Good Neighbors

A stunning book - both in itself and in the vehement negative reactions some readers have had to it. "Good Neighbors" is a creditable descendant of Miller's "The Crucible" and Jackson's "The Lottery" and it cannot help but reflect (without screeching) the fog of conspiracy thinking and mob mentality in which we presently live.

A tip of the hat is necessary to Rod Serling's "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street:" "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices...to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all show more of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone." show less

The Wildes are the newest family on Maple Street, a quiet crescent-shaped street on Long Island that faces a large park. The families on Maple Street are a fairly close-knit group, complete with block parties and the children roving through the backyards together in the summer. In the summer of 2027, tensions are running high due to a collapsing economy and worsening environmental conditions, and when a sinkhole opens up in the park during the Fourth of July block picnic, things get out of control and the Wildes get blamed for it all. By the end of the summer an entire family will be dead.

Apparently, what happens on Maple Street captures the public's attention, and by 20 years later all the surviving participants will have been show more interviewed numerous times, books will have been written, and there will even be an interactive Broadway play based on the events of that summer. But what actually happens on Maple Street?

The later analysis and interviews that are included lead the reader to believe that there is some confusion about who is to blame for what happened, but the contemporary narrative makes things fairly clear. It comes down to mental illness. As a result, debating responsibility was less interesting than watching the reactions of the residents of Maple Street. This is a modern-day Crucible, with sexual abuse replacing witchcraft. Peer pressure and mob mentality are undisguised, but what was most interesting to me was how some people doubled down on their accusations, even in the face of actual evidence to the contrary. It was fascinating.

Langan's writing is very vivid, evoking the heat and the smells of that summer (although apparently many things smell like candy apples) as well as the actions of the characters. My only complaint about this book is that there are far too many neighbors, and I couldn't distinguish among them. In terms of bringing the mob to life, this is very effective, but in terms of establishing individual motivation it is, of necessity, less effective. Unfortunately, not having a sense of many of the characters as individuals took away from the story for me. Still, this is a powerful book, and an important one, in a world where "truth" seems less and less concrete. show less

Sarah Langan tells a cautionary tale of the suburbs-channeling Lianne Moriarty and Stephen King along with themes of mob mentality. An excellently written page-turner. My only complaint are too many false endings and philosophizing on the final pages.

This is a slow burn, and even though you know from the opening paragraphs what is going to happen, it's still a tense page-turner, and things don't happen the way you think they're going to. The book explores how people are susceptible to mob mentality, and how public perceptions differ from people's actual inner behavior. Unfortunately, the book also relies heavily - and insensitively - on mental illness as the root cause of bad behavior. Mental illness felt like a deus ex machina that just explained everything: the book could have been a lot more interesting if more subtle dynamics had been at play. The book also could have handled race a lot more sensitively.

Content warning for child abuse and bullying.

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 of the Schroeder family falls into the sinkhole, the once friendly neighbors lash out in a need to place blame, and why not place it squarely on the Wilde's doorstep? Will Shelly survive her fall? Will the Wildes survive Maple Street? You'll have show more to read this to find out!

There are some themes woven into this narrative - global warming and mob mentality to name a few. That's not to say this is a preachy book, and perhaps this is only my take but, I look around at the news right now and it's about a new president's actions on the environment and a recent insurrection and in that light, I don't find this tale to be all that far out. Is that scary? Yes! Is it meant to be? Maybe so. Does it make you uncomfortable? It should.

I felt for these characters...well, most of them, and I was interested to see how the media portrayed them all. There were a fair amount of epistolary sections here-bits quoted from books later written about the incidents on Maple Street, newspaper articles from the time, etc.. From these articles I drew my own conclusions about the biases of the writers of those articles and then I got to thinking about how our news is reported and who is doing the reporting, and how that affects the facts and here we are in the "it's probably just me" section again.

I've wandered away from the book itself, sorry about that. I think that GOOD NEIGHBORS has a lot of aspects to it and I find my mind turning it over again and again. I think I'm just going to leave it at what I've written and say that I very much enjoyed this story and obviously, it's given me a lot to think about it and because of that? I highly recommend GOOD NEIGHBORS!

*Thanks to Atra Books and NetGalley for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!* show less

The book is primarily set in 2027 (when the pertinent events happen), but it’s actually a reporter in 2042 (I believe) who is looking back on the “Murders of Maple Street”, and what led up to it. Arlo, Gertie and their kids, Julia and Larry moved to Maple Street a year earlier. They are pretty much “white trash”, but were trying to be upwardly mobile. It took a bit of time to be accepted, but after their immediate neighbour Rhea befriends Gertie, things go much smoother… until the 4th of July, when Gertie realizes everyone on the street was invited to the party except them. She’s not sure what happened for them to be excluded.

Things get more and more out of hand amongst the kids when Rhea’s daughter, Shelley, and Julia show more suddenly aren’t speaking (but Julia doesn’t understand why). Just before Shelley disappears into a giant sinkhole that opened up across the street, she had accused Julia’s father of something terrible. The rumors and gossip get so out of hand, and things go incredibly wrong…

This built, though part-way through I knew I would rate it quite high (was thinking 4.5 stars), but the end – I didn’t see coming! Holy crap – that mob mentality! I was angry at so many of those people! I feel like this is a slightly different take on the current thriller fad. It did remind me a bit of “Big Little Lies” with the articles and interviews (from 2042) that were interspersed, but it was still quite different from others out there (in my opinion). show less

I'm not sure how to rate this book because it is well written and the story definitely keeps you interested but man, it is dark and disturbing. It is a very depressing commentary of society that hits a little too close to home these day with people creating their own realities and others joining in regardless of the dire consequences to everyone involved. It is difficult to find likeable people and tolerate the mob mentality of the neighborhood. It will make you uncomfortable, angry and sad and I recommend you have a light, happy read next in line because you will need it after this one is done.