Great premise but this book was too angsty young adult for me. It will probably appeal to younger readers. Thanks for the chance to read this.

Could anything be worse than your husband leaving you for a skydiver? Crushed by that surprise, Darcy Clipper leaves her job and moves back to her Massachusetts childhood home only to find that her parents are enjoying a trial retirement in Arizona. They didn’t tell her, another blow to her wounded self esteem. What else can she do but spend the next months wallowing in self pity on the couch and eating her parents’ canned food supply? Then a fateful job interview (trampoline testing?) leads her back into community life, friendships and a new future, very different from the one she had planned.

Community Board is laugh-out-loud, heart warming and heart breaking all at the same time. Set in a small town named for psychedelic mushrooms, this story has it all. Loveable Darcy and a cast of quirky characters deal with political intrigue, nosy neighbors, lost animals and more. They find family, love and a sense of belonging. What could be better? 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mariner Books and Tara Conklin for this ARC.

I was delighted to get the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it. I liked the humor in the book, especially the community board postings. I think the author did a great job showing the main character's "collapse" after having her marriage, friendships and career fall apart, and eventually, over the course of the book, begin to establish a new life for herself. Her hometown in western Massachusetts and its residents were a perfect depiction of small-town life. I appreciated not only the humor in the book but also the more serious issues raised in the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner books for this cute ARC of Community Board.

I loved this book for the most part:
It contains a hilarious, (initially) socially-awkward semi-savant in the introverted character of Darcy, a satirical view of neighborhood apps and the insufferable busybody people who populate them, and an exploration of emotional intimacy and empathy.

I saw so much of myself in the first part of the story featuring Darcy, who purported to enjoy her new life of solitude in her childhood home after simultaneously losing both her husband Skip and the coddling presence of her parents.

I identify with and relate to quirky, loner characters and enjoyed the humorous minutiae of Darcy’s “days of self-imposed isolation and canned food consumption.”
While it seems that many reviewers found this hermit period a bit whiny, I related to her desire to be done with people. She felt as I often do, that “people, it turns out, are despicable.” She identified with misunderstood misanthropes. I cheered for her.
(I only wished she would have replaced Fred the Fern.)

At just before the midpoint, Darcy goes through a social metamorphosis partially through necessity: she has run out of canned food.

With a new endeavor and then a job, she cannot help but enmesh into her community, and social calamity ensues.
So too does Darcy’s emotional awareness and growth; so ends her “self-imposed isolation and canned food consumption” period.

I understand the concept of societal inclusivity in this book, using humor to expose much human pettiness as fear of change and insecurity, but I am always a bit sad to see such social expansion in a former loner.

Darcy comes to learn that she should not “see the world in black-and-white, one extreme or the other. There’s a lot of gray.”
“There’s a lot of muddle.” I’m not sure I am mentally there but I loved the funny, feel-good story anyway. I am intrigued by the author’s voice and ability to create a sympathetic misanthrope that Darcy was.
Four stars.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Mariner Books and #NetGalley. Thank you to the publishers, NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Laugh out loud and enjoy.

Oh my gosh, I laughed out loud so many times during this story. Conklin knocks it out of the park as she writes about the main character and her venture back home after her husband leaves her. I especially loved the description of the Western Mass town as I live in that geographical area! Spot on!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy for the purpose of this review. I thought the book was very well written and it was amazing to see the transformation that the main character goes through. I also found it super descriptive of the folks you would find in a small town. The rants on the Community Posting Board were so real!

I look forward to discussing this book with my friends and fellow book lovers.

Darcy moves back in her parents’ home after her husband leaves her for a skydiving instructor, only to find out her parents also left her for Arizona and dry heat. She passes her days on the town’s internet community board until a rogue pig leads her outside her house into the community.

I’ll admit this one started slow and a little whiny for me, but around 30% it got really good. You have to get through the character’s difficult time and isolation and then the pace picks up. There are some hilarious moments and some great, quirky characters; even an annoying antagonist that you’ll love to hate. I loved the community board posts and anyone familiar with internet community pages will relate!

“Anyone can change; it’s one of the few reasons to remain hopeful in this crazy world.”

Community Board comes out 3/28.

I will always suggest our local authors! Honestly though, I need to wait to get this in print. The difference in the posts doesn’t really show through and I read Darcy talking about her parents for so long before I realized it wasn’t a terrible woman posting. Also, I’m currently 43% of the way through and still just really hate Darcy. I read reviews that said she gets better so I’m going to try again with the actual book format. Thanks so much though! I’m excited about it

Following our narrator in Community Board through her period of self-isolation was a journey of love, holding grudges, losing oneself, and rediscovering oneself in new and erratic ways. I really enjoyed this novel because the character, through all of her original and distinctive ways of dealing with her emotions, felt entirely relatable and human, and so no matter how, or if, she was interacting with the world, I was rooting for the world to be good to her and for her to do good in the world.

This has everything I love in a great story- an emotionally damaged female at her wits end who meets a whole new cast of characters who become dear friends. Lots of good lessons here about acceptance and not being judgmental. Well done!

Darcy Clipper is in mourning. She is nearly 30 and her husband has left her for a sky diving instructor. She can't pull herself out of her grief and takes a forced leave from work. She returns home to her parents but finds that they are not there! This news pushes her further into depression and she begins to eat her way through the canned goods in the basement. She dodges her neighbors and her parents phone calls all the while reading the anonymous community board and drafting emails to her ex.

What will pull Darcy out of her rut? 'Can anything? If you ever were hurt so badly that you came home, hoped that all the people that have wronged you got their comeuppance, or just want to read a fun read about community and neighbor, Community Board is for you!

#MarinerBooks

This book was everything I wanted it to be. It had me turned pages without even realizing. It was so good!

After being blindsided my her cheating husband, Darcy moves back to her hometown of Murbridge to lick her wounds. Community Board was a mix of quirky and depressing and was a little slow to get into.

“Community Board” is Tara Conklin’s third novel and an enjoyable read.

Darcy returns to her hometown of Marbridge after a divorce and a series of calamities that leads to a bit of a breakdown. But her parents—who have always been her shoulder to cry on—have taken off to Arizona. Darcy stays put in the house, subsiding on canned food and talking to a fern that is no longer in the house. Yet, slowly Darcy finds herself connected to the characters of Murbridge as she slowly finds her way back into how to live outside the walls of her childhood home.

This is a hilarious story, though I admit Darcy can be quite frustrating at times. Yet, we all have had those days (or months) where we’ve been swimming in sadness (or, as in Darcy’s case—locked in her parents’ house because of it). I loved the posts from the community board that are interspersed through the different scenes. Does every community have someone who complains about dog poo?

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and Net Galley for the privilege of reviewing this book.

Such an enjoyable, and heart-warming book! This book is told over the course of a year and divided into seasonal chapters. During the winter, I felt slightly irritated with the new character as I got to know her; in the spring, I was warming toward her, and by summer, I was fully invested in her and her story. The characters I was introduced to along the way (in her small town where she has returned home after a life-changing event) really grew on me as well. I have never given any books I have read by Tara Conklin less than 5 stars (The House Girl, The Last Romantics), and am pleased to say, I still don’t need to. Adorable, funny, and clever!

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first Tara Conklin novel, but I really really enjoyed it. Her writing was so easy to get into and the characters, though they were all going through their own things were really likeable. The community board entries were really funny, like satire of what we regularly see on NextDoor. I really enjoyed following this odd story.

Things that would have made it better: quotation marks, it made following some conversations confusing. Also, it needed a little something extra (more of a plot or more character development) to get the 5 stars. More character development could have also made me cry a little more at the end, which also would have awarded this a 5 star review.

But with all that said, I give this one a B+ rating, and it has me wanting to check out more of what this author has written.

I never read the author's previous book. So, I was fresh going into this. When everything falls apart, where do you go? Home of course. But Darcy gets some rude awakenings when she arrives home. As she tries to mend her broken heart, decide where she belongs and what she'd like to do, and more. Yes, she neglected everything, and started acting strangely, BUT I didn't find her unlikable or whiny. I laughed out loud more than once, and I loved the format, which included the postings from the "community board," all kinds of small-town quirky characters. Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart? When the immutable facts of your life—the mundane, the trivial, the take-for-granted minutiae that once filled every second of every day—suddenly disappear? Where does one go in such dire and unexpected circumstances? I really, really enjoyed this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was interested in reading this novel because I enjoyed The Last Romantics. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Community Board was up to the same standard. I disliked the main character. She seemed like a whiny brat to me. I’m sure others will like this book, but it wasn’t for me.