Not the usual page-turner you would expect - drama at its best!

Events unfolding in a residential neighbourhood of Long Island are sending a chill up your spine. Someone needs to make responsible for all the bad things happening, and there apparently is a misfit family, so why not blame them? All you need is a bit of unfounded rumour whispered into the right ears, and the neighbours will launch into action.

The story is quite disturbing, yet you cannot stop reading the book. The storyline is interrupted by future newspaper articles, foreseeing the consequences and increasing tension. The way the children of the neighbouring families reacted to the incidents reminds me of Golding’s Lord of the Flies, with all the cruelty, moral dilemmas and team spirit of the youth. And the adults? They are just extremely weird in this book. They all have troubled childhood and their own demons to fight.

This is the story of a community of houses that edge onto a park where a sinkhole appears one day. The bitumen from below the surface starts rising into the park, onto their lawns, and being tracked into their homes, advancing like a malignant stalker, sullying everything it comes into contact with. That feeling of creeping dread and darkness is fantastically mirrored in Sarah Langan's writing about what happens to the families from Maple Street in the aftermath of the sinkhole appearing. The mounting tension is always there at the periphery of your mind as you read, lurking like a blurry monster that you can't quite focus on - you know it's bad but just how bad doesn't become clear until it's breathing at your collar at the end of the book.
The story is interspersed with interviews and media articles from years after the events in the book have taken place and I really enjoyed this as an additional insight into what was unfolding from the point of view of hindsight, reflection, and the bias/tactics used by those in these professions.
My favourite character was Arlo, the father in the Wilde family, who are at the centre of this story. He struck me as a man trying to be the kind of good person he wants to be, pushing against the barriers that his past, society's perceptions and his own flaws constantly put in front of him.
All in all, a great read. An interesting premise with a perfectly paced terror at its core.

‘Good Neighbours’ is very different from the kinds of books I intend to review here, but it was so damn good I had to get my thoughts down somewhere. Sarah Langan isn’t an author I’ve come across before, but I’ll definitely be looking out for her work in future.
The cover conjures up the kind of domestic thriller that I usually take pains to avoid. The Liane Moriarty kind of thing with suburban women talking to each other a lot and some kind of mystery stringing it all together. Fortunately, ‘Good Neighbours’ is a very different beast. It has a darkness at its core that Shirley Jackson would have been proud of and the kind of well observed take on modern middle class society that Celeste Ng does so well.
The story concerns the Wildes, a slightly rough around the edges family who have moved to a well to do suburb that does little to welcome them. Two relationships anchor the story, one between Gertie Wilde and her neighbour Rhea Shroeder and another between their daughters, Julia and Shelly. Right from the off, Langan includes excerpts from books about a violent tragedy that befalls the residents of Maple Street, so we know all along that things aren’t going to end well.
The path between the start and the finale is a twisting one and kept me hooked and off balance. It’s filled with little cruelties and much larger ones, and with an acute psychological insight into what makes people tick. Langan throws in a mysterious sinkhole, which might have felt like a clumsy metaphor but actually works well here, giving the book an otherworldly sinisterness that goes beyond people being beastly to each other.
The thing that makes the book work as well as it does, is the depth of the characters. All are convincing and sympathetic, even when they’re being awful. Combine that with the sense of impending doom that comes from knowing that you’re hurtling towards a terrible event and you have something very strong indeed. ‘Good Neighbours’ is a modern thriller that is as chilling and gripping as it is moving. Highly recommended.

“Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours” - sing to the Aussie soap theme tune. Well, if I was you I’d think twice before purchasing your dream home on Maple Street, Long Island. In the long hot summer of 2027 this picture perfect place becomes the epicentre of an investigation that divides opinion from here on in. Arlo Wild, ex rock star, his ex-pageant queen wife Gertie, their two children Julia and Larry are the focus of an increasingly hostile group of neighbours whipped up into a frenzy by Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder. Rhea and Gertie's relationship starts well but sinks as deep as the sinkhole which opens up in Sterling Park which becomes crucial in the astonishing and dangerous feud.

This is definitely a WOW read. It’s a gripping portrait of suburbia but hopefully not one you know, this goes way, way beyond the twitching curtains of nosey neighbours or a complaint about noise. The Wilds are not like the rest of the households on Maple Street, they’re outsiders, misfits, deemed not good enough thanks to Mrs Vindictive aka Rhea. This is a murky take, in fact there’s so much murk they’re literally walking in it from the sinkholes, there are murky murky pasts, one at least who transforms themselves but can’t quite ditch the murk entirely and then we have actions that extend beyond murk. This is an examination, a spotlight, on what can happen when a top dog leads a campaign of ostracising and worse and what unfolds is group/herd/ mob mentality which is wilfully and masterfully manipulated through lies and more lies. Tension becomes fear and hate as rumour is piled on rumour, blame on top of blame, poison and more poison, hatred piled on hatred until it swallows them whole. It becomes animalistic and shocking, utterly gripping in its intensity and it’s jaw dropping and heartbreaking in equal measure. One thing is for sure there are some damaged residents on Maple Street and life after this will never be the same.

Overall, this is so hard to put down as it has so many layers running through it. I think plenty of places in this summer of 2021 will testify to the heat experience of 2027 but here’s hoping those events don’t occur!

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Titan Books for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Good Neighbours, Sarah Langan. 5/5 🏡

Maple Street, Long Island. Where the neighbours know all about each-other and the children all play together. Until one desperately hot summer a sinkhole literally cracks the neighbourhood apart and a child falls inside. Sparking an explosive chain of events that Maple Street can never come back from.

I had to let out the longest breath after I finished this one because i’d been holding it the entire time. This dark, unsettling domestic expose of suburban America is deliciously sour to the taste.
I saw this one recommended by SJP and managed to get a copy thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books and this one is a must read.
You can feel the creeping dread of Shirley Jacksonesque hysteria and Langan carefully clashes the innocence and observance of the children against the delusions and guilt of the parents.
This is one of my favourite reads of the year, enthralling and unsettling, what really drives us to behave the way we do? And what secrets are we hiding behind our front doors?

#GoodNeighbours #NetGalley
Fearsomely good thriller.
Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world. But when the Wilde family moves in, they trigger their neighbours’ worst fears. Arlo and Gertie and their weird kids don’t fit with the way Maple Street sees itself. As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and neighbourhood Queen Bee Rhea’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes. Suddenly, it is one mother’s word against the other’s in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood.
I loved it's every character. I loved it's narration. It was a brilliant read.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for giving me an advanced copy of this psychological thriller.