A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

Amy  

fiction

In A Good Neighborhood, the Whitman family moves into a newly built home within an older, established neighborhood directly behind the Alston-Holt family. When the new construction damages a historic oak tree on the Alston-Holt’s property, trouble ensues. But this novel is really not about the tree trouble. It’s about people trouble.

The neighborhood of Oak Knoll is similar to my own neighborhood. My house was built after demolition of the old 1950s ranch that was previously on this ¼ acre property. Even though I’m a newer neighbor, I can empathize with the Alston-Holt family’s concerns about neighborhood changes and tree health. I, too, have been angered when too many trees have been removed by builders. I had read some reviews that this novel was slow or boring at the beginning but I didn’t find it so. I suspect this is because of my own neighborhood similarity and the fact that the Whitmans and Alston-Holts are of my generation with similar home and family considerations. I found it very relevant.

What I didn’t like was that Therese Anne Fowler chose to make the narrator be a neighborhood entity, like an HOA or book club, referring to themselves as “we” throughout the novel. It really bugged me. I would have preferred an omniscient narrator since there’s no way this group of people would have known all the thoughts and actions taken by the characters about whom the story is written. There were a few times the author tried to make it seem like this group was self-aware of the fact that they had limited information but then she would plunge ahead and write about the characters’ inner-most thoughts anyway. It didn’t jive and rubbed the wrong way.

What I did like was the way the author casually dropped several bombs during the story.  I thought I knew the characters fairly well and then I’d learn a new, critical fact about a person. Those “Oh!” moments were fun and kept the story moving in directions I hadn’t expected.

What I didn’t know was how emotional I was going to get with this story! I didn’t know exactly what would happen but I knew something was destined to go very wrong. I got so ANGRY and heartsick when this story took a tragic turn. The cruelty, derangement, and stupidity displayed by the person who caused the most trouble was terrible. I had to walk away from the audiobook and stop listening several times (!) because I had become so tense and upset that I was stressed out on behalf of the sweet character paying the price. I was FURIOUS!  A novel hasn’t gotten me this worked up in a very long time.  I kept having to remind myself this was fiction and these were only characters.  But I know this sort of thing has happened and continues to happen to people in real life. GRRRRR!  IT WAS SO UPSETTING!!!!!

I feel this is an important novel that people, especially overbearing out-of-touch parents, should read. Of course, those people are too out of touch to even consider reading it, sadly. Sigh. People can be horrible.  And our justice system can also be horrible. It’s infuriating.

The audiobook narrator, Ella Turenne, wasn’t the right choice for this novel, in my opinion. I mostly didn’t love the robotic, slow delivery. I didn’t think her voice fit most of the characters. I also wasn’t impressed with her limited vocal repertoire and disliked her use of emphasis within many sentences. She kept pulling me out of the actual story every time I was offended by something on the recording. I give her a C+.