My Life Next Door

In this book, Samantha falls in love with the boy next door.  Her mother is always talking trash about the family that this boy is from so Samantha decides to keep Jace, the boy next door, a secret.  Samantha's mother is a single parent of three children.  They did not mention what happened to the dad, but it can be assumed that whatever happened wasn't good.

Out of all of the characters in the book I personally dislike Samantha's mom the most.  She always talks about how unfortunate it is to live next door in the Garretts because with 6 children sometimes there yard isn't the neatest and it makes the rest of the neighborhood look bad.  She makes it seem like it was a mistake to have that many children, but Samantha knows that it wasn't a mistake.  The Garretts just have a different idea of what "normal" is.  Her mom is often saying things like, "There's one in every neighborhood.  The family that never mows their lawn.  Has toys scattered everywhere.  The ones who never plant flowers, or do and let them die.  The messy family who lowers real estate values.  Here they are.  Right next door...".

Her mom is the kind of person who judges before they know anything about the family at all.  The neighbors had just moved in and she is already judging the kind of family that they will be.  Also, she  is not the best of mothers.  She is often caught walking into the house with her dates, kissing on the kitchen table..  Samantha has to scream for her mother just to get her attention because she is so caught up in her relationships and also in her political life.  Samantha's mom just won the recent election for state senator.  Samantha barely gets to spend quality time with her mother because of all of her work for senator and business trips, meeting and unexpected guest visits.

Samantha's mom reminds me of the mother from the book Dreamland by Sarah Dessen.  The mother was way to caught up in her own life to realize what was going on with her child who was being abused by her boyfriend.  This reminds me of Samantha's mother because she is too distracted by her work life to realize that her daughter is in a relationship with one of the families she hates the most.