Review also posted on blog: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend... Absolutely Unreal. Affecting, Enthralling, Tragic, Traumatic. In a quiet picturesque community on Long Island, new residents from Brooklyn move in. As soon as they arrive, it’s immediately clear to the current residents of ‘Maple Street’ that the Wilde’s simply don’t fit in. Gertie is a former Pageant Queen and her husband Arlo, is a has-been Rock Star and a former junkie. Sadly, their kids, Julia and Larry aren’t exactly ‘M...

HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY! GOOD NEIGHBORS is like a dark and disturbing game of telephone that goes wrong...very wrong. Maple Street is the perfect street in a suburb of Long Island. Imagine white picket fences and a community feel, streetwide barbecues, neighbors who are all friends and know everything about each other. The children in the neighborhood (The Rat Pack) are all close and spend their summer days hanging out together.Rhea Schroeder is the ringleader of the street’s inhabitants. When her...

Well, I cannot say that I enjoyed this one...but I did find it DISTURBING! VERY DISTURBING. Because this seems to be where our WORLD is headed.Welcome to Long Island, NY in the not too distant future (2027) Climate change has been ignored and our resources have been strained. It’s been 120 degrees for twenty days straight, maybe not unimaginable in Phoenix, AZ but definitely not the norm for this area. We still cannot get along with neighbors who :LOOK different from usDRESS different from us or...

" A good neighbor is a priceless treasure." - Chinese Proverb Maple Street, it looks like a lovely place to live. A place to start over. A place to give your children a safe place to play and make friends. A place with a good community. A place to call home.Just beware...Maple Street is not Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. No, it is Rhea Schroeder's Neighborhood. She is the queen B. You will not have to wonder for long what the "B" stands for. Arlo and Gertie Wilde move to Maple street with their tw

All the stars🌟🌟🌟🌟 🌟 I’m speechless. What did I just read?!You know how occasionally you pick up a book firmly believing you know exactly what you’re in for? That’s precisely what yours truly did. Okay sure, another book about feuding neighbors. Yes, we did have that...but paired superbly with so much more, providing shocking, revolting views of mankind in uncertain times.The author takes us on a frightful journey into our world, exposing us to a side of humanity at its worst.While this is fictio...

Again I find myself with another unpopular opinion that I am now trying to control. It hits the mark for an exciting unique entertainingly absurd and over-the-top well written POPULAR fiction page turner but misses the mark on any profound themes it might of tried manipulating readers into thinking might exist in this story. This is not the fault of the author. Sarah Langan did a good job of writing a thriller I just didn't like the idea of any profound themes taken from it and that affected how...

I 👏🏼 loved 👏🏼 this 👏🏼 book 👏🏼 Wow, not sure what to say about this one, there are literally so many things I can say, that there is too much! I started and finished January with two monumental, phenominal reads. Good Neighbors was dark and twisted but at the same time, so normal.. A horror, a commentary? When I was young, we used to colour brightly on a paper and then cover it in black crayon and scratch it off drawing designs that showed the colour underneath. This book is that and also that in...

NOW AVAILABLE!!!!i was offered an arc of this back in october, and i said “yes, please!” because celeste ng meets shirley jackson is my sweet spot. however, i only read horror in october so i mentioned that it might be a while before i got to it, and i was told: “Well, Sarah IS a horror author though this isn’t necessarily horror. It has subtle hints of horror. Could be appropriate for October. But you have until Feb when the book comes out so no need to rush! Enjoy!”because it was a digital arc...

"[Mob Mentality] explains how one's point of view can be easily altered by those around them...professing beliefs and acting out in ways which [one] would never otherwise [have] done or considered independently...It feels natural-and even pleasurable- to pass along gossip and counterintuitive to stop it". Think of storming the Sheriff's Office in the Old West. An uncontrolled, wild crowd with an appetite for vigilante justice.The Wilde family had moved to a fixer-upper house in Garden City a Lon...

Suburban gossip gone way, way wrong. The writing in Good Neighbors was very well done. Having said that, the only thing that kept me reading this story was the beautifully done foreshadowing. Sarah Langan interspersed these amazing articles and interviews throughout the story, which constantly alluded to the historic "Maple Street Murders." I had to know how it ended; who died...and how. Without those juicy little glimpses into the future, I'm not sure I would have rated this book nearly as

**4.5-stars**Welcome to Maple Street, located in a Long Island suburb. It's a setting we all know. That picturesque cookie-cutter neighborhood where all the kids play together and everyone knows each other's business; good and bad.The Wilde family is new to Maple Street and it's clear from the start that they don't fit in.Arlo, the man of the house, is a has-been rocker who, gasp, has tattoos.His wife, Gertie, is an ex-beauty queen who dresses trashy and speaks with an accent. As sweet as she is...

Hugging my neighbors...Shortest Summary Ever: There’s a group of neighbors on Long Island. A queen bee named Rhea. A giant sink hole. A child falls in. And the neighbors lose their minds.Thoughts: Half way it’s becoming like a what if... what if you were in a world of THE world’s worst neighbors, in a neighborhood that’s literally and figuratively being swallowed by blackness and depravity. At the end I realized it’s almost a warning call of epically deranged proportions to helicopter parents to...

Add this one to your reading list for 2021! It's a book that spins a dark, deadly twist on the telephone game, where one person whispers something to the next person and so on down the line, and then the last person says it out loud, and it's changed completely from the start; but it's done in such a satirical (but still serious) way that you can't be help but be drawn in from the beginning. I thought from reading the premise it might be a "Leave the World Behind" type of dystopian setting, as i...

If I could I would give this book negative stars and I do have my reasons why.For a start, let me preface this review by saying I lived for over thirty years about fifteen minutes from Garden City and drove through it daily on my way to and from home to the school where I taught. It is a beautiful neighborhood, one that is bucolic and strives to do right for its residents and others. So, I am shocked by the heinous treatment this author gave to the town.So, I looked her up and low and behold, I

3.5 interesting starsI was hoping my review would be easier to write since some time has elapsed since I finished this one. This was an odd but compelling book and I think it is difficult to review. I’ve seen some very negative reviews and lots of 5-star reviews. Set on Long Island, this one is all about neighbors on Maple Street and what happens when someone who doesn’t fit the mold moves in. The Wilde family has an aging rock star husband Arlo, a pregnant beauty queen wife Gertie, and two teen...

I liked what Good Neighbors was trying to do but it just didn't quite work for me. The story is set a few years in the future on a street in a Long Island neighborhood, with a focus on two families. The story takes place one extremely hot summer. A sink hole opens up. The tensions between the families escalate. Other families take sides. The children have more sense than their parents. I understand that this was meant to be a reflection of our times -- where we're heading if environmental issues...

I have noticed some discussion of this book being more than your average neighborhood drama – which is true – but for those of you like me who almost didn’t want to read it any more because you were afraid of it becoming some preachy diatribe about global warming when you just were hoping for an escape, allow me to take a moment and assure you . . . . But maybe deeper trash than the banging of the person next door that I usually end up reading.You see, everything was going just fine in the s...

I found this book to be dark, overwrought, and depressing. It's very over the top when it comes to theming: mob mentality, rumor spreading, groupthink, the effect of our past on our present, peer pressure and fitting in by presenting the outward appearance of perfection. Yes, these are themes that in today's world beg to be explored and dissected. This novel, unfortunately, is filled with terrible people doing terrible things to each other, and what could have been an excellent mirror for self-e...

I will be honest. I had no expectations about this book. I almost purchased a hardcover because I loved its cover.But besides that, there is nothing good that I can say about it, except the writing.The book started well and I was quite impressed, but once the sinkhole appeared, everything was sucked in.I don’t mind mean characters (even the kids are mean!), but I found the whole story too shallow, too absurd and far from engaging.Although I was not bored, I did not feel entertained. I felt angry...

This fairly hummed with tension for a long while and then the power lines came crashing down and almost all was lost-just like Shelly, down the Maple Street sinkhole.It's a tight knit community in this Long Island neighborhood and at first the Wilde family seemed to fit in. It's a hot, hot summer and time for barbecues and swimming when, out of nowhere, a sinkhole opens nearby. As the hole widens and the bitumen seeps up, somehow the humanity of the residents seeps away. When the teen daughter o...

If you enjoyed Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere, you'll love Sarah Langan's Good Neighbors . Set in the upcoming future, in affluent NYC suburb Garden City, we have a community of families at war with each other. When a sinkhole appears in the neighborhood and a resident's child falls in, accusations run wild! Words can seriously affect lasting damage. I usually don't enjoy neighborhood dramas, as they tend to provide a slow build up, but this book was really intriguing. Sarah Langan uses...

The Wildes vs. Maple StreetGood Neighbors is an intense and disturbing futuristic take on the devastating effects of mob mentality. This is not your average Long Island suburb. While Maple Street is full of barbecues, community and friendship, all is not as it seems. When Gertie Wilde, a former beauty pageant queen and her ex-rockstar husband Arlo move to Maple Street, Rhea Schroeder, the block’s leader, is the first to befriend them. While the Wildes feel like outsiders to this “American Dream”...

Now THIS would make an awesome book club discussion! I so wish I could have buddy read this with someone because I had so many wtf moments. The comparison to Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere is spot on ... I definitely felt similar vibes while reading Good Neighbors. This would make a spectacular tv series! The story is set on Maple Street in the suburbs of Long Island, NY. The character list is stacked but the stories main focus is on the tension between the Wilde and Schroeder families. Th...

•Rating•⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 starI recommend this book!•Review•This was definitely a "what the F did I just read??" kind of book. This book takes place a few decades in the future... although it isn't at all futuristic. The kids maturity level is that of 30 year olds and the parents are just all around awful human beings, and maybe that is what the future will bring...I'll come back to this review in 20 years. With all of that being said, it was a page turner and unputdownable. It was hard to understand the...

Good Neighbors is heartbreaking, grim, sinister. It is not a happy book, and centers around a mother and daughter, with the daughter falling into a sinkhole. It shows how one cunning woman lies to cover her secrets, which then evolves into a neighborhood mob towards an innocent family. The truth is revealed towards the end, setting into motion a shocking climactic end. I find it simply amazing how the author uses the human elements in her book to create a much bigger picture. It will be interest...

Review coming soon.

Good Neighbors is about families living in a Long Island neighborhood. It is a slow-paced story with many characters. The plot is good but I couldn’t get into the story.I didn’t finish the book.I received a free copy of this book by NetGalley and Simon and Schuster in exchange for a review

What happens when you’re accused of something you haven’t done? Little Fires Everywhere meets Big Little Lies meets Shirley Jackson in this page-turning study of (the dangers of) suburbia.

2.5 / 5 starsGood Neighbors takes place in 2027 where a bunch of families live on Maple Street in the suburbs of Long Island, NY. I guess I would describe this book as general fiction.The book has a few 3rd person POVs. Mainly we have Rhea (53) and Gertie (31), two moms who are sometimes best friends and sometimes enemies. And Gertie's 12 year old daughter Julia.The book features some news articles from 2043. But I don't really understand why the story takes place in 2027 or why the newspaper ar...

It's July 4, 2027 and the neighbors on Maple Street in a suburb on Long Island have gotten together for a barbeque...all but one family was invited. The Wilde family is the newest family in the neighborhood and are very different from the other families - Arlo is an ex-rock star who is covered in tattoos that cover up his track marks, his wife Gertie is an ex beauty queen who has seen the dark sides of life and their two children Julie, a pre-teen who not only smokes but has taught the other chi...