Review: What the Neighbors Saw by Melissa Adelman

What the Neighbors Saw by Melissa Adelman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was provided both a print and an audio arc of this book via Netgalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed that this had two narrators to distinguish between Blair and Alexis' perspectives.  I enjoyed both narrators performances and felt they did a good job.

This follows Alexis after she and her husband Sam move in to a dilapidated house in the DC suburbs.  The house is in their dream neighborhood and perfect for their growing family.  Unfortunately the house came with a hefty mortgage, and at every turn they are sinking more and more into repairs just to make it safe to live in.  Alexis has just given birth to their second child and with the financial burden and stress of the new house that strains her marriage even more.  When their neighbor turns up dead a few weeks after they move in, Alexis begins to notice that her neighbors have strange night time behaviors as she is up for nighttime feedings with her little one.  Her husband is growing more and more irritated by the house and trying to make partner at his law firm and thinks she is just being paranoid.  As she begins to befriend some of the women in the neighborhood she finds that some of her paranoia is warranted.  

Our other perspective comes from Blair, whose husband has just been murdered.  She quickly befriends Alexis and is happy to have someone to lean on after such a tragedy.  As the women begin to grow close, strange things continue to happen in their luxurious neighborhood.    Things aren't always what they seem in the carefully constructed neighborhood of wealth and priveledge.

I found this to be pretty predictable.  I kind of had the whole thing figured within a few chapters.  There weren't very many red herrings to mislead the reader, you just weren't clear on the motivations which aren't revealed until much later.   This is pretty low on the thrill and suspence aspects, which is not my type of thriller.  I prefer heart pumping fast paced action.  This is slow burn and follows the characters through their day to day lives until the truth about what happened is revealed. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters.  They were all self absorbed and shallow, I didn't like any of them and that makes it hard for me.  Alexis made alot of questionable decisions, but she was supposed to be a very intelligent woman.  I'm not a fan of the domestic thriller where the female character is supposed to be really smart but she keeps doing dumb things.  

I believe the author was trying to make a statement about motherhood, body image and marriage and how that changes a woman and her relationships.  While that is accurate, it didn't really work for me.  While this book didn't work for me, I think there is an audience for this book.  There is no gory crime scene and there isn't alot of police procedural stuff going on.  I you enjoy a slower burn domestic thriller this is a good one to check out, it isn't what I'm looking for.

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