Book Review: The New Neighbor by Karen Cleveland

From start to finish it felt over the top and it was very hard to believe that a seasoned CIA analyst would behave as the main character behaved. The piling-on of horribles as obstacles in our fearless heroine’s way started to feel unnecessarily harsh very early on, especially since you knew she was going to overcome them all because it was going to be That Kind Of Story. The Big Reveal didn’t make a lot of sense, because it relied on “shocking” realizations that the main character – again, a seasoned CIA analyst trained to look for signals – should have identified as relevant early on but somehow conveniently forgot about or ignored. It made the revelation feel forced and not entirely authentic with the previous experience of the character in the book, which was a big stumbling point for me.

I’m constantly intrigued by the seemingly endless fascination the world has with reading and writing stories that seek to peel back the curtain on suburban life to reveal a roiling cesspool of deception and lies. It’s like it’s become the new Fairy Tale flip side, Like with so many tropes though, the first few times you stumble across it are surprising and shocking and fun, but after awhile it starts to feel overdone, and so authors start piling on additional elements intended to startle and surprise the reader – but too much of a good thing isn’t usually a good thing, and that’s what I felt happened here…

The concept wasn’t engaging one, and it drew me in from blurb. Cleveland’s writing is always easy to fall into, even if you’re rolling your eyes in disbelief while reading, so I never had a problem continuing with the book. It did start to feel a little too much fairly early on though, and I actually found myself wondering if the twist was going to be but there was in fact no vast conspiracy underpinning it all but instead a bout with mental illness – which might actually have been more plausible, if less satisfying for most readers.

Still I will happily admit that the second twist at the end was one I did not see coming but thoroughly enjoyed. It is what led me to think there may be more books coming, and what leads me to the conclusion that I would be willing to give another book following these characters a try. That twist and my general feelings about Cleveland’s storytelling were strong enough to leave me curious as to what happens next – which, after all, is the hallmark of a good writer…

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.