Community Board is a breezy, quirky story of a 29-year old woman named Darcy who, after finding herself at one of the lowest points of her life, learns how to overcome her fears and anxieties to embrace the community around her and ultimately finds a place of healing, found family, faith in humanity and self-acceptance.

I enjoyed this book overall, but it did take me quite awhile to get there. The plot really seemed to drag for the first ~30% or so, and Darcy was really hard to like in the way that she just did really nothing but wallow in her self-pity. Her “self-imposed isolation” alone in her childhood home started out amusing enough as she feasted on canned foods and read every old edition of National Geographic she could find, but ultimately I was bored with it fairly quickly and was just ready for her to get her life together and move on.

Once that happened though, the story picked up a bit and we were introduced to the most delightful side-characters that Darcy meets through reading/posting on the town’s Community Board and by getting out to get to know those around her. The cast of characters was entertaining and I really enjoyed getting to know all of their unique personalities through their interactions with Darcy - they ultimately made the story what it was for me, and I just wish we got to know them sooner! I also really enjoyed the structure of the book - in addition to Darcy’s point of view as a large part of the narrative, we also get more of the story through emails (both sent/received and drafts) and posts on the Community Board. It was definitely a “swing-up” book with an ending that felt like a warm hug with some excellent messages on how although it can be scary to open up to those around us, it can end up leading to beautiful and meaningful connections and a fulfilling feeling of life in general.

Overall, even though this one was very slow to start and it took me much longer than I’d typically like to warm up to an eccentric main character, it was an enjoyable read. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an uplifting story of found family, but also willing to work to get there. Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Twenty-nine-year-old Darcy Clipper returns to her childhood home in Murbridge, Massachusetts after her husband leaves her for another woman. The only child of loving parents, she is confident of their support and care while she nurses her broken heart. Much to her surprise she discovers that her parents have moved to a retirement community in Arizona. Darcy spends the first sixty-five days in self-imposed isolation in her childhood home, surviving on her mother’s stock of canned food, wallowing in self-pity, cyberstalking her husband’s new girlfriend, reading old issues of National Geographic, drafting cryptic emails to her husband (thankfully, not sending them), writing emotional messages to her parents trying to guilt them into returning (which she does send) and perusing the online community message board. The message board is a kaleidoscope of information – from notices for missing pets, Board Meeting notices, heated interactions between residents, proclamations of love, cries for help (literally!) and much more. When someone’s missing pet pig shows up at her doorstep, it is the nudge Darcy needs to finally step out of her home. What follows is an interesting sequence of events that push Darcy, albeit reluctantly at first, to engage with the people in her community of Murbridge - a small town that seems to have changed quite a bit since she last lived there.

In turn humorous, insightful and heartwarming with themes of community, family and friendship and an interesting cast of characters, the story is told through Darcy’s first-person PoV with her email correspondence (drafts and sent emails) and the community board messages interspersed throughout the narrative. I took some time to warm up to Darcy but I eventually did find her to be an interesting character. I can see why many might feel put off by the elongated period of Darcy’s exile and her attitude in general. She does come across as immature, self–absorbed and a tad selfish in the first part of this book but I believe it all boils down to the fact that everyone is different as are the ways different people cope with life-altering situations. After the initial 30% of the novel, the story picks up the pace and we follow Darcy as she gradually emerges from her shell and starts to pick up the pieces, slowly exacting change in the way she perceives her own situation and the world in general. Her efforts aren’t always successful and there are quite a few bumps in the road, but her social awkwardness, her worldview (Darcy’s take on the National Geographic articles she reads made for some interesting reading!) and her quirks make for some entertaining reading. I loved reading the messages on the community board and enjoyed meeting the different members of the community (even the unlikeable ones!). Overall, I found Community Board by Tara Conklin to be an entertaining read full of humor and heart.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This book is due to be released on March 28, 2023.

Thank you to NetGalley.com for the ARC. This is a quirky novel which is completely enjoyable and a nice alternative to the mysteries, thrillers and dystopian fare I have been reading. NextDoor has nothing on the local Community Board! Imagine your husband leaving you without any indications of trouble (or were there?). You decide to go home only to find the furniture covered in sheets and your parents, who have done EVERYTHING for you, doing a trial retirement run in Arizona. Your diet consists of the canned goods stored for the Y2K apocalypse which never happened, neighbors are spying on you and you have become a Tupperware hoarder. Slowly Darcy leaves her cocoon and while questioning everything in her life, finds friends, a job and a mystery.

Community Board
by Tara Conklin
Pub Date: March 28, 2023
Harper Collins
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics delivers a wise, timely, big-hearted novel of unplanned isolation and newly forged community.

Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart?
This was just an OK book for me. I was annoyed by Darcy, the 30 year old who acts much younger than her age. I enjoyed the CB messages the most. I enjoyed Conklin's author note, for it explained why she wrote this book.
The book ends on a positive note about human connection.
3 stars

I think this book is part of the growing trend of justification to eat the rich fiction, but it's just an OK read

This was such a delightful read! If you are looking for a book with a strong voice and point-of-view, this one will be for you. I felt deeply connected to Darcy as she struggled to find herself and her self-confidence. Not only was she hilarious but she demonstrated so much growth as she rebuilt her life. The side characters here also didn't disappoint. Marcus was beyond lovable and Franny was so unexpected. I loved that this book's central conflict was critical but wasn't so overpowering that there wasn't room for character development. My only fault I found in this book was that I wish it moved a little slower. I felt like we whipped past some thoughts and events that could've gone even deeper or longer. I would've loved to see more of Omar and that aspect of the book too. But there's a perfect set-up for a sequel here...I'm optimistic!

I found the main character- Darcy- to be so unlikeable that I had to DNF this book. I simply couldn't take it anymore. I also feel like this book was marketed a bit wrong and it wasn't at all what I was expecting.

Calling all small-town story lovers and social media lurkers, I have a new recommendation for you. ‘Community Board,’ Tara Conklin’s upcoming novel is the perfect read coming off of ‘Gilmore Girls’ rewatch season.

The story centers around Darcy, a wife whose husband just told her he’s leaving her and her downward spiral right after. Shocked by her husband’s betrayal, Darcy seeks the comfort of her childhood home in her small Massachusetts hometown. She gets a rude awakening when she finds out her parents moved to Arizona without telling her. Drowning her sorrows in canned food and old issues of National Geographic, Darcy starts a self-isolation, her only human contact being her town’s community board.

‘Community Board’ was such a fun story about trying to rebuild yourself. Darcy took a minute to grow on me as a reader, but by the end her and the lovable side characters had my full support. Lovers of ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ would love this upcoming novel and I highly recommend to those looking for a good read with a close-knit feel.

Thank you NetGalley, Tara Conklin, and Mercer for this advanced copy! Pub day for ‘Community Board’ is March 28!

I've very much enjoyed Conklin's work in the past, but found this one to have a different tone than I expected. I thought it felt more like the horror-adjacent Hurricane Girl than anything else I've read lately. Perhaps this was a case of my expectations not being in the right place, but this one didn't work for me.

In a nutshell: I really liked this book a lot more than I expected to!

Truth be told, the first 20% of the book was a winding, emotional journey through our anti-hero's mental health crisis. I wasn't quite sure WHERE the story was headed.

Hang in there, the story sucks you in after the difficulty of depression and isolation envelope everything.

The characters are lovable. The story is unique, with equal parts "things that could happen in real life" and "situations that are a little crazy."

Overall, I really enjoyed this emotional journey. Off the top of my head, I'd recommend to fans of Amanda Eyre Ward's writing style who appreciate heavier topics.

Darcy’s husband has left her after an 8-year marriage, and she goes on a seclusionary binge of eating canned food, reading National Geographic, and drafting emails while searching for meaning in her hometown. The premise of this book is great--woman scorned moves back into her childhood home to lick her wounds and try and discover what went wrong.

The execution of the premise isn’t great, though. The hometown of Murbridge has an online community message board that’s only tangentially related to the story, and Darcy is such an entitled and narcissistic character that you don’t really blame the husband for leaving. The writing style is stream of consciousness with bits of National Geographic thrown in, and unfortunately it wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Mariner and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to review.

This was a delight! Thirty year old Darcy's husband abruptly leaves her for another woman. She's always been a steady rule follower, progressing along in life as expected, but this sudden trauma sets her adrift. She seeks solace by going home to her childhood home in a small town in western Massachusetts. Unfortunately, her parents aren't there, having decided to spend a year in Arizona. But she stays alone, isolated and depressed, eating through her mother's basement stash of canned goods. She finally begins, little by little, to reconnect with the world, starting with the town's online community message board, where she is inspired to rescue lost pets, help a woman escape from a nursing home, and help a new family overcome a politically motivated hate campaign. In other words, she's finally finding her own, more authentic self and community. Darcy's voice is intelligent and funny, and the situations she gets herself into are hilarious. Great read!

Pros: I really enjoyed this found-family book. The smalltown setting and the quirky residents made me think of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls.

Cons: This is not a con but more a note to readers—there are no quotation marks in this book with dialogue. The book also has four sections rather than chapter breaks. When I first started reading, I was uncertain if these formatting choices would bother me. As soon as I got into the book, I didn’t notice either because I enjoyed the reading experience so much!

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the opportunity to read this book.

3.75/5 stars

The classic story of girl gets dumped and runs back home to find her hometown sanctuary isn’t what she expected it to be.

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did, the characters were interesting but everything felt a little light on depth, you didn’t really connect with why the main character was the way she was or what she really wanted… all and all a pleasant quick read but didn’t blow my socks off like I had hoped.

Things are not going well for Darcy. Her husband has walked out and her usually helpful parents have decided to try living across the country in Arizona. Darcy is a mess, but stick with her. Her hometown, a small town, has an online community board (hello title) that offers a glimpse into disputes and requests and at first is about all that Darcy can handle.

The book is lighthearted and sometimes funny, a good cozy choice. Thank you for this review copy.

This book was LOL funny...Darcy has to move back home when her world falls apart and quickly finds out her parents are no longer living in her childhood home. Once again on her own, she decides to spend her her time on the local community board while eating canned food from the basement. A quick and fun read- I highly recommend!!

This is a novel about depression, and finding one's inner resources, and--to some extent--wish-fulfillment. It's also about selfishness and immaturity and self-aggrandizing, and what those do to people and families. The protagonist is enormously unlikeable, not because of her depression or awkwardness, but because of her unwillingness or inability to actually learn from the things she does and people she encounters. The epilogue jars with what has come before--there's no chemistry with the cop--and suggests that everything Darcey's done to hurt other people, to betray their trust, is easily forgiven and forgotten.

Darcy is completely blindsided when her husband leaves her for a skydiving instructor. She retreats to her hometown of Murbridge, hoping to find comfort in her parents’ arms, only to discover that her parents have secretly moved to Arizona. Darcy becomes a recluse inside her childhood home, living off her parents’ canned food, spending her days reading community board posts, drafting unsent emails to her ex, and hiding from the nosy next door neighbor and her spying drone.

Darcy eventually ventures out of the house when she realizes she desperately needs money for food, and finds some very unconventional jobs around town. Relationships with a handful of locals lead Darcy to working through her grief, social anxiety, and codependency.

Although it was a long time before I saw any personal growth for Darcy, I really loved the ending of this story. Personally, I had a hard time with the lack of quotation marks in this novel. The whole middle section of the book where Darcy doesn’t leave the house really dragged on for me. The highlights for me, were definitely the theme of found family and getting to see the community of Murbridge grow into a more beautiful place by the end of the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this ARC.

This was such a great book! From the early scene where her husband bluntly announces his affair and sums up with the horrifically feasible "And... I think we're done here" you know you're in for a darkly funny, sometimes biting novel. Darcy retreats to her hometown of Murbridge, MA to lick her wounds, but when she arrives she finds that her parents have absconded to Arizona without mentioning it. Her solution is to hole up in the empty house, eat all the canned food her mother had in the pantry, and monitor the goings on of town through the online community board. She keeps this up for an astonishingly long time before slowly starting to venture out to reacquaint herself with society. I grew to love Darcy and the quirky townspeople, and I loved finding little nuggets of home in Conklin's depiction of Murbridge.

Darcy Clipper is about to turn thirty when her husband leaves her. Grief-stricken and unable to function, she runs home to mommy and daddy in her hometown in Massachusetts, but they've moved to Arizona without telling her. For the next few months, she squats in the house, which they've conveniently not yet sold, eating her mother's emergency stores of canned goods and reading the messages on the small community's online message board. Eventually, she is able to grow up and begin functioning again, and that journey is entertaining and fanciful. But weird. The writer has a sardonic, doleful style, with a very dry wit. It was hard for me to get into the story, since the dysfunction went on for so long and her coping strategies were pretty far-out. The ending is satisfying. An unusual and intelligent coming of age story.