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 … 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.more
Good Neighbors, Joanne Serling’s debut novel, proved to be an interesting read. The prologue with its distant feel didn’t add anything to the book and nearly kept me from continuing with it. Once I hung in for a while, I was glad I did. Told from the point of view of Nicole Westerhof, Good Neighbors is set in an idyllic suburb, four privileged families form rather superficial friendships based more on their allegiance to their neighborhood and lifestyles rather than true camaraderie.
One of the couples, Paige and Gene Edwards, adopt a girl from Russia. The girl, Winnie, is said by her parents to be emotionally delayed and with destructive tendencies due to her time in the Russian orphanage. Her behavior outside the home, however, doesn’t ring true with their statements. The neighbors begin to wonder if the entire Edwards family is dysfunctional, if the mother alone is abusive, or if the child truly has emotional problems.
From here, the friendships unravel. The group remains loyal to their privilege and their belief that no one in their upper class neighborhood could possibly be a child abuser. Nicole faces her own inadequacies as a mother while she obsesses about the fate of Winnie.
Serling looks at the seen, the unseen; the blindness of privilege; a family’s right to privacy versus the universal need to protect the weak. Though slow to start simmering, Good Neighbors ends up rising to a full boil. It is compelling and thought-provoking as it deals with how superficially the neighbors are of other races (one of the families is Puerto Rican). These families are so ensconced in their upper-middle class comfort that they don’t confront the issues that are tearing their friendships and neighborhood apart until it is too late.
This book tells the story of 3 couples, all neighbors on a cul-de-sac. When one of the couples adopts a daughter who starts acting out, the other couples begin questioning if the little girl is safe and wondering what exactly is going on in that house, if anything.
Wow this was devoured in a day! Anyone that lives in a subdivision with their young family can relate to the characters and environment. Everyone’s in the same social class, same number of kids, everyone’s superficial, but they’re not truly your friend. This is thought provoking and a wonderful read! Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ebook.
This is a novel about four families of neighbors in an upscale suburb. They all become friends due to their proximity to each other and probably wouldn’t be friends for any other reason because they are all so different. This is a mainly a story of the women in this exclusive clique – the husbands are definitely part of the background and don’t play much of a role in the neighborhood dramas and dynamics.
Nicole, Paige, Lorraine and Nela are the women in the neighborhood who bond together – they all have kids about the same age and that is their main link. Nicole is the narrator and the first to notice a problem when Paige and her husband adopt a 4 year old from Russia. Since Paige lives in the nicest and most expensive house in the neighborhood, it seems that all of the other women are reluctant to point out the possible problems with the adopted child and the ways Paige and her husband have changed. As the three friends begin to question the treatment of child, the friendships begin to unravel. The book is full of twists and turns about whether the women stay friends or speak up about the possible mistreatment.
In her Author’s Note, Joanne Serling states that she chose to write, “about the themes of community, parenting, and adoption as a way of discovering my own beliefs about family, the ones we create and the ones we inherit”. She did just that and more.
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
I don’t know what to think about this one other than the end was different. I thought there would be more drama and it was real slow as we got to know the characters. The characters are well-developed but it just didn’t do it for me. Is there going to be a part 2 or something?
Thank you Net Gallery for the opportunity to read and review this book.
An interesting and mind-blowing look at the American suburban life, the secrets, the fake friends, the pretending and the smoke and mirrors people build to hide the truth about themselves, about their families, about their lives, and about the parenting.
The story is told from the first person point of view by one of the neighbors the inner clique of the cul-de-sac. The writing style is unique, like bulleting points directed to the mind of the reader, building up images, and getting to be rather addictive after you get into the story.
Nicole herself is struggling with her relationship with her mother and an alcoholic sister. She has anger issues and problems with impulse control when it comes to taking her frustration into her boys, the older son, in particular, having the constant battle in her mind not to physically punish him for not being exactly like she wanted him to be.
To shadow her own behavior as a parent, she starts to pick apart every moment of interaction the neighbors have with their new adoptive daughter, finding and focusing on the negative images created by the busy minds. Not saying nothing is wrong, and everything is fine with the Edwards, but the neighbors are determined to be the judge and the jury, to claim them bad parents from the very start of Winnie’s arrival to the house.
This story took me by surprise. The raw honesty of the wicked human mind, the way people judge each other, the fakeness of pretend-friendships, the constant critique of others in a negative way, it ate my mind. Are we really that brutal towards each other? Do we really see so much negative aspects, in other people’s lives around us? Is there real feelings. caring, friends, families out there at all? Is this something that happens ‘only in America’ or can this be an international, western world epidemic of the downfall of the human condition?
Yes, this story definitely made me think, and celebrate my own choices in life of never ending up in the suburbs. I think this story could be a great conversation starter in a book club if people dared to be open and honest about the thoughts and revelations the story wakes up in them.
A compelling story that awoke my mind with curiosity. It is provocative, it is engaging, and most definitely an interesting story, something I have to digest for a little while to really grasp the depth of the tale.
~ Four Spoons