From the TBR Pile: Blog Tour: Good Neighbors by Joanne Serling

Friday, April 20, 2018

Blog Tour: Good Neighbors by Joanne Serling

Author: Joanne Serling

Publisher: Twelve

Date of publication: February 2018

A searing portrait of suburbia, friendship, and family strained by a devotion to false appearances.

In an idyllic suburb, four young families quickly form a neighborhood clique, their friendships based on little more than the ages of their children and a shared sense of camaraderie. When one of the couples, Paige and Gene Edwards, adopt a four-year-old girl from Russia, the group’s loyalty and morality is soon called into question. Are the Edwards unkind to their new daughter? Or is she a difficult child with hidden destructive tendencies?

As the seams of the group friendship slowly unravel, neighbor Nicole Westerhof finds herself drawn further into the life of the adopted girl, forcing Nicole to re-examine the deceptive nature of her own family ties, and her complicity in the events unfolding around her.

I was looking forward to reading Good Neighbors because the synopsis made it seem like a good mystery. Unfortunately, I didn't love this book. The thing that resonated with me the most were the characters and how unlikable they all were. I can honestly say, I am glad I live in a neighborhood were the neighbors only really wave to each other. If I had neighbors like the ones in this book, I would move. They are all pretty petty and judgmental and really not nice people.

The story is told through the eyes of only one neighbor, Nicole. I'm not sure this worked well for me. I would probably have liked the book more had I gotten perspectives of more than one person who lived there. Nicole felt a bit unreliable to me. I still don't know if Winnie was really damaged or not. The ending left me very unsatisfied. In the end, I think this book just wasn't for me.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

About Joanne Serling

Joanne Serling’s fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in New Ohio Review and North American Review. She is a graduate of Cornell University and studied and taught fiction at The Writers Studio in New York City. She lives outside of New York with her husband and children and is at work on her second book.

Connect with Joanne

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Joanne Serling’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Instagram Tour:

Monday, April 9th: @girlsinbooks

Tuesday, April 10th: @ladyofthelibrary

Wednesday, April 11th: @bookpairings

Thursday, April 12th: @bookishconnoisseur

Friday, April 13th: @prose_and_palate

Saturday, April 14th: @hotcocoareads

Sunday, April 15th: @theliteraryllama