Valerie is a professor of forestry with a teenage son Xavier living next door to Brad Whitman and his wife Julia and her teenage daughter Juniper, who just moved into a new home with a pool.  However, Valerie finds her old oak tree dying because the new pool was built too close to the edge of her property, so she sues the builder and Brad.  Meanwhile, Xavier and Juniper begin more than a friendship.  Brad catches the teenagers having sex in a cabin, and calls the police, charging Xavier with raping his stepdaughter.  Valerie hires a lawyer for her son and he gets out on bail.  Then, Brad says he will get the charges dropped if Valerie drops her suit...

When an old home is knocked down and a huge, new home replaces it with just enough room for a pool and barely any grass, the neighborhood is changed. Brad Whitman, his wife, Julie and 2 daughters have moved in next door to Valerie Alston-Holt and her teenage son, Xavier who live in a modest home with beautiful flowers and a big old oak tree,. The story begins when Juniper, Brad & Julie’s teenage daughter is sitting by their pool when Xavier spots her and welcomes her to the neighborhood. Xavier is bi-racial and thus the story begins. There are so many facets to this book that made an interesting read for me. It starts off a little slow but speeds up half way through and I couldn’t put it down until finished.

Somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.  I'm having a hard time deciding what to give this book.  17-year old Juniper and her family move in next door to 18-year old Xavier and his mother.  This is a nice North Carolina neighborhood where everyone gets along and have lived together for many years.  Juniper's family just built a million dollar home, while the rest of the neighborhood is established and more conservative.  What ensues is an interesting story that asks the questions: What makes a good neighbor, are Christian ideals still relevant in our day, is prejudice still rampant in the United States, and how fair is our legal/justice system?  

I had a really hard time getting into this book. The first 3/4 was pretty forgettable for me.  I understand the need for character development, but the author took too long.  It was pretty forgettable and I never felt compelled to keep reading.  The last quarter of the book definitely got me thinking about how our society still doesn't understand that color does not matter- and all people of every nationality/race need to recognize it.  It's an unfortunate story for sure.  I felt she was kind of bashing organized religion, which I didn't appreciate, but I also recognize many people are struggling with it nowadays.  

Didn't love it, but didn't hate it.  

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC for my honest opinion.

An absolutely great read that pulled me into the story on page 1 and made me care about the events of this neighborhood.  As Therese Fowler introduced us to Oak Knoll, she set a story of how a community influences the lives of the families living there.  This community seemed safe and accepting at first glance but once a disagreement among neighbors is introduced, we find that all is not as it seems.  This story could have been set in any community with the same results.  That is the core story.  Reading A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD is a must, BUT, make sure you plan on an all nightery, because once you start, you will not want to stop.

The neighborhood of Oak Knolls is a friendly place where monthly book clubs are held at Valerie's home and neighbors look out for each other. Now some of the older homes are being razed and replaced with mansions. Valerie is an ecologist and when her oak tree is dying she decides to sue her new neighbors, Brad Whitman, his wife, Julia, and the builder she feels is responsible. Brad is a local celebrity due to his TV commercials for Whitman HVAC and Valerie is a widowed black woman raising her biracial son.

Brad's stepdaughter, Juniper, takes a purity promise when she is 14 and is being taught to be obedient and submissive to her husband and only motherhood is the ultimate achievement. She develops an attraction to Valerie's son, Xavier.

A lot of topics are brought up in the story, mixed race marriage, raising a biracial son alone who even though he is half white is considered black, how the legal systems treats black men, Christian values, and how the rich feel they are different.

The characters were fleshed out really well and I didn't like Brad or Valerie very much. Even though they seem to be different I thought they were a lot a like in the way they tried to manipulate situations. Juniper and Xavier were good kids with helicopter parents and seemed like victims of the parents.

The book is written from the point of view of a narrator who, in my mind, sounds like Rod Serling. He points out how actions can be perceived differently than what was intended and how some of the characters are motivated to do what they do.

Meh. It was slow to me. I kept with it and glad I did, but would like to see more .... I dont know, feeling? Some of the ancillary fell flat for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for gifting me with an ARC of Therese Anne Fowler’s contemporary drama, A Good Neighborhood. In exchange for the ARC I offer my unbiased review. 

Last year I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy of A Well Behaved Woman by Therese Ann Fowler which I really enjoyed, so I was excited to receive a copy of her newest work, A Good Neighborhood. This story did not disappoint and it was actually much darker then I anticipated. Brad and Julia Whitman are living the American Dream, with their mini McMansion, manicured lawns and Maserati sports car in the spacious circular paved driveway. Their neighbor Valerie Alston-Holt couldn’t be more different than the upscale Whitman’s. Val, a single mom is a professor of forestry and her interests are more about protecting the earth, and  caring for the trees and planet. Watching the builders destroy acres of greenery just to construct a giant white monstrosity next door to her has left her sullen. When her favorite tree, a 100 year old Oak starts to show signs of distress, Val can’t help but feel her new neighbors, The Whitman’s are to blame. And adding fuel to the fire, Val’s only child 18 year old Xavier is secretly dating the Whitman’s daughter, Juniper.  When Val decides to take legal action against The Whitman’s  she sets off a string of events that nobody could ever foretell. 
This book tackles lots of hot button topics and I think Fowler handles them all well. This book is perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Liane Moriarty, Tayari Jones and Celeste Ng.

Wow! I enjoyed and really recommend this book,, I got close to the people and I mean everyone, then I started thinking oh no this is not going to go well because this person,,,and this person...may have problems to come out. So then I started really reading and not able to put down this book. Everyone became somebody that I liked and I didn't want anything bad to happen. You have to read this book. Thank you Netgalley and I am looking up this author for more of her books.

Very disturbing, the book upset me greatly.  I found myself skimming through it just to finish.  Would not recommend.

Wow!  Where to start with this book....  I thought it was well written and easy to read.  The author develops each character so that you can easily picture each one and feel like you know them.  This is a book that stays with you; you will remember it long after you finish it.    I don't want to give away any spoilers but just know the storyline gets very emotional.

A Good Neighborhood built slowly and then exploded into a deeply affecting, emotional story. What seemed to be a tale of a disagreement between neighbors revealed itself to be a book about racism, class, and power. It's been two days since I finished it and yet I'm still thinking of the characters and what they went through.

A timely story, told simply and beautifully.  I’ve been a fan of Fowler’s since her first book.  Though this one has a different feeling than her other work, it’s just as compelling, just as well done.  Almost a five.

I can’t say enough about this book. This was book number 117 that I have read this year, and it was by far the best. Excellent writing, emotional, raw and believable. This book will stay with the reader for a long time. When Brad Whittman moves his family to Oak Knoll next door to Valerie and her son, he has no idea the events the will be set in motion. Brad is a well known local businessman in the area and believes the world and all it encompasses revolves around him. Valerie is the widowed mother of Xavier who is an extremely talented, exceptionally smart young man with a bright future ahead of him revolving around his love of music and a scholarship to an exclusive college. Racial relations in the south are explored and prejudice that is just under the surface is explored in this novel as Xavier tries to navigate his way through his last year of high school. This excellent novel is not to be missed.

A Good Neighborhood is very well-thought out, tactful and forceful. It delves into topics such as power race, class, and love in original and fascinating ways. The author has a wonderful talent for character development and establishing the relationships of all the characters. I enjoyed reading this book. I highly recommend it. My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A Good Neighborhood held a lot of promise at the offset. To be completely blunt: I wanted to like it more than I did. 

The story took quite a while to actually hit its stride. I was very tempted to DNF several times, but wanted to keep my NetGalley ratio up. Everything just felt... flat. The story doesn’t really gain much momentum until 65% of the way through. 

That being said, the final 35% of this piece were powerful and read like a charm- you can’t put the book down at that point. You cry and ache for those effected by the events that took place. You feel absolute disgust and fury toward the antagonists and the systems that are in place. You share shown that changes need to be made.

There were a couple of pieces that I couldn’t quite get past though. For a girl so interested in the environment, why on earth would Juniper decide to drive a Land Rover? And what was the author’s rationale behind the narrator(s)? It felt like they were taking away from the build of the actual story, which was a shame.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this piece. A more comprehensive review will be posted on social media closer to the date of release.

It’s a 3.5 star read for me.  A Good Neighborhood has a compelling story that kept me compulsively reading over the course of several days.
Valerie and her son, Xavier, have lived in their North Carolina home for his entire life.  Their personal lives have undergone significant changes over those 18 years and so has the neighborhood.  They’ve seen the original homes sold and many torn down and replaced by much more upscale (and bigger) houses.  The book begins as new owners, Brad and Julia (and daughters Juniper and Lily) move into their McMansion, right next door to Valerie and Xavier.
The story that unfolds is interesting and the author spends a lot of time helping us to get to know the main characters (both a pro and a con).  Everyone seems lovely (well...except for the obligatory mean girls in high school), but we know this can’t be their whole story and the truth is gradually revealed.
In particular, we learn about the multiple sides of Brad - the good guy very public face of Whitman HVAC, but also learn there’s another side or two.  One of the details revealed very early in the book is that he only hires white HVAC technicians, because that’s what his customers feel comfortable with.  There are other clues - but they would be spoilers!
It’s not a book without problems.  There’s an unidentified narrator, who’s never revealed but is most likely a neighbor/neighbors.  The narrator voice comes and goes and, for me, was a bit distracting (especially when editorializing).  And it also took a really long time to get to the heart of the story.
The last 1/3 of the book is a whirlwind and left me thinking still about justice, and the good and bad sides of people in this world.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read A Good Neighborhood in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of A Good Neighborhood. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into the novel. I didn’t enjoy the way it was written either.

When doing ARC reviews, I refrain from looking the author up until after I've finished the book, so I don't let myself become biased. In this case, I knew I recognized Therese Anne Fowler's name, but forgot that she had written two books I thoroughly enjoyed, Z and A Well Behaved Woman. In A Good Neighborhood, I think Fowler has really come into her own as a writer; her authorial voice is confident and she sets the scene and leads us through it at her own pace. Fowler takes her time in the first 3/4 of the book, really building out the world and setting the stage for what is to come. It's sometimes a bit slow moving, but she handles the exposition with beautiful language and expertly maintains an underlying tension, so you're waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment-- and oh, boy, when it does. My goodness. The last quarter of the book grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go. I felt physically ill at times, almost unable to go on because the scenario is so upsetting, but it's so compelling, I couldn't stop. 
Though I liked the historical protagonists of her other books better, the characters here come off the page as if they were your own neighbors, removed by neither by time nor status. I was skeptical that this would be propagandistic, given the propensity of books that tackle racism, bigotry, and injustice to shove their political agendas down readers' throats, but never once did I feel like there was an attack being levied or a strong political bent. Rather, race is used as more of a way of exploring Valerie's identity; her experiences, her fears for her child, etc. She isn't an outcast in the community (in fact, she's a major part of the fabric of Oak Knoll), and there aren't an abundance of overtly racist situations. To me, the novel was just as much about what it is to be a woman in the world as it was about race. Instead of being divisive, it is thought-provoking, which will undoubtedly make it an extremely popular book club read.

I really enjoyed this book set in my state of NC. I felt the author did a great job of drawing me into the story.I will definitely order this book for the library. Good Book.

Loved this book. It follows two families that are very different and coincide with issues from today. Couldn’t stop reading and it was a quick and intriguing story about “a good neighborhood”