The cover:
The cover looks very beautiful and it makes me interested in reading the book (for some reason I find it less appealing to read books with ugly covers).
The title:
"The boy next door" - sounds exiting and mysterious but it doesn't really explain what the book is about. The book could be about pretty much anything with that cover. I'm guessing the book will be about a boy who lives next door to the protagonist.
The first sentence:
"Two days after I turned fourteen the son of our neighbor set his stepmother alight".
The first sentence is very very straight on what I think, and hope the book will be about; some kind of a mystery about this stepmother. I also like the word alight, it somehow makes the sentence weirdly positive although it's actually a very harsh word and it actually means that this boy set his stepmother ON FIRE
Over all impression:
So far the book is not that very interesting, at lest not as interesting as I thought it would be. I think and hope the book will become better within a few pages (so far I've only read about 13 pages) since I've read many positive comments about the book.
