Loved this!! Read it with my mother in law. As someone that has spent many many summers down the shore I just loved this book so much!

This poignant tale, set in a small Jersey Shore town, delves into the lives of three half-siblings grappling with their identities and place in the world after their father's passing. Each character, laden with their share of emotional baggage, navigates the complexities of relationships and personal struggles in the aftermath of Joseph Larkin's death. The novel effectively portrays the Jersey Shore, intertwining its essence with the storyline, providing a vivid and immersive experience for readers. Despite their flaws, the characters are intricately woven, presenting a diverse range of flawed personas shaped by their past and familial connections.

The book takes readers on a tumultuous journey through the lives of the Larkin family, weaving a tapestry of flawed characters and intricate relationships. The narrative's depth, immersive setting, and complex character interactions offer an engrossing exploration of human frailty and resilience, making it a profound and thought-provoking read.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review.

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I confess to being drawn to this book by the title. It is an alright read but I cannot say it was something that I was enthusiastically looking forward to reading. While not terrible, my time would have been better spent re-listening to the album it takes its name from.

Casey Larkin has come to the seaside town of Asbury Park to bury his father- and move on.

It's not that easy, and he quickly gets drawn back into small town life from where he came. He is reunited with his siblings and what unfolds is 3 young people trying to make sense of family dynamics and the social issues occurring from where they were brought up
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This was a solid debut. I enjoyed the gritty nature of the writing and reading with a New Jersey accent in my head.

DNF - This wasn't the book for me though I'm sure there is an ideal reader out there that will love it.

Very nice writing and an interesting story. This would make a good book club book. I'm in NJ so I wonder how it would read to people with no experience with the area. i could picture every place very clearly but it was hard to know if that was due to the writing or because I know these areas well.

Thank you Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I had high hopes for this book because of the synopsis. This book was very character driven and not in the best way. The characters were all over the place and it really seemed to be lacking a plot. It was hard to keep up and every single character was unlikeable for me. I think the only reason I finished it was because it was short.

To answer the most important question: Bruce Springsteen doesn't figure into this novel at all, and that's absolutely OK. This tale of a group of half-siblings trying to find their respective places in the world after their late and unlamented father dies is well able to stand on its own. Asbury Park itself — and the Jersey Shore more generally — is as much a character as any of the people, and I found myself recognizing places that I have visited there in the past. That was before Asbury Park was reborn into the thriving beach town it is now, and the book does a great job of capturing the renaissance from the "townie" not tourist point of view.

David is the eldest son of Joseph Larkin and his wife. Casey is the son of Joseph and his mistress, and Gabriella (or Gabby or Gabrielle or Ella, depending on her mood and the company she's keeping) is the daughter of Joseph and the family maid. David and Casey grew up knowing each other and their relationship was uneasy but not hostile. But neither of them knew of Ella's existence until after Joseph's death, and it comes as a shock for each of them in a different way.

And really, that's the book in a nutshell: Three half-siblings, trying to figure out who they are and how they relate to each other emotionally if not genetically, and what their place is in the world. As the "official" heir of a very rich man, David struggles in early adulthood to find his own footing in a world that demands nothing from him.

<em>There was a cruelty in his having been so well provided for at birth; he'd been robbed of misery, robbed of loss, robbed of orphanage. There isn't anything worse than to be born both rich and proud. There wasn't any good direction in which he could go.</em>

Casey has had trouble coming to terms with being the illegitimate son of a powerful man, and Joseph's death doesn't immediately soothe his raw edges. And Ella, an only child who knew and rejected her father — and her brothers while he was alive — finds herself taking tentative steps toward trying to learn how to be part of a larger family.

There are other compelling characters whose storylines brush up against the Larkin family drama, and not always for the better. The young woman who has loved Casey since high school but is too proud to chase after him. A Syrian Jewish family whose teenage children are not left unscathed by their encounters with the Larkins or another local family, the Kowolskis. I thought a couple of these B plots were left dangling a bit, but not egregiously so.

I'll end with Ella's thoughts as she struggles to come to terms with her father's death:

<em>The notion of death swirled around in her head where it mixed with the notion of love. For what was death without love? What did it matter when strangers, when seabirds, when dogs in the street, when coastal Moroccans with their Greetings banners died? And if that was so, and without love death was a thing without sharpnesss, then by refusing to love could one remove the fangs from death?</em>

Set in a small town on the Jersey Shore, 3 half-siblings have to come to terms with the death of their autocratic father and learn to deal with their own demons – of which they each have more than their fair share. With a wide range of characters, from various backgrounds, many sub-plots and only loose threads binding them all together, the premise is potentially interesting but the execution is a mess. I found the book convoluted and jumbled, jumping about in time and place and constantly demanding that the reader yet again re-orientate themselves. Everyone in this novel is dysfunctional to a greater or larger extent and the result of that is quite frankly tedious. With whom are we supposed to empathise, or care about? They are all self-indulgent and unable to see beyond their own immediate circumstances, and although the author attempts to explain the reason for this, it’s all so disjointed that I soon lost patience. I don’t expect redemption or catharsis in every novel I read but I do expect some sort of progression, and that is absent here.

Good start, bad finish.

The first few chapters read like literary short stories, with sentences that beg to be read slowly and repetitively.
Then the connections between the characters become evident, and the story has me in its grip.

At about the halfway point, the book lost me by zoning in on two of my least favourite themes: addiction and religion.

As much as this was beautifully written, I didn't care at all about the characters.

This is a very, very strange book. Having grown up in NJ and spending time “down the shore,” I was initially captivated by a story set in Asbury Park and the surrounding towns. But by the middle of the book I couldn’t wait for it to end. While the writing is pretty good (except for some long needlessly ruminative stretches), the story was so odd and most of the characters so off-putting that I had to force myself to finish. I won’t be recommending this book. Two stars.

I see where this debut novel was trying to go. It contains some good vignettes with vivid descriptions. However, I believe that ultimately the book just tries to cover too much in a relatively short novel. The author seeks to tackle the town's history of race, extremist religious groups, drugs, and troubled residents but does not fully flesh out any of these in a cohesive way. I understand why the taboo relationship at the center was included but I still found it to be too much. The scenes including Casey and Gabrielle came off too voyeuristic in nature. This was a decent debut that could've used a little more editing.

From the summary of this book I knew I was going to enjoy it, it's definitely a type of story I enjoy reading and I have had many good times in Asbury Park myself. However I did have a bit of trouble keeping up with all of the characters and storylines throughout the novel. I think this one may be better off as an audiobook so I will definitely give that a try.

Thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for the chance to read and review Daniel H. Turtel's 'Greetings from Asbury Park.'

I was intrigued by the title, it being so close to Bruce Springsteen's famous 'Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.' album title.

Walter Scott said 'O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!' It could've been written about this book. There's a very tangled web of people, connections, stories - characters and their past and present overlap in a way that tiptoes between intriguing with a bunch of 'oh, I get it' moments and being too complex to keep track of.

The characters, every one of the main ones in any case, are flawed - some very deeply - but shaped by what came before and the people they emerged from.

I don't know Asbury Park at all but I've been to plenty of Atlantic-coast towns in the summer and this really evoked the feeling and experience of being in those places at any time of the day or night. It was very immersive in that sense. I don't want to give the impression that it's rose-tinted - it's not, its not. There's racism, there's ant-Semitism, there's incest, there's abuse. It's a dark book but evocative of a place.

This is not an easy read but it's a very good book. Highly recommended.

This felt somewhat...in need of a good edit. A wee bit rambling for my taste and I didn't feel like the author had much to say.

Born and raised in Jersey (and still living there) . I am very VERY familiar with Asbury Park and that is the reason why I requested this book. However, I was not prepared to become as emotionally invested in the book as I did.
Turtel has divided his characters into two characters...those that live in Asbury Park and those who come in the summer months. Trust me, it really is like that at the jersey shore and Asbury Park is one of the most famous Jersey Shore locations (Hello, looking at you Stone Pony)
But landmarks and personal experiences aside, the story...the story is...I'm still trying to find words.
These characters are real. They are real and they are flawed in the most realistic ways. The story is disturbing at times as it deals with affairs, inscenst and so on.

I did enjoy it even thought it was a dark novel.

Casey Larken's father is dead and his half brother Davey inherited dad Joseph's multimillion dollar fortune. Davey was the only "legitimate" child. Joseph was a pretty awful guy, as we learn when the book opens with his sparsely attended funeral. Casey- well, he got a house and $50,000 and the house turns out to be occupied by his father's former maid, a Black woman who loved the man - God bless her - and her daughter, Gabrielle, yet another child of Joseph. Gabrielle got nothing, including the college tuition Joseph promised to pay. Davey, now independently wealthy, lives in a town near Asbury Park. His successes in life peaked in high school. Gabrielle's house, now willed to Casey, is on the wrong side of town and she works part time for a weird, racist woman who owns Madame K's, a women's boutique. Casey's childhood home is next door to his best friend Meredith;s house, but his mother took off from Asbury Park long ago leaving him to live with his abusive father and unkind (later divorced) stepmother. NO love lost between these folks and Casey. Thrown into the periphery is a cast of characters who in various ways attract and deflect the attention of the siblings and the community in interconnecting ways. Ultimately, the story touches on organized religion (mostly Syrian Jews in the area and their orthodox practices), general belief or disbelief in God, drug addiction, the dangers of inherited money, idleness, narcissism, either the inability to tell right from wrong or making intentional choices to do something wrong, parent/child relationships in many forms and --maybe-- a study in right and wrong, heaven and hell, God and no God overarching everything.

This is a character driven novel and, while it is true, as some reviewers say, that the characters are generally unlikeable, I find I have compassion for even the worst of them and want to understand what makes them tick. Casey is the only one who speaks in first person, but Turtel uses third person narrative for much of the novel. On the whole, this is more a book about being in your twenties in some of the worst possible ways that this transitional period of life can unfold. People get hurt for reasons that don't make sense, have secrets and back stories/experiences we learn about but that don't necessarily explain why they do what they do, They are often just facts we learn that do not really tell us "why." Certain moments that describe or involve violence mirror one another, often involving bystanders who don't get involved. And in most cases, they should have. People screw up relationships, half find their way or seem on track to be okay, or wildly fail at life. Little gets resolved in this book, yet I found it engrossing. I was not dissatisfied by the end of the novel as to what happened to each person.

I like Turtel's style with shifting storylines that come together and stand alone throughout. I was interested in the motives and actions of every character, even the bartender.. The ending involves a shift that was unpredictable, yet restores faith in the dignity and depth one of the most likable characters and in the future of at least one sibling who is challenged to do better and to grow up already and get beyond being Joseph's child. Because this is a book about Joseph's children and they are all damaged, yet have the opportunity to overcome him, each for different reasons.. I found this a profound book. It's going to be one I chew over. I went to Asbury Park for a day in the late 1970s and played games at the Palace and looked around, with my boyfriend. This was just before I was aware of Bruce Springsteen who was breaking into the national music scene. We went because my boyfriend grew up near there and thought it was a cool place. We went because it was a beach town and we lived not too far away and we wanted to see the ocean.. And I never forgot that day or that place. It touched me even though it was definitely not in its heyday. It was kind of a ghost place, that had been grander and still survived. Seeing the town as I saw it that spring day out of season in, say 1977 made this novel ring true: . It's definitely a story that rings true, in all its messiness.

The premise of this book really intrigued me, as did the cover. The story itself moved a bit slowly, and though the writing is great, it never really pulled me in. I felt it was a little forced at times and the characters didn't really intrigue me as much as I hoped they would. It's a well crafted book that ultimately just wasn't for me.

A great read about half-siblings, one unknown to the others, who come face to face with reality after the death of the father- a less than sterling character. If you find it slow going, push through-you will be glad you did!

Rating: 🐚🐚🐚

Happy Publishing Day to Daniel Turtel and Greetings from Asbury Park.

Having grown up at the Jersey Shore, I was thrilled to be given the chance to read this as an ARC from @netgalley and @blackstonepublishing in exchange for an honest review.

This book truly captures the local atmosphere of the shore… not the 90s MTV jersey shore but the one that is behind the shiny games and booths. I felt like I could walk into this world and not only because I grew up at the Shore but because of the beauty of Turtel’s prose.

The background is a trio of individuals bound by DNA but not by upbringing. They intersect with others both native to the shore and visiting for the summer while managing the death of their father. It is about inheritance, both monetary and intangible. What we carry from those who bore us and those who raised us. How we are shaped by that which is handed to us or denied us.

There isn’t really a driving event or emotional climax of the story to me, which on one hand felt like wandering through the shore in the late summer. There’s an urgency but no real destination. And if you like endings wrapped up for you this is not the book for you. There are some uncomfortable topics broached by this book, including drug use (TW). The majority of characters are not likable, but this seems to be intentional. They are flawed and imperfect, much like real life, which I did appreciate.

In the end I felt like the surfer referenced in this book… I enjoyed being immersed in this world, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself once I was there.