse and gray-red-and-navy-plaid skirt. She wrinkled her nose. “Whoops.” “Are you serious, Merrilee?” But while I seethed, Toby groan-chuckled. “There are paper towels under the seat, Roar. Rowboat, turn around before you do any permanent damage to your sister.” “I’m really sorry, Rory,” said Merri. She paused to take a sip, then frowned when she realized her mug was almost empty. “Good thing Eliza’s not here—she would not have been happy about that.” “Yeah, good thing,” I snapped. But it was too late for her to avoid doing permanent damage to me. Not because I was now modeling the latest in caffeine fashions, but because there could be no winner in the race of me chasing him while he was chasing her. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tiffany Schmidt is the author of Send Me a Sign, Bright Before Sunrise, and Hold Me Like a Breath (Once Upon a Crime Family book 1). 

She’s found her happily ever after in Pennsylvania with her saintly husband, impish twin boys, and a pair of mischievous puggles.

You can find out more about her and her books at: TiffanySchmidt.com, TiffanySchmidtWrites.Tumblr.com or by following her on Twitter @TiffanySchmidt.

TOUR SCHEDULE

May 21st

The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club - Welcome Post

May 22nd

A Dream Within A Dream - Book Excerpt

Musings of a (Book) Girl - Review + Favourite Quotes

The Phantom Paragrapher - Review

May 23rd

Andi’s ABCs - Review

The Caffeinated Reader - Review + Playlist

Savings in Seconds - Review

May 24th

Struck by Stories - Character Outfit

Justicereads - Review + Favourite Quotes

Nay's Pink Bookshelf - Review

The Heart of a Book Blogger - Review

May 25th

Introvert Booklover - Review

The Reading Corner for All - Review

Ohana Cascadia - Review + Favourite Quotes

BookCrushin - Review

May 26th

Kait Plus Books - Top 10 List

Moonlight Rendezvous - Review

R E A (D) I V I N E - Review + Favourite Quotes

May 27th

Wanderer in Neverland - Review + Dream Cast

The Book Dutchesses - Review

We Live and Breathe Books - Review

Bookaholicsanonymous - Review

GIVEAWAY
GIVEAWAY Prize: Win a copy of BOOKISH BOYFRIENDS: THE BOY NEXT STORY by Tiffany Schmidt (US Only) Start Date: 21st May 2019 End Date: 4th June 2019 Embed Code: a Rafflecopter giveaway


Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d9681b86368/?