Good Neighbours

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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

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.

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