Boy Meets Girl is an adult romance novel by Meg Cabot, and is the second in the Boy series, along with The Boy Next Door, Every Boy's Got One, and The Boy Is Back.
Kate Mackenzie only wants commitment, a job helping people, and a new apartment. Her ex-boyfriend Dale has refused to commit, her boss Amy Jenkins forces Kate to fire the dessert cart lady for refusing to serve pie to a Jerkass lawyer, and her real estate broker can't find a good place in New York. Things go From Bad to Worse when the lawyer's brother shows up to defend Kate in court, and starts falling for her.
Tropes for the novel include:
- Abusive Parents: Kate's mother likes her ex more than her daughter, and is mad that Kate broke up with Dale because she wanted to get married and he didn't. Margaret Hertzog blatantly favours Stuart over the rest of her children, refuses to acknowledge that he could ever do anything wrong, is incredibly self-absorbed, routinely invades her daughter's privacy, and is anti-Semitic and homophobic.
- Alpha Bitch: Amy Jenkins. Her sorority sisters also count, being rich, beautiful, incredibly awful people, and also quite bigoted.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Apparently the Hertzogs are this, much to Stuart, Amy and Mrs. Hertzog's chagrin.
- Amoral Attorney: Stuart Hertzog is this in addition to being a Jerkass, due to being racist, Anti-Semitic and entitled. Averted with Clarissa Doyle, who is actually nice, as well as with Mitch.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: After Amy Jenkins gets fired, people cheer. Kate is the only one who feels sorry for her even though Jen points out that Amy deserves it.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Mitch, oh so much. He will work to uncover an injustice but is quite willing to attempt to punch his brother in the face when the latter gets Kate fired. Not to mention he uses his contacts to get a locksmith for Amy's office so that Tim can find the email where Amy said to not send a written letter of reprimand.
- Tim Grabowski in IT as well given he's able to locate the email that later gets Amy Jenkins fired for "forgery and insubordination."
- Big Brother Instinct: Mitch and Stacy have this towards their sister Janice/Sean, especially when Stuart wants to send her to an anti-gay camp.
- Birds of a Feather: Amy and Stuart. They're both a pain in the workplace due to Control Freak tendencies as well as a Jerkass attitude. No wonder they get along so well.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kate gets rehired and takes over Jen's job, and her friend Jen is named the new head of HR after Peter Hargreaves has the evidence to fire Amy for "forgery and insubordination", on seeing that she told Kate not to send a letter of reprimand, realised she'd screwed up and forged Kate's signature on one. Jen is also pregnant, and Kate is in a committed relationship with Mitch, who is returning to public defender work. Dale hooks up with a new flame and sends a $10,000 check to Kate for the apartment deposit and taking care of him. Janice/Sean returns to college, and her dad says he's paying the rest of her tuition so she doesn't have to use her inheritance. There's also hints that Amy's friends might drop her because she's marrying a man of Jewish descent. The only sour note is that Ida doesn't return because she got a higher-paying job as a dessert chef at a restaurant, but the chef in question has a wife who works at the paper and says that the staff is always welcome to come to sample her cooking.
- Brain Bleach: Mitch's reaction when Janice/Sean tells him a drug-detecting spray made her underwear sticky, and not because she was 'having any fun in them'.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Mitchell Hertzog in contrast to his brother, since he knows law well while acting charming and goofy.
- Call-Back: There's a few to the first in the series, The Boy Next Door: Vivica the supermodel returns and sends Kate an email asking her to verify a few things about Dale as a partner, most of which were traits Max Friedlander had. Melissa, the protagonist of TBND, has married John and is pregnant. Stacy also has a much bigger role in this book.
- Chekhov's Gun: Surprising to find, but they are there.
- The email Amy Jenkins sends to Kate telling her to not give Ida Lopez a written letter of reprimand.
- For Janice/Sean, the hundred thousand dollars that her grandfather left her, which she later uses to return to college and her girlfriend Sarah.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Tim Grabowski from IT.
- Cool Old Guy: Mr. Hertzog Senior, as revealed in the only email he sends everyone, which explains how Mitch, Stacy and Sean turned out OK despite their mother.
- Cool Big Siblings: Stacy and Mitch are this to their kid sister Sean/Janice.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Mitch apparently has this trait, as everyone who knows him will say. He falls for Kate partly because she needs rescuing.
- Determinator: Mitch is many things, but he is not a quitter. Whether it's winning over Kate or trying to find the evidence that Ida was unfairly fired, he refuses to back down.
- Easily Forgiven: Kate tries not to forgive Mitch for getting her fired, but it's hard to resist a guy who sends flowers as an apology, bakes up a mean shrimp scampi, and is working to get your job back.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Dolly's fling is called Skiboy because he's a skiing instructor. Kate even lampshades this, saying that he ought to have a proper name. (Later, it turns out that his name is Gunther.)
- Gold Digger: Why Amy is marrying Stuart; his family is one of the Old Rich.
- Hated by All: Amy Jenkins. People actually cheer when she is fired.
- Heroic BSoD: Kate after Amy fires her for supposed perjury.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Amy, Stuart and Mrs. Herzog who are all horrified that Janice/Sean is a lesbian. Stuart even suggests sending her to one of those conversion therapy camps.
- Jerkass: Stuart is the biggest asshole in the book, which is saying something when you consider his mother and Amy. He's homophobic, anti-Semitic, treats his siblings like garbage, mocks Mitch and Kate after Amy fires Kate, has the nerve to go crying to his father after Mitch tries to punch him as a result, wants to ship Sean off to conversion therapy, can't understand that people might actually have different opinions than him, and after Amy is rightly fired, he acts as though she never did anything wrong and blames Mitch.
- Loved by All: Everyone at the New York Journal loves Kate. After she's fired, multiple staff members send Jen emails asking why and if there's anything they can do to get her back.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Mitch hadn't been gung-ho on proving Amy a liar about sending a written letter of reprimand to Ida, he wouldn't have given Amy an excuse to fire Kate.
- Pet the Dog: Mitch convinces Dolly Vargas to offer Kate a place to stay. Dolly also has cures for hangovers, which comes in useful after Kate gets drunk.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Newspaper CEO Peter Hargreaves, especially when he sees proof that Ida was fired unfairly and Amy framed Kate for it.
- Stalker with a Crush: Dale becomes this after Kate moves out, to the point where Mitch offers to help Kate file a restraining order against Dale.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Dolly claims to be in an open relationship with Peter Hargrave, but she still hides her affair with a skiing instructor. Kate covers for her because Dolly has been a gracious host.
- The Shrink: Subverted with Kate. Mitch thinks she ought to go into private therapy since she is good with helping people, but Kate doesn't have the funds to go to graduate school.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Kate had a professor in college who inspired her to go out and make a difference. Unfortunately, after years working in child services and then in human resources, her belief that any one person can make a difference takes a battering.
- You Know What You Did: Ida says this as an explanation for not giving Stuart Hertzog pie: "He knows good and proper." It's lampshaded that no one knows what she means, and Kate begs her for a reason when ordered to fire her.
