Such an amazing book! Creepy and claustrophobic, this tale of American suburbia and the trappings therein really kept me interested. Moving, and truly brilliant. Thanks for the chance to read this book.

This was definitely different to what I expected but in a good way, the characters were unlikeable but I think that added to the drama and made me feel more engaged with the plot

Interesting! Definitely not what I was expecting after reading the premise!

It was a plot that had a bit of everything- thriller, drama and some parts were disturbing, so I would say it did include a bit of horror too! The characters were so diverse, which suited well to various topics covered.

As you read along. some of the events that occur, make us wonder about whether humanity really exists? And it does raise a lot of questions of where our society is headed...

Thank You NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC!

𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘴 is a harsh, cynical, yet unfortunately not implausible look at suburban life, fitting in, and the damage caused by gossip and narrow-mindedly judging others.

Thanks to Titan Books, Sarah Langan and NetGalley for the advance review copy of Good Neighbours.

A dark and at times shocking thriller, this book shows the dangerous impact of a toxic group dynamic as well as the impact that gossip and rumour can have on people's lives. Humanity at its darkest.

When new neighbours move into the blissful suburbia; they are outcast from the start. They don't fit in here, they are different to everyone else.

One day, a sink hole appears in the street and a child falls down it to their assumed death. Then the rumours start about why she was running, who she was running from and the truth about the neighbours and their secrets.

The suspense builds really well throughout and this book had me willed to finish. A much darker read than I expected but I really enjoyed this!

Neighbour feuds. I've read a few things about that. Dodgy people on the block/road that you can't figure out or the weirdo next door.

This book is other level, what lengths will people go to to survive.

This book is disturbing, worth the read!

Not my cup of tea to be brutally honest. I’m in the minority looking at other reviews but I thought it was over the top with negative characters and although it was too dark I suppose for a YA book the whole pier pressure element made me think more of school kids than adult neighbours. I’ve lived on a few different sorts of roads ( although in the UK not US and can’t think of anywhere that one person was queen bee.

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. When Gertie and Arlo move to Maple Street, Long Island, with their children Julia and Larry they are over the moon. A proper home with stairs and a garden. Admittedly Gertie isn’t the best at housework but Arlo is and tries to encourage the children to be like him. Gertie thinks she has found a friend in next door neighbour Rhea but she is mistaken. Rhea has many issues, and despite looking like a good mother, wife and teacher she is far from it. But she also has a lot of power in the area and many of the neighbours fall over themselves to impress her. When a sinkhole appears on Maple Street, and Shelley, Rhea’s daughter falls in Gertie and her family soon realise how unwelcome they are and that the vicious rumours that are being spread by Rhea could destroy them.

The book takes place in 2027 with brief interviews and press reports from the 2030s and 2040s. Both worked perfectly, you could see how hysteria, paranoia and jealousy affected nearly all of the adults who feature in the novel. I found it interesting how their accounts changed, like they were trying to justify their actions. It is close to a miracle that their children, known as the ‘Rat Pack’ were on the whole decent people who could see that things weren’t quite like their parents insisted they were and were willing to risk their own lives to find Shelley.

I loved the way the author played with the reader. I couldn’t guess at what each neighbour might say or do next. Some of them manipulated their children into tormenting Gertie and Arlo and ignored the guilt caused by their actions. I felt that it was the media reports that were published years after the event that showed what they were really capable of. There was little remorse and a lot of self pity.

Many people have neighbours they become best of friends with but some have ones that they go out of their way to avoid. If I lived anywhere like Maple Street, I would have done everything I could to avoid most of the adults who were neighbours in this book.

This was a really disturbing read. From the children to the adults they were all so unlikeable and their actions abhorrent. I was determined to finish this book as I wanted to see what happened in the end but it was a really hard book for me to read as I was disgusted by a lot of what went on.

Set in Long Island in the not-too-distant future, this is unlike any domestic thriller I've ever read.

The author has a background in Environmental Health Science/Toxicology and it absolutely shows in this book. The book shines a heavy and unflattering light on our future, with pollution and rising temperatures and sinkholes opening up.

The sinkhole being a massive plot point to move the story forward, and lay bare an apparently-idyllic street in suburbia, when a girl falls in and accusations mount against another family.

I enjoyed the mixed-media aspects, the environmental horror, the climate issues adding to (or straight-up causing) problems.

The characters were largely unlikable, but they definitely were not meant to be positive representations. It was honestly smart and well-paced and kinda batshit - I would definitely recommend.

Big thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Titan Books for the e-ARC!

The book was brilliant in its concept as it showed how a small spark of rumor and discrimination could lead to something so much darker and unpredictable. Humanity at its worst.

Secrets and twists with an underlying suspense building in all its corners, it gripped me and held me quite enthralled sometimes with revulsion, other times in pain. But always with an intense need to know what came next.

Thank you to @TitanBooks and @SarahVLangan1 for this advanced copy of Good Neighbours in return for an honest review. Good Neighbours was published on 13th July 2021 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

Maple Street is suburban paradise in Long Island. All of it’s residents like to keep up appearances and live in a constant state of fear for their children and their families.

When the Wilde family move from Brooklyn to Maple Street, it is clear that they do not fit in. They are looked down on by the other residents and do not meet their very high standards. A sink hole appears in the nearby park as tensions on the street continue to rise. One of the children falls into the sink hole and the finger of blame turns onto the Wilde family. It’s one mom’s word against another, but which family will the occupants of Maple Street side with?

General Thoughts 🤔

Gosh I felt sorry for the Wilde family. I know exactly what it’s like to live somewhere and feel like you don’t fit in. Not quite to the extreme of Maple Street, but I empathise with the feeling. What I found ironic was that the Wilde family were probably the sanest and most rational people out of all of them.

This was a story I’m sure lots of us have read before. A neighbourhood of people who appear to be perfect but hide secrets and “flaws” behind closed doors. However this story did have a bit of a twist as it’s not often that an entire family is wiped out in these neighbourhoods. I spent the whole time I was reading this book thinking that I knew how it was going to end, but I was pleasantly surprised. I kick myself now as I think I should have seen it coming, but I truly did not.

Characters 👬👭👫

Gertie Wilde was my favourite character. She carried baggage with her from way back in her childhood but I feel like it made her a morally better person. Rather than letting her past dictate her present and her future she learnt from it. She was honest about her feelings and I don’t think that that was something that her neighbours were used to.

Rhea was a very complicated character. Like Gertie she carried unwanted baggage from her past, but it seemed to me that she was unable to accept her past trauma and therefore it stayed with her into her adulthood. Not only did it damage her life but she allowed it to damage her family’s life too. I found her to be a dangerous woman and certainly not someone that I would take pleasure in living next door to.

Writing Style ✍️

I always enjoy it when authors break up the narrative of a story and this book did that fabulously. Between chapters, there were excerpts of newspaper articles and other documents that were written in the future but were included at the relevant points in the story. I really liked this as it made me question how the story would conclude and which characters I should or shouldn’t trust.

There were a couple of bombshells dropped at the end of chapters which always seemed to land on when I had to put the book down. This may have been a huge coincidence but it worked brilliant for me in terms of keeping me engaged and made me want to keep going back for more.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖️

Overall I thought that this was a fantastic story about a neighbourhood that we probably all can relate to or have at least read about before. However it did have it’s own original twist and it was that which set it apart for me. I enjoyed this author’s writing and I will definitely be looking to read more of her books.

I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN!

I do enjoy a good thriller but have found myself moving away from them over the past year or so as I was finding too many predictable and too similar. This story was an absolute game changer.

Maple Street is one of those lovely suburbs, a close-knit community all about family, work and keeping up appearances. However, this is all disrupted when the Wilde family move onto the crescent. Enter Rhea: neighbour-in-chief, controlling, and determined to keep the residents of the street safe from this family of outsiders.

A sinkhole opens on the street and Rhea's daughter, Shelly, is lost inside. This accident starts a chain of events on the street that no one can really decipher anymore. People are torn, determined to keep their families safe, and maintain that what they know is the truth and that some actions can be excused.

I stayed up late to finish this book and sat in silence once I was done, having devoured the final 100 pages or so and not quite able to take everything in all at once. An absolutely gripping read that will have you thinking about it for days once you have finished it.

Without hesitation, an absolute 5/5.

This was not quite what I had expected, but once I got to grips with what it was, I enjoyed it. This is a novel and secrets and lies, rumours and gossip, and the way they spread and pollute - much like the black tar spreading throughout the neighbourhood from the sink hole. It's a very tense, claustrophobic novel which rachets up the suspense and horror until you are just gripped. It was much darker than I expected but ultimately I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend.

It may be the dream to live in a nice house in the suburbs for many people out there. Well, for me, after reading this book, I would run a million miles away.

Maple Street, the picture-perfect suburb in Long Island, is nothing as sweet as its title. Here, families are loving, with children who grow up with the potential for greatness, and parents who push them every step of the way there. With the recent addition of the Wilde family, the balance is offset. Arlo Wilde is a former rock star, Gertie is a beauty pageant queen, Julia is wild, and Larry is seen as an outsider. Then comes the night when a sinkhole opens in their park, and a girl from the neighbourhood falls in. And the mother accuses Arlo Wilde of something deeply sinister.

This was an enjoyable book with a lot of twists and turns along the way. It took me a while to understand why it was set in 2027 and 2040 but knowing that global warming and the damage we have done to the environment are why. The author discusses the effect we have had on our planet, and that in 2027 we are finally seeing the results. If you want to know, read the book, it’s not a pretty future ahead of us. I thought this was an interesting choice, and I’m glad that the stark reality of our future is shown, but I wish it had been more clear from the start.

The story itself is shocking. What appears to be an accident turns into a widespread hate campaign with an angry mob. Through the spread of gossip and false stories, we see the disastrous consequences of peoples’ lives being ruined forever. The residents of Maple Street lose all sense of sanity, and even in excerpts from the future, many remain adamant they did the right thing.

A good book, but one that didn’t have me sitting on the edge of my seat. We are told at the beginning that there is a murder, and for fans of thrillers, it is a little predictable. The narrative changes between characters, and while this is well done, there were characters who I felt lacked depth due to little time in their mindset. Some had difficult and upsetting backgrounds, and though discussed, were left in the background. I think that if this had been explored more we would have gotten a better sense of the character, what made them who they are today.

Wow!! This book has so many layers. After reading a few mediocre books lately, this one gripped me right from the start! The writing and characters are excellent. If you like Grady Hendrix, you’ll love this. It just gave me the same vibes his books do! Really loved this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I rarely take notice of authors comments on jacket blurbs but Gillian Flyn’s ‘razor sharp’ caught my eye and with the word ‘neighbours’ ( love anything to do with streets, houses and neighbours ) it was a must
And it is razor sharp, maybe at times so much so it cuts itself but it is a dark, really dark story about what happens to a seemingly all American Apple pie drive ( Maple Drive ) when a family deemed ‘not quite good enough’ move there and then a sinkhole appears!
And the story builds from the sinkhole and how 1 resident in particular blames everything on the ‘undesirable’ family, it actually gets horrific the things they are accused of…and what’s worse everyone goes along with it
Frighteningly real narration and character’s you really wouldn’t care to live next to or even near tumble together to make this a, at times, uncomfortable, shivery caustic read that shows how normality can soon wander into evil
An all round worthwhile read that will stay with you

9/10
5 Stars

Ostensibly this is a novel about the madness that ensues during a hot summer when a sinkhole opens up on Maple Street, and a child disappears into it.
As the street struggle to understand what has happened, fingers are pointed and blame laid at the door of the underdogs - the newcomer Wilde family.
But this novel’s beauty is that it’s really about human nature: how neighbours scapegoat neighbours, how people attempt to live with the pain of their childhoods, about how mob mentality can drive people to terrible acts.
Beautifully written and profound, it is about extreme behaviour but it also feels devastatingly familiar.
Highly recommended for those who like their literary fiction laced with danger and hysteria.

One of the things that's really hit home for a lot of people over the last year of lock-downs and isolation's is how important our homes are to us. It's probably something that a lot of people never thought about until they were spending the vast majority of their time stuck at home, but they're an incredibly important part of our lives. But it's not just your home that matters, its the people who live around you. Your neighbours and the community can dictate whether your home feels like a safe haven, or if it leaves you constantly on edge.

Good Neighbours shows readers what should be a perfect neighbourhood, a place where people are friendly with each other, where they share their thoughts on the community group social media, where they get together to have barbecues, where the kids can play safely. When it's working the way it should it's a wonderful place to live; but when things start to go bad it can be the neighbours around you who can make your life hell.

Maple Street is a community that most of us would want to live in, but very quickly, before the bad stuff even begins to happen, we get a sense that there's something awful just beneath this perfect veneer. The neighbourhood seems to be ruled by Rhea Schroeder, a college professor who acts like the den mother for the families on the block, but is in fact a master manipulator, and coldly evil woman.

We see this when the Wilde family, who have recently moved into the neighbourhood, are left out of the community's fourth of July celebration. Rhea makes it clear to Gertie Wilde that it wasn't an accident that they were the only ones not invited, though Gertie has no idea what the family could have done to receive this kind of treatment. Before anything can be made of this, however, the ground in the park literally opens up beneath them as a sinkhole appears; putting an end to the festivities.

Over the coming days, with the summer heat soaring and the fumes and bitumen leaking from the hole in the middle of their community, tensions continue to build around the Wilde's. Things come to a head one day when Shelly, Rhea's daughter reveals a dark secret to Julia Wilde. Then a terrible accident happens, and Shelly falls into the sinkhole.

As the search for the missing girl goes on and on it becomes clear that the child won't be found alive, and as the neighbourhood mourns this terrible tragedy Rhea begins to start rumours. She claims that Shelly was trying to run away from Arlo Wilde, who was amongst the various adults trying to get the kids away from the sinkhole. She claims that Arlo has raped her daughter, and possibly multiple kids on the block.

This begins a mob mentality that grows and grows as the summer wears on. The parents of the neighbourhood begin to suspect that Rhea's claims might be right, then that perhaps their own kids were molested at Arlo's hands. They look at the Wilde's, a family so different from the rest of them, with different accents and a low income background, and decide that they're a danger. Taking justice into their own hands the neighbourhood soon descends into a state of horrific vigilante justice.

Good Neighbours ended up being something of a very disturbing book to read. Not because it included references to child sexual abuse (something that is only a wild rumour in the book anyway), but because of how terrifyingly real the mob mentality of the people on Maple Street was. Because of our vantage point as the readers we get to see everything that happens in this book. We see the events that lead up to the tragic death of Shelly, and know that Arlo Wilde is completely innocent; but we have to watch at the others start to listen to the accusations against him and go from outright denial to thinking there's a chance they could be true. We see these seeds of doubt turn into a conviction that this man must be a paedophile, and that anything done to him is more than justified.

It's almost terror inducing how quickly things spin out of control in this story, and how these average, normal people become driven to abuse, vandalism, and even violence because they've become convinced of something that's just flat out wrong. Even when their kids are telling them it's not true, that Arlo never did anything to them they're rationalising attacking him in the street.

Where so many thrillers keep the real events a mystery, hoping that the reader will try to work things out Good Neighbours takes on a very different approach, and is so much stronger because of it. You end up feeling so much for the Wilde's, you become worried for what will happen to them, and you'll even begin to hate these 'normal' everyday people who are being twisted into a violent, hateful mob.

One of the things that made the story so affecting for me is that I've seen this. It happens every day. It's not motivated by a child falling into a sinkhole, but I've seen how rumours and lies are used by one malicious figure to turn others into a force for evil. We see it with the nastiness of people refusing to take precautions during the pandemic because they've bought into lies about medicine. We see it with political supporters being whipped into performing armed insurrection because they've been fed lies about the political process. We see it with the daily attacks on trans and queer people by those who peddle recycled ideas that rights are being stripped away from others, or that children are in danger.

It's so ridiculously easy for people to buy into false narratives because everyone wants to feel like they're the smart ones. Everyone wants to be the one to be able to say 'I saw the truth' and 'I did the right thing', so they engage in reckless actions convinced that they're in the right; and nothing that is said to them can sway them because then they'll have to admit they're caused harm. This is what takes centre stage of Good Neighbours, this horrible, twisted part of human nature; and because of that, this book felt haunting to read. It was something I felt I'd seen before in real life, and something I'm afraid could one day happen to me and those I love.

Sarah Langan does a brilliant job at piling on the pressure, of crafting a narrative that on one hand makes you want to stop reading because you know something awful is coming, yet urges you to read on because you need to see that happens next. But she doesn't just rely on the heart pounding story to drag you in, but also crafts some wonderfully engaging and intriguing characters too.

The leads of the book, the Wilde's feel like the most human characters in the book. They're flawed people. They openly admit that they come from backgrounds that the rest of their neighbourhood would happily look down on, yet are always trying to be the best kind of people they can be. Gertie is a former beauty pageant contestant who's had to grow up being abused and assaulted, she's had so much grief in her life, yet always tries to present a happy and friendly face to others. Even when things are going awfully for the family she's fighting her own inner demons to carry on and support those around her. Arlo, her husband, has a similar past. Having been a semi-famous singer who's battled drug addiction in the past he's had to put his life back together, and his family are a huge part of that.

Sadly, the people on Maple Street judge them by their looks, by Gertie's beauty and Arlo's tattoos, and can't allow themselves to see the good people beneath these trappings. They make snap second decisions about the kind of people they are because of their outward appearances and their accents. The fact that Gertie and Arlo know this, can see their neighbours thinking these things about them, but still try and be nice and friendly and kind speaks volumes to the kind of people they are.

Good Neighbours is a very human drama, one that's driven by very real fears and prejudices, ones that I think we've probably all seen in our lives. Yes, it might be set several years in the future, it might have a narrative about global warming and the damage it has taken on the world, but thanks to how grounded the rest of the book feels this speculation about what our future might end up being like feels like something that's almost certain. Let's just hope that our future is filled with neighbours like the Wilde's, rather than Rhea Schroeder.

This arguably one of the best books I’ve read this year. I was catching to a friend of mine who’s also an avid reader about 2 weeks ago — about how we’re half way through the year and most of the books I’ve read were so forgettable and then I came across “good neighbours” by chance might I add. It’s not even a genre I like or even read but I was pleasantly surprised.

So let me tell you about the book— The book is set in Maple street, a small, affluent community. The book follows the lives of the community members— the main characters being the Wilde’s and the Schroeder’s.

Meet Gertie Wilde, wife to Arlo Wilde and mother to Larry and Julie Wilde. She’s a realtor with a very dark past. Gertie’s just moved in to Maple street with her family. This small neighbourhood for her is chance to escape her past. A fresh start.

Gertie’s new neighbour is Rhea Schroeder, Mother — if we’re talking in terms of biology, wife if we’re looking at a marriage certificate and college professor. Rhea also has a dark past, so dark that when Gertie moves in next door— she sees a chance at salvation, she sees a friend, someone who has no previous opinion of her or expectations. Someone she can just be Rhea to and be accepted for who she is.

A friendship is born between the two and for awhile things are peaceful. Each seems to have found what they were searching for until one night when one of them shares a deep secret that changes things between them forever.

Words left unsaid, expressions misinterpreted lead to 5 people dying and the neighbourhood being neither a salvation or a fresh start.

You will also meet other members of the community, each with their own issues and each complex in their own ways.

What I loved about the book:

Relevance. This is the first thing that came to mind when I tried to put my thoughts in to words. We live in a word where it’s so easy to spread a little lie. Where mass media often blows things out of proportion without even taking a second to fact check. We live in a time were communities— civilians do the work for the police. Sarah Langan addressed these societal issues brilliantly.

Relatable. We’re all searching for connections, for places where we feel like we belong. Spaces where we don’t have to hide our true selves. Sarah beautifully demonstrates that children and adults have the same needs. Love. Friendship. Companionship. Safety. When we don’t find these at home— we search else where.

Themes identified; mental health/ issues, coming of age, trauma — we see a beautiful contrast between Gertie and Rhea— one has dealt with her past, is in healing and one just refuses to even acknowledge the traumatic experience.

It’s impossible not to experience at least 3 different emotions at the same time while reading this book. I went from “oh my word, Julia is so funny” to “You’ve got to be shitting me” to sniffling— simply lost for words.

This books is gut wrenching. Leaves you with so much to think about days after you’ve finished reading it.

Oh and screw Linda Onnomatelli or whatever her name is.