The Block Party is focused on one seemingly quite street full of people who have their lives together. All is not what it seems, however, as the listener quickly finds out. The story is told in dual points of view between Alex and her daughter Lettie and spans over a year. All the neighbors on the street have secrets that they are keeping from each other as well as their own families. Some of the secrets are harmless, while others turn out deadly.

I thought this was a good domestic type thriller, but was sort of predictable at times for me. I did expect some of the twists, but was surprised by other turns. I do think it got a bit repetitive at parts, especially with Alex's drinking. I felt that the reader was knocked over the head with this information time and time again, almost wanted to roll my eyes at the frequency. I found the format to be interesting, telling the story in dual timelines and chronologically. I liked the development of the characters, but most of them were just kind of unlikeable, which is fine because you're not always going to like your neighbors, but there were few redeeming people besides Lettie honestly. Either way, I had fun reading this book, and look forward to recommending it to my friends who like a little neighborhood drama that isn't their own. I also enjoyed the narrators take on the different characters. It gave it a more entertaining listen for sure. I give this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced listen of this audiobook. All opinions within this review are my own.

Get ready for some summer block party drama! In this mystery thriller we are all sucked into the neighborhood drama that exists between these people. There is a murder that happens the night of the block party. We go back and forth through the timeline of last year to the present. We slowly learn about all the secrets and scandals and what led up to the murder. I loved how it was perfectly unraveled at a good pace.

The audiobook narration kept me engaged and wanting to find out everyone’s gossip. It was easy to keep track of the characters and storyline. I think this book is the perfect summer listen!

💚We made it to Friday y’all! 💚

I picked up the The Block Party because let’s face it I’ve got nosy neighbors. 😆

The residents of the exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other.

On the night of the annual Summer block party, there has been a murder.

But, who did it and why takes readers back one year earlier, as rivalries and betrayals unfold—discovering that the real danger lies within their own block and nothing—and no one—is ever as it seems.

The premise of The Block Party is interesting and definitely relatable as a person living in a nosy neighborhood. I did have trouble following at times due to multiple characters, POV’s and dual timelines. Once I got them straight it was a juicy read. SO many secrets! I can only imagine what’s going on in my hood that I don’t know about. 😆 I enjoyed the nosy neighbor storyline but it could have been just a bit shorter IMO.

Tell me about your neighborhood! Are y’all nosy or do you keep to yourselves?

Thanks to @stmartinspress for sending me this gifted copy!

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4.5 stars bumped up to 5 for this slow-burn neighborhood mystery! This is definitely domestic suspense at its best. Everyone on Alton Road has secrets, and this book starts off with a dead body.

At the annual Memorial Day Party, secrets start to become exposed and there are rumors of a dead body. To find out what happened, we go back a year to see what led up to the dramatic events. This story is told from the point of view of two main characters: Alex and her daughter Lettie. Both characters know enough about what is going on in the neighborhood to keep the reader guessing. There is a lot of unresolved trauma in the homes on Alton Road, as well as a lot of secrets. I guessed a few, but was still surprised when I was correct. There were also twists and turns that I never saw coming.

The narrators of this audiobook were fantastic! They played their characters well, as well as all of the other characters in the story. There are also trigger warnings that you should check out before reading this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read this book! Jamie Day is an author to watch out for - I cannot wait to read what she writes next!

Well-written and plotted mystery with a great pace and good character development, especially with a larger group of characters! The Block Party stands out as a creative and engaging mystery without the predictable tropes or unbelievable, over the top plot twists present in many lesser novels in this genre. The narrator was also excellent and had a performance that consistently kept me absorbed in the story. Highly recommend!

This was a fun summer thriller! In this suburban suspense, everyone is hiding something and I truly relished in Day’s choice of not only having to uncover a murderer but who was murdered as well!

The narration decision by Day was also pretty intriguing as although we had an abundance of characters to meet in this story, we only get two POVs as we rotate between a mother and teenage daughter. These extremely different perspectives adds a very compelling element and layer to the plot!

While a bit too long for me and slightly unrealistic at times, I still enjoyed the juicy drama and found it certainly entertaining! Solid debut!

Thank you Macmillian Audio for a copy of this e-audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Both narrators did a great job with changing their voices to fit the characters. It made it a little easier to follow all the characters since there were so many. My main complaint lies within the writing and plot of the book.

I was very excited to read this summer-esque mystery. I was let down fairly quickly. I had such a hard time getting into the plot of this book. My first complaint was there were WAY too many characters with not enough differences. It was extremely hard to keep track of names. Because of this, there was WAY too much drama happening in the book. There should have been one major storyline that the author focused on and not three/four. My other complaint was that the ending was extremely predictable.

Overall, this book was a letdown for me, but I would still be open to trying future books by Jamie Day.

First off- I wouldn't really call this a thriller. This is a suburban drama with LOTS of secrets, triggers, and drama. The book starts in present day. Every memorial day, this neighborhood has a block party and this year something crazy happens. Then we jump back to a year ago to learn about the people in the neighborhood and what happened leading up to the climax of present day. Honestly, I love these suburban neighborhood drama stories where everyone is connected and everyone is morally gray, so this one was thoroughly entertaining for me. We get mostly the perspective of Alex and her daughter Lettie. While there are a lot of characters and it can get a little confusing, reading it in print was no problem and even on audio, there are multiple narrators so its definitely helpful. My only real complaint is that something about the way Alex's alcohol abuse was written really rubbed me wrong. It somewhat trivialized alcoholism and felt like it was just a plot device to create some confusion over who we could trust and it felt icky. This also won't be a book I remember forever, but thats not really the point. The point was entertainment throughout and that was a success. I don't want to say a whole lot more than that because when you find out all the connections it is twisty and fun and I dont want to spoil, but definitely look up triggers if needed!

SPOILERS AHEAD:
Alex's drinking has caused some problems in her marriage with her husband Nick. Her sister lives in the neighborhood too with a scumbag husband named Kent. They have a son named Dylan who was dating the cool girl, Riley. Riley was cheating with an older man and Lettie works with the new kid in the neighborhood to expose the affair because Riley was a big jerk to Lettie. Riley's dad is not actually her bio dad and she finds that out in this book. Her adoptive dad, Ethan, is addicted to pain pills. There is so much more in the way of details but long story short, Kent was the guy that Riley was sleeping with (her boyfriend's dad) and so her dad killed him in a drunken, pill induced rage. He had also been apart of a rape scandal in high school with the new mom in the neighborhood so she poisoned his alcohol, which Ethan drank and ultimately killed himself, saving those who confronted him. So both Kent and Ethan were dead and everyone else was safe. Alex quit drinking and all was hunky dory.

This book and narration with the alternating narrators was spot on!

I loved the way we start the book in present day and then learn about all the “players” in the past year. It’s never surprising to me how many secrets people have. I’m just always surprised that they don’t think they’re gonna get caught and this is one of those books where people are never what they seem.

I like the way that the book was told, and I like the way the story was layered so we know someone dies from the very beginning, but I think I mentally put every single person in the category; of this could be the one that died, before we got to the end, and we finally got to see what happened.

If you like a Mystery with some drama and this book has a lot of that pick this one up, it’s a fun read.

The twists at the end made this entire story worth the listen… but I have to be honest, it was 3hrs over my attention span for a book of this nature. It took way too long to get to the best part of the storyline, so my attention and keeping me interested in the book was hanging on by mere threads by the time we got to the whodunnit part.

I want to thank NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with an advanced audiobook version of this publication. In return, I have promised to provide an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me on my toes. The characters were well developed, and there weren’t lulls for me. I genuinely did not want to put this down.

Thank you to Jamie Day and Net galley for the chance to experience this ARC!

The Block Party
Thank you, St Martin's Press, for the gifted copy of this debut novel! {partner}

Genre: Fiction
Format: 🎧
Audiobook Narration: ☆☆☆☆
Pub Date:
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆

"Guys who bully tend to punch or shove. But girls are far more insidious. They're emotional ninjas, delivering steals wounds you don't see or feel until you're already bleeding out."

Wow, what a debut! Jamie Day packed quite a lot into her first novel — exploring themes of alcoholism, infidelity, global warming, parenting, drug abuse, pregnancy loss, revenge, and depression. There was no stone left unturned.

I'm not going to lie; I made it to the halfway point of the audio and almost didn't finish because I had over 6 hours left. But I'm stubborn, and I stuck with it. And what do you know? I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. Don't get me wrong, some editing needed to be done to shorten it, but it was still a fun read. Sure, the characters were all awful people (minus one), and there's more drama than I can typically handle, but it was a fun (and wild) read. I can't wait to see what she writes next!

Oddly enough, my favorite character was the teenage daughter, Lettie. While she did bring a YA vibe to the story — she was truly such a good person and easy to root for. She might be the only sane one in the group, too. 🤪

😒 Neighbors behaving badly
🤫 Secrets
🎭 All the drama

The Block Party will be perfect for fans of one of my OG favorites - Desperate Housewives.

Do you have a neighborhood block party? Do you wonder what everyone else is doing while you're enjoying a glass of wine? Celebrate summer with this fun, twisty tale of parties gone wrong.

This was too YA for me. Giving the daughter a POV brought down the drama of the story because she was very immature. By the end I just didn't care what happened.

I received an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

The Block Party delivered all the drama about an exclusive neighborhood on Alton Road through alternating narratives from a mother and daughter who live there. I love that Day decided on a mother daughter duo for the narration because it gave the reader a glimpse into the full interconnectedness of the families on this road. The story touches not just the adults who live here, but their teenage children as well.

Instantly when starting this book the reader is told that something dramatic has happened at the annual Memorial Day block party celebration, but then the story flies back in time by a year to walk us through how everything unfolds. I loved the build up and the tension that increased as we got closer and closer to the fateful day in question. Day keeps the pacing quick while also managing to provide the reader plenty of needed details about the neighbors and their lives.

🎧: I lucked out and got a copy of the audio from Netgalley and I absolutely loved this book in this format! It was the perfect companion for my commute and kept me entertained the entire time.

A huge thank you to Get Red PR and St. Martin’s Press for my gifted copy!

This story is almost completely set on a cul-de-sac in the Meadowbrook subdivision of an affluent suburb in Massachusetts. Reminiscent of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty not everything is as the well polished facade might lead you to think ... the queen bee Alex has a drinking problem that seems to be getting worse now that an empty nest is on the horizon. Her husband Nic is risking his relationship to their only daughter for the sake of teaching discipline instead of listening while lamenting the lack of closeness. Their neighbors Alex's sister and her husband have severe trust issues in their marriage and Ken, her husband, very obviously favors their star athlete older son while their younger son is just trying to be seen ... his girlfriend Riley lives another house over with her parents who are just waiting till she's off to college to finally get a divorce. Then there is beautiful and widowed neighbor Brooke and an empty house soon to be populated by newcomers ... but are they really so new and who is sneaking into whose house, and why ? What's with the bug man a pest control salesman pestering the neighborhood? Why does the police keep appearing ? My favorite part was the virtual neighborhood message board that kept rehashing the goings on from outside like a Greek choir in a classic tragedy on the outside not elite enough to be part of this special circle but definitely intrigued!
The Memorial Day block parties of three years form the timeline for this book even if it starts at the one in the middle ...
This made for fun listening, I loved the narration by Megan Tuzing and Suzy Jackson, this was a juicy fun domestic suspense if four houses still make it domestic.

Domestic thriller meets Desperate Housewives.

So many interesting characters (likeable and perfectly hate-able as well).

This book is told in the timeframe of one year between one annual summer block party and the following one.

Chesting, black mail, threats, stockers and plenty of tension, this read will kerp you going until every last answer comes to light.

WOW! The Block Party is full of twists and secrets. Every character has secrets and everyone is connected somehow. I love the believability of the family and neighbor drama. The entire book is slowly building to the major explosion at the end of the book. This is going to be the book of the summer.

This is so good! I didn’t want to put it down!

I loved how the characters were woven into each others’ lives and it slowly unraveled how they were intertwined with one another.

This book does have some dark undertones, but it is well written and it doesn’t ramble on. It is fast paced and entertaining.

I can’t believe this is Jamie Day’s debut book! I will definitely be reading more from this author!

Thanks NetGalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Neighborhood scandal and I am here for it. Someone is murdered at the annual block party and everything starts to unravel. Told from the perspective of a mother and daughter along with flashbacks to the previous year, the story unfolds as secrets come to light. The beginning was slightly slow, but the mystery kept me intrigued. The narration brought the story to life while adding a dash of realism. This is an entertaining summer listen. Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my audiobook.