A huge thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of The Block Party by Jamie Day.

High-level summary: A block party, murders, and neighborhood secrets are twist together into a slice-of-life domestic thriller.

The book starts off very fast-paced with the night of the party and the inciting events, with subsequent chapters going back a year and laying the groundwork for what happened at the block party. I chuckled at flashes to present day being the messages owners were posting on a Facebook/Nextdoor forum, because it perfectly captures every personality you see on those. Very clever!)

The book does a good job of intertwining the plots and not making the twists and turns very obvious, but there was still something about it that felt formulaic. I was hoping it would have the page-turning prowess of Big Little Lies, but I actually found myself getting impatient at times, which surprised me. It's very good at showing and not telling, and there's plenty of character interaction that moves things along....but for some reason, I wasn't biting my nails in suspense.

The characters seemed to tick off the character type list that needs to be in a domestic thriller, but I didn't "feel" the stakes of everything happening or that I cared much about the characters.

I'm also still curious why the points of view switched. Some chapters are first person, told by the teenage daughter, and the rest are third-person.

I assumed this was going to mean something in the outcome of the story or the discovery of the twists, but it really didn't. It did end up feeling like we knew the daughter a tad deeper than the other characters, but ultimately it didn't seem to serve a purpose or make the story more compelling.

Nevertheless, it was entertaining enough, and would be a good one to read on the beach or vacation if domestic thrillers are your thing!

Food is grilling, grab a drink at the tiki bar, and play some fun yard games. How could you not enjoy this block party? Everything seems fine on the outside until you dive inside and see how things really are. It seems everyone on Alton Road has their secrets. Once the drama starts to unfold and the secrets are revealed things got very interesting. I got Desperate Housewives type vibes from this book. Character growth was good. Overall it was a good read and I was entertained, I mean who doesn't enjoy a little drama every once and a while.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Netgalley and Jamie Day for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Publication date for The Block Party is July 18, 2023.

What an amazing twisty thriller! The Alton Road cul-de-sac's annual block party erupted this year when someone was murdered. But the seeds were sown at last year's block party. Who was murdered and who is the culprit?

Take a one-year trip through the lives of the Alton Road families as they grow ever closer to scandal, murder and the surety that their lives will never be the same.

The Block Party... oh the block party. In this twisty neighbourhood thriller, relationships and friendships are tested to the extreme. When someone in the neighbourhood is murdered, we spend the book setting the scene so we can discover who was killed and why. Think Big Little Lies mixed with The Husbands and The Therapist.

This book is certainly engaging, things just constantly keep happening. I saw what I would say is the biggest twist right off the bat but I'm not too made about that because I am not sure if others would find it so obvious. The only part of the book that I was not a fan of was the immediate relationship with Lettie and Jay. I felt like it could have been written in a much more believable way and it would've added a lot more to the book instead of leaving the reader being like "in what world is this how the relationship immediately progresses?".

There's a LOT of character development and you almost want to whip out the cork board and strings because the author (in my opinion) gives you all the clues you need to figure the mystery out, as long as you want to deal with complex relationships and issues!

Overall was quite good, just predictable for me!

A thriller filled with twists throughout the entire book! Although there are quite a few characters involved, it was easy to keep them separate with individual storylines. I love books that are told from different perspectives, and each chapter revealed a new part of the mystery! The references to rape and sexual assault make this not an easy read, and were a bit intense. There were a few grammatical and spelling errors that took away from the story, and it would be beneficial for the the website updates to be more separated from the rest of the story.

I am a sucker for upper, upper middle class family-type drama, and this book is a fun read.

The book revolves around the families and drama of wealthy enclave Alton Road, complete with new neighbors, secrets and a murder. The book also goes into some depth regarding the relationships of the women of the neighborhood, and their teenage daughters, which I felt added a layer to this book which is missing in others.

The book was a good read and perfect for being engaging during vacation or a staycation.

The Block Party was such a great, twisty thrill ride! Set in an upper-class, suburban neighborhood, this book reminded me of Desperate Housewives (in the best way!). Even in the most idyllic neighborhoods, looks can be deceiving and evil can be lurking inside. Told in alternating viewpoints of Alex, a suburban mom and Lettie, her teenage daughter, this book was a solid 5-stars for me!

Given the premise & the gorgeous cover I had high hopes but this one was a disappointment.
Too many predictable plot elements, formulaic, and an ending which spiraled out of control & was completely implausible.
Perhaps can work as escapist beach reading ....

With great thanks to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for this e-ARC!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first good book of the year!

This is an addictive murder mystery with a ton of gossip and a bunch of likable characters all contained in a subdivision. Think of Desparate Housewifes.

This book gets your attention right from the start and keeps it throughout the whole story. Very easy reading, not a ton of filler. Quite a few characters but it wasn't that hard to follow once you got into it.

A fast paced fun book, just what I needed.

I absolutely loved The Block Party! The first chapter had me hooked and I was at the edge of my seat until the very end! I loved the way the author told the perspective from different people over a course of a year. The details and development made the characters feel very real! I can’t wait to read more from Jamie Day!

I love a good neighborhood drama story and this did not disappoint. Well written, kept me interested, a little formula but still good.

I loved this book! The pace was great, I loved the different perspectives, and it provided just the right amount of detail. It gave desperate house wives vibes and kept me guessing throughout the read. I loved how many characters the story involved and the way the writer intertwined them all together.

Story grabbed me in the beginning but character development for me was too abstract. All in all the storyline was okay but I like faster paced books. If you are looking for a rainy day read this will pass the afternoon for you. First time reading this author so perhaps other books storylines would be more appealing to me

This one took me a few days to get into. We follow a group of neighbors, starting off the story with a tragedy occurring at their annual block party. Backtrack a year to unpack everything that’s been going on with the various families and how they’ve been getting along. I didn’t find it super suspenseful, it was a bit more “housewife drama” vibes for me. If you like that sort of thing, you’d like this one!

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book in exchange for an honest review.
I'm still not sure what I thought of this book. The backward and forward in time and changing narrators took a little getting used to, and I was going to give up, but then the characters began to draw me in. I think these multifaceted characters and their intersecting stories are what made the book-which was otherwise just your typical whodunnit. I found the whys fascinating, as well as the layers and the realization that some of these parties' lives had intersected long before they moved to Meadowbrook. I also appreciated the underdog characters, or more precisely the misunderstood.
As I write this I realize ... I like the characters very much I just didn't care as much for the story itself. Too many distractions, like Bug Man, that could have been used to flesh out the story. Overall a good poolside read.

The Block Party by Jamie Day.

Downloaded ARC off @netgalley
Publisher: @macmillanusa

⭐⭐⭐⭐.25

Plot: Residents of a well-off cul-de-sac are involved in secrets and scandals many of them don't even know about, let alone the rest of the neighborhood.

There is a murder on the evening of the annual summer block party.

Who did it and why?

There are flashbacks to a year prior where we uncover rivalries and betrayals. It is proven that nothing and nobody are as they seem!

Review: I did not want to put this mystery thriller book down! It kept me intrigued. The characters are diverse. No person or situation is black and white. There's so much gray area. I loved some characters. The others - I loved to hate. The twists in the book were totally unpredictable. The only reason this book did not achieve ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ is because I feel the editors dropped the ball here and there in terms of catching typos and various grammatical errors.

Trigger warnings: Rape, substance abuse, spousal abuse and murder

#netgalley #arc #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #macmillanpublishers #jamieday #bookreview #mystery #thriller

What a delicious web of characters from Jamie Day! I have not read this author before but very much enjoyed the intertwined stories of the exclusive neighborhood as they solve a murder. Highly recommend!

The Block Party by Jamie Day was written extremely well. This book kept my interest the whole time I was reading; to the point that I did not want to put it down. I really enjoyed the dual POVs with Alex, the mom, and Lettie, the daughter. I think this style of POVs really allowed the reader to see the plot lines from many different angles. The only part of the book I was a bit iffy about was the many different sub plots going on. At times, I found it hard to follow and remember all the different pockets of drama going on in the neighborhood. Although this book is definitely in the thriller category, I would personally classify this as more of a cozy thriller since the majority of the "crazy" parts happened at the end of the book and the middle was more "fluffy" even with the heavy topics it covers. Overall, a great book to read!

Every Memorial Day, the neighbors on the well-to-do Alton Road throw a very exclusive block party. Along with the usual booze, fireworks, and a hefty dollop of gossip, this year’s bash features something new to the cul-de-sac—murder.

This soapy whodunnit may be a good summer pick for readers who enjoy dual timelines, mother/daughter relationships, and multiple POVs. This book has a similar vibe to Liane Moriarty books.

I do not think this is the book for me. The main characters were not likable and, apart from digging into other people’s business, didn’t really do anything. The plot was about their neighbors’ drama, which made me question why Alex and Letty’s POVs were being used in the first place. One of the major plot points was not fully resolved (at least to my taste), and the end of the book seemed a bit too saccharine. As I read, The Block Party kept reminding me of Big Little Lies and The Husband’s Secret, and unfortunately, I kept thinking that this book paled in comparison.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Decadent neighborhood drama full of secrets and a murder. It doesn't get much better than this for mystery lovers. Highly recommended! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.