The Neighbors We Want is more of a domestic thriller/drama with all sorts of nasty and crazy characters.

Obsession and in all forms is prevalent.

Typically I love nasty characters but I struggled with this book.

Yet I wanted to finish the book so what would happen to Adam and Sarah not to mention the neighbours.

I guess this one just wasn't for me but I certainly would try the authors next book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read and review.

This book was…odd. I found it very hard to keep track of each of the narrators/character and who they were involved with and what their motivations are. It was very choppy. I didn’t mind the writing style, but I feel that the character development could have been better to help with the confusion. I like multi POV books, but this one didn’t work for me. It felt more like a soap opera than a thriller. There was not one likable person to be found in the book.

I don’t think I can summarize the book any differently than the original teaser.

It just felt messy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

Unfortunately this book is hard to follow. The timeline keeps jumping from past to present, it's hard to keep track of what is happening. The writing also just feels choppy. The synopsis sounded promising but they way the book is written makes it hard to follow.

This book unfortunately didn’t hit the way I wanted it to, so many unlikable characters, the writing felt so bumpy and uncomfortable, everything about it felt wrong at times. Great idea though and there were parts I liked, certainly the twists, but not enough to save it for me.

Do any of us ever really get truly lucky with our neighbors?

My husband and I live on a col-de-sac . Our neighbors are quiet and keep to themselves and after reading this book… I have no complaints.

Tim Lane did a magical job throwing us down the rabbit hole of secrets, lies and deceit.

I started out not liking Adam. Being a stay at home dad has its perks. He has a beautiful baby and a wife yet it doesn’t seem to be enough when Adam can’t keep his eyes off his neighbor, Ali.

Then Adam witnesses Ali’s ex boyfriend lurking around her house as Ali goes missing. Adam decides to play amateur detective to find out what happened to Ali.

Adam just didn’t expect his town to be filled with so many secrets and lies…

Before I blow the cover off this book, I won’t let a spoiler slip. I highly recommend you check out the teaser below and pre-order this showstopper! I absolutely loved it!

Teaser :

Adam is having a hard time adjusting to the stay-at-home-dad life. The sleepless nights and the constant diaper changing are not what he expected after he was abruptly fired from his job. Then again, Adam wasn’t prepared for his relationship with his wife Sarah to slowly come apart at the seams either. One thing, however, keeps him going—his growing obsession with his neighbor, Ali.

But one night, something changes. While staying up with his baby, instead of seeing Ali in the window across the way, he sees her ex-boyfriend, Crispin, lurking around her house before disappearing within. When Adam hears that Ali doesn’t show up for work the next day, and she doesn’t seem to be home, he fears the worst—that she’s been abducted, or possibly killed. His search for the truth will lead Adam on a path filled with deceit and lies.

Adam knows the answers are lurking somewhere in the shadows of his small suburban town—the trouble is, the truth is hard to find when everyone has something to hide.

This one just wasn’t for me. Although the synopsis caught my interest, nothing about the story grabbed me. I made several attempts to get into this book but it just didn’t seem to work. For me, not a thriller nor a page turner.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This wasn't what I thought it was going to be. This book is marketed as a thriller but it's far from it. It's simply... weird. It honestly makes the reader feel a bit uncomfortable and awkward while reading. It wasn't really a cohesive story. I wouldn't recommend.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

All neighborhoods have secrets, and this lovely street in Portland is no exception. Adam is a new stay at home dad taking care of baby Maddie while Sarah, a teacher, is working. Having a child has brought new dynamics to the relationship. The deep, dark secrets Adam and Sarah hide cause even more strain in the home. When their beautiful neighbor Ali seems to go missing, these secrets and lies find a way to push up to the surface.

This book gives Gillian Flynn vibes. Once secrets come out, new revelations bring on more darkness. A struggle I had with this book is the lack of caring about any of the characters. There’s really no one to root for and with each chapter, you discover more and more reasons to hate nearly everyone in the book. The writing style was overly descriptive (so many mentions of poop). The nods to the struggles of motherhood were appreciated especially as this novel is written by a male writer. Overall, I feel okay about the book, however it won’t make my top list for the year.

Oh this was a mess of abysmal sad and awful characters. Not so much of a psychological thriller as it is a slog through awful psyches. No thanks, don't come to my neighborhood.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

While I don’t think that this book was the psychological page turner it promised to be, I did enjoy the writing style of this book and I enjoyed the plot. I wish there had been a bit more to the story and I felt that some character development was lacking and I didn’t find myself wanting to reach for this book to finish it, but while I was reading it, I definitely enjoyed it. A solid 3.5 stars for this one. Thank you for providing me with an ARC for my honest feedback.

I received an advance copy for my honest review, thanks Netgalley.

This storyline was hard to follow, Unfortunately, this title fell flat for me.

The storyline has a lot of twists and turns that kept me so confused. This one was hard to follow.

The title and blurb pulled me in. Give me quirky, thrillery and eccentric any day. But The Neighbors We Want is odd in a vulgar and depraved way, neighbours behaving abysmally with incredible immaturity. It was impossible for me to find enough redemption in the plot and setting to override the disturbing aspects. Therefore I did not finish it.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley.

Adam is a stay at home dad with a baby less than a year old. Sarah, his wife, is a school teacher. Their marriage seems to be deteriorating and they are both struggling with emotions, control, and obsessions. There is Ali, a neighbor that Adam is watching through the window obsessively and there is Crispin, Ali’s ex-boyfriend creeping around. How are they all connected? Do we even care? I’m sorry to say, I didn’t. I did not care about any of these characters, non of them were likable. I feel you need a character or two to care about to enjoy a story so it follows that I did not enjoy this book. At times, the writing was good but it wasn’t enough to save the despicable characters. You could kind of sense where the story was headed also, which didn’t really help since the description of the book said it was a “psychological page-turner”. I expected more suspense. I can’t recommend this book, especially if you’re looking for a gripping thriller. I’m giving it 1 star out of 5.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wooooweee...there is not even a facsimile of a sane, well adjusted person within these pages. Each one is crazier than the next. And it was a delightfully delicious read. I think the blurb of the book and categorizing this as a thriller is a bit misleading, but it was still a great way to spend a few hours going down the crazy train rabbit hole with these characters.

This book was very strange. It felt very scattered. Didn’t seem like there was an actual plot, it just went in circles. I was confused half the time.

The storyline really grabbed me but I was very disappointed.

I wanted to throw in the towel, but I forced myself to finish it. This book wasn’t for me.

Adam is a new stay at home dad. He was fired from his job, and his marriage is slowly unraveling. But his obsession with his neighbour Ali is growing. When Ali doesn’t show up for work, Adam believes her recent ex-boyfriend has something to do with it.


Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for a DRC. The Neighbours We Want is available September 5.

Really sad to say I didn’t enjoy this read, it just didn’t hit the mark, and felt all over the place. Such a shame as I really wanted to enjoy it.

This one fell flat for me. It's a community "thriller" where everyone is behaving badly and there is a lot of clear symbolism for how boring married life/the suburbs are. None of the characters are compelling and are instead downright unlikeable. I think the reveals were well done, I just couldn’t get invested in anyone.

A rating for this is hard. It's not that I hated the writing - I just didn't like any of the characters.

The Neighbors We Want is a neighborhood domestic thriller that focuses on Sarah and Adam, who are new parents that are struggling in their marriage, and their neighbor Ali. I had really wanted to enjoy this book; however, there were several reasons why I didn't. To begin with, there isn't really any mystery. From the start, we more-or-less know what has happened or is going to happen. Next, none of the characters are likable and their actions make little sense. I honestly do not know who was my least favorite character because I so thoroughly found them all so confusing. I also found many of the scenes to be strange with unnessary details. Finally, it was an overall very slow read. I had to force myself to keep reading so that I could finish the book. Much of the slow pacing was due to the fact that there wasn't a "thriller" aspect to the book. Again, we knew what was going to happen from the start. The Neighbors We Want just wasn't for me.

The Neighbors We Want by Tim Lane

No matter how many times for a thriller-reader has read about "Neighbors" be the core theme, we still expect something new. Please surprise me! The Neighbors We Want kept me waiting for the twist and the plot that thrilled me. However, I will categorised the fiction towards soap opera rather than a thriller.

Adam lost his job and now he became a full time stayhome father to take care of the nipper. Under this unexpected change, Adam developed a new obsession, which was to "observe" his new young neighbor Ali through the window. Adam noticed Ali's ex-boyfriend was stalking her. Until one day, Ali disappeared...

I found myself difficult to relate to any characters in the story and I guess because of their weird and unwelcoming personalities, especially Ali's ex-boyfriend and his mother...

Thank you Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books and Tim for the opportunity to review this book. I still look forward to his next creation.

Kindle: 272 pages
Pub date: Sep 5, 2023

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.
What? The heck? The MC sees a guy urinating on the house across the street within the first few pages. And it didn't get any better than that. This book is a big nope for me. Marketing people, please stop trying to compare to other authors in your publicity campaigns. This is mostly definitely NOT "for fans of Paula Hawkins" or possibly anyone else.