Boys Next Door Reviews

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

“There once lived a princess who was betrothed to a prince from a neighboring kingdom. But with two days to go before the wedding, she eloped with a lowly stable keeper…”

So what’s a desperate family to do? Well, dressing up the youngest son, Nicole, up as the runaway sister, Elena, and passing him off as the princess wouldn’t be most family’s choice, but that’s what they decided to do. Top that off with lies, secrets, poisoning and other general forms of mischief and an Evil Stepmother and you’ve got Boy Princess.

Now usually I get quite cranky with characters that are boys, but look way too much like girls. This book has that in spades, but for some reason it didn’t annoy me as much as the character designs in Alone in My King’s Harem did.

The general idea of Nicole’s character is that he’s so underdeveloped that he can pass for a girl and pass well. When he takes off his wig and goes shirtless it’s obvious that he’s a boy. The art style does take some getting used to. The lines aren’t very clean and the eyes are drawn VERY large, but it grows on you.

All in all, I found this release really quite endearing. It’s just light fare, no smut here. But it’s cute.

Rating: ♦♦♦

So we’ve got a prince passing for a princess and married to another prince. Lots of lovely intrigue and your stereotypical evil stepmother. Sounds good, right? Well, now we’ve got the princess that the prince was passing for coming back and wanting to take her rightful pace as wife to the prince. Turns out that life as a farmer was harder than anyone had expected and her boyfriend sent her packing back to the castle.

But let’s not forget that poor Prince Nicole has feelings for Prince Jed. He knows he should step aside and let his sister take his place, but that would mean Prince Jed falling in love with her - and not with him. Top it all off with sister-dear still pining for her farmer boyfriend and you’ve got quite a mess.

It’s just fun. I’m just a sucker for fantasy stories. Throw in princes and princesses and long hair and pretty clothes and you’re pretty much guaranteed that I’m going to enjoy it.

I can definitely see where the art style in this manga is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. And the plot really leaves a lot to be desired. At times it’s very hard to tell who’s talking, Prince Nicole or Princess Elena look exactly alike, so it gets confusing when they switch between viewpoints.

That being said, I’m still charmed by this series. It just makes me happy.

Rating: ♦♦♦

More royal intrigue for you all. In this volume we’ve got Princess Elena finding out that she’s pregnant, Nicole wandering around into Prince Jed’s kingdom and boatloads of trouble and angst. Jed appears indifferent, but it seems like he’s got a protective streak a mile long when it comes to Nicole.

Princess Elena hasn’t slept with Prince Jed, so there’s really only one option left to be the father of her baby. If she runs off to find the father of her child, will this press Nicole back into pretending to be Jed’s wife?

There’s the mystery of the apothecary to unravel and of course a wicked stepmother to help throw things into a wildly muddled mess.

It’s all very confusing, but at the same time completely enthralling. I love how Jed is hiding his feelings for Nicole while Nicole’s face shows everything he’s feeling and making Jed have to bury his feelings even deeper.

I guess I’m just a sucker for unrequited love. I’m torn between wanting to sigh with the sweetness of it all and wanting to grab the boys by their pretty long hair and shaking some sense into them.

As I’ve stated before in my reviews about this series, my only real complaint is that the characters are drawn very similarly and very feminine, so you have to pay very close attention to who’s talking to whom and who’s in what scene when.

The nice part about the series is that while it does revolve around Jed and Nicole’s relationship, the supporting characters are interesting enough so you’re not bored in the scenes that set up Jed and Nicole’s next meeting. So many times I’ve wanted to smack supporting characters for being utterly useless. In this book, I’m egging them on trying to see what part of the mystery they’ll uncover next.

It’s a lovely bit of escapism that never fails to make me smile.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

Prince Nicole is bound and determined to become a man worthy of Jed’s respect. He’s trying to bulk up, put on some muscle, and become more of a man. His plans are interrupted by a summons to Jed’s kingdom to help escort Princess Reiny to Nicole’s kingdom for a visit. Now that’s all well and good. Nicole really doesn’t want to go, and he really doesn’t want to see Jed again, but he goes along willingly.

Once they get to the kingdom complications arise. Jed’s true wife, Elena, is pregnant by her stable-boy lover. While everyone in the kingdom thinks that the child she’s carrying was fathered by Jed, her life and the baby’s life are in danger.

The arrival of Nicole and his entourage puts a solution to the problem of how to keep Elena safe right in front of them. They’ll just dress Nicole up as a girl again. Jed isn’t too happy with this. He’s got feelings for Nicole and the best way to contain those feelings is to keep Nicole far, far away from him.

It’s almost as frustrating for the reader as it is for the characters. You know the boys want to hump, yet there is no humping. Just frustrated longing.

Top that all off with the evil stepmother trying to control Nicole. Oh, and a boatload of mystery surrounding the Crown Prince Derek and Apothecary Shahi, and you’ve got a web of royal intrigue that sucks you right in.

I’m still not exactly sure what’s going on with the Apothecary and his relationship with the Crown Prince. It appears that at one point the Crown Prince took the apothecary by force, turning a once vibrant person into a soulless wax doll. But what is this about the apothecary’s tribe being behind the murder of the late Queen?

It’s all a muddle and it’s guaranteed to make me impatient for the next book in the series. Dammit, I want to know what happens now!

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

Things are really coming to a boil now. Prince Nicole is confused with how Prince Jed has been treating him. Jed is trying to keep his feelings for Nicole under wraps, but they keep breaking through, especially at night when Nicole looks like he needs the most protection.

Princess Elena finds her runaway husband and decides to give life with him another try, while Jed is starting to face some hard truths that the village of the apothecary have about his kingdom and his past. Let’s not even get into the intrigue that’s growing between Princess Reiney and one of Nicole’s brothers.

At this point, I just want to grab Jed and Nicole and shake some sense into them. Make them realize that they just need to hump, and hump often, and then go out and save their respective kingdoms. Not that I’m getting tired of the intrigue, mind you, I’m just getting tired of waiting for them to hump.

It’s a talented author who can keep my interest for more than three books. Volume Six just arrived here the other day and they’re still going strong. Yes, there are some parts that drag, but that’s to be expected when you’ve got so much plot to move along before you can get to the next big revelation.

Net Comics seems to have a knack for picking up series to release that are able to keep readers attention for more than one or two books. Readers are fickle, I know I get tired of rehashing salient plot points after a while in a long-running series and will stop collecting altogether if the author doesn’t introduce something new and shiny to keep me entertained. There seems to be no end to new and shiny things to keep me entertained here. I’m really looking forward to seeing where they’re going with this!

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I love Prince Nicole. He’s just so innocent and sweet. It’s like none of the political machinations can touch him. All he really wants in the world is to be with Jed and have Jed have feelings for him in return. That’s not too much to ask for, now is it?

Well, it is considering that his love for Jed may be the thing that topples over everyone else’s plans for Jed. Don’t forget we’ve got the tragic history of Jed’s parents and the sacrifice his mother made. We’ve also got the scheming of the apothecary and the scheming of Jed’s step-mother. Then there’s Nicole’s family and the plotting they’re engaging in.

It seems like an impossibility that these two are going to be able to find their happy ending, but I’m still rooting for them.

In this volume, more secrets of the apothecary’s tribe are revealed, as well as what really happened with the death of Jed’s mother. We’ve also got Prince Gewhin and Princess Reiny flirting with political disaster and each other; and Nicole and Jed starting to realize that they are far better together than they are apart.

It’s lovely, confusing and all kinds of wonderful, and I couldn’t ask for anything more out of a series. I’m going to be very sad when this one is finished!

Rating: ♦♦♦

Is it just me or is this series getting really damn confusing? The characters are gorgeous, but so stylized that I have a very hard time figuring out who’s who. Not that I haven’t had this problem the whole time, but it’s getting very pronounced in the last few releases.

So the apothecary tribe is working with the evil queen to get rid of the child that everyone is convinced that Nicole is carrying. The representative of the tribe seems to be going along with the queen’s wishes, but it looks like the queen may end up being double-crossed.

Then there’s Jed and Nicole, and Jed’s growing feelings for Nicole. At this point, I seriously want to just shake the two of them and shout at them to hump already. Seven books in and all we’re getting is snuggling and chaste kisses. I don’t care if we don’t get to see it, I just want consummation of the relationship!

We also have Nicole’s brother scheming and Jed’s sister falling for one of Nicole’s brother and, oh my ears and whiskers, things are really coming to a boil now.

I just wish I could tell who is who. Hell, the only time I can really tell who Nicole is, is when he’s got his girl clothing off and is walking around bare-chested.

I hate to say it, but I hope that this series is brought to a resolution soon. I don’t know how many more books of this I can take before I start to get bored with the series.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦

I take back everything I said in my last review of this series. This volume redeemed it all in my eyes. I don’t know why I’m so enthralled by displays of selfless love and sacrifice, but it just does it for me. I really am going to be sad with the next release when this series draws to a close.

Prince Derek offers Jed a way to save Nicole, but it will be at the cost of his own life. Jed, being the self sacrificing idiot, agrees. Of course he’s going to do what ever he can to save Nicole’s life. He’s madly in love with the boy, even if he won’t let himself admit it. It’s all so sweet and sad.

There’s more scheming going on than just Derek doing his best to get himself the throne. It seems like Jed and Derek’s father has been doing some plotting of his own; and then there’s always the apothecary who’s still got quite a few tricks up their sleeve.

This was one of the volumes that sucks you in and made you forget about everything else around you while you’re reading it. Utterly engaging is an understatement. When I was doing a quick flip through of the volume to write this review, I found myself getting sucked back in and re-reading the entire thing instead of just the page or two I wanted to refresh myself on.

If you had gotten out of this series, while it dragged there for a bit in the middle, get yourself back into it with this release. It drives home what made this series a winner to begin with.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

Insanely pretty boys with long, flowing hair look really silly with luxurious, pointy mustaches. I kept waiting for the king to put on a top hat and cape and tie one of our noble heroes to some handy railroad tracks, all the while cackling maniacally. Instead, the king just sat by and plotted the death of his two sons, but it still looked like he belonged in some Victorian melodrama.

Here we are at the final volume of this series. Prince Jed is leading his loyal soldiers to start a civil war, all to get Nicole returned back to him safely. Nicole is left to make a choice to be brave and become the man he wants to be, or to let his fear overtake him.

In the end, it all comes down to the power of love and the rest of that shojo crap that I pretend annoy me, but instead let it secretly warm the soul-sucking void I have instead of a heart. That shojo crap saves the day and leads the boys to their happy ending. How can I get cranky at that?

This series had its challenges. The character designs, while pretty, were very similar and it could get very difficult to understand what was going on at times. The story was a little bit silly and it was kind of hard to believe that Prince Jed wouldn’t have a hissy fit when he found out that his princess was really a prince.

All in all though, it was a sweet story with endearing characters. I look forward to setting aside some time in the near future when I can sit down and re-read the entire series.