
Member Reviews

I requested this book via Netgalley without doing my due diligence and research on the author and his stance on AI. After I was approved for this ARC I soon was made aware that this author not only condones AI but uses it as a tool in his writing. And I feel it is unclear as to whether or not this author used AI in the creation of this book. As such, I’ve made a personal decision not to leave feedback or engage in reviewing books where AI has any role in the writing process.
I believe that true creativity comes from authentic voices and lived experiences that can only come 100% from human authors. In cases where that line becomes unclear, I find it difficult to read and review the work accurately.
This is my own preference as a reader, and I encourage others to make their own decisions about AI assisted writing.

In Next to Heaven, James Frey delivers an introspective, poetic, and often soul-stirring meditation on life, death, and the fragile beauty of being human. Presented in audiobook format, the narrative unfolds like a spiritual monologue—raw, relentless, and brimming with existential weight.
Frey’s signature style—fragmented, urgent, and emotionally saturated—is especially impactful in audio form. The narration immerses the listener in the rhythm of thought and emotion, giving voice to a character suspended between pain and grace. What results is less a conventional story and more an experience: part confession, part vision, wholly vulnerable.
Straddling the line between stream-of-consciousness and lyrical prose, Next to Heaven wrestles with grief, memory, love, and redemption in a voice that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. Whether one listens in quiet reflection or emotional turbulence, the audiobook invites a kind of communion—a call to feel, remember, and reflect.
Perfect for: Listeners drawn to philosophical, literary journeys and fans of works like A Million Little Pieces or Mitch Albom’s reflective narratives.
Rating: ★★★★★

#NexttoHeaven by @jamesfrey_ read by @ginagershon
Is fantastic! It’s funny, it’s sexy, it’s got murder, greed, drugs, and a swinger’s party that meets some goals, and creates unexpected events as well. Set in an affluent CT suburb, we see the inside of several couples’ very wealthy yet not too healthy marriages and get ALL the dirt. I did not see the ending coming and HA HA HA, thst bastard DID have it coming to him. I absolutely loved that ending in every way!!!! The audio was done brilliantly by Ms Gershon. I also really enjoyed hearing the author and narrator doing a Q&A with each other at the end of the audiobook.
Btw, here’s my 5 people:
Jim Morrison (hello sexy poet/singer)
Norma Jean (or Marilyn w/out makeup and kitten voice)
John Steinbeck (love his writing & his tortured soul)
Amy Winehouse (bc I have a feeling she sings when drunk & I want to hear that)
Gandhi (bc props, and duh Kama sutra)
This book will be out in June! Bythe author’s own description, he wanted to write a juicy book of the Joan Collin’s’ type. I’d (falsely?) say I’m too young to know about such things but this book was a lot of drama and fun! And he enjoyed creating this so much that he’ll be doing another fun book featuring a community of divorcees. Go James, make it really smutty please. lol 😂
Totally enjoyed every minute of this audiobook and story. Highly recommend for a good time. 🙃

3.5 ⭐️
I’m going to say first and foremost I am familiar with this author.. I was all about Oprah’s book club back in the day, had his controversial book.. and enjoyed it but was disappointed after the drama came out. Now there’s more drama with this book because of the AI stuff… but alllll the aside…
This was not a bad book!
Now I was given the audio to review so I will say the audio was fine and Gina Gershon did a great job!! But I will tell you this would not be my preferred way to consume this because of the number of characters and the back and forth, I feel like some listeners may get confused ( I literally took. It’s to keep everyone straight in my head haha). I did end up borrowing this from the library and immersive read to finish it and it was better to consume this way!
I love rich people drama. Always have. Knots Landing, Melrose Place, Desperate Housewives.. all that type of stuff.
So this is a murder mystery on the surface and a character study under the surface. The ending was satisfying!! Good for her! Haha haha haha
No one in this book was really truly likeable to me, but any book of this sort, that isn’t the point.. the point is to be a fly on the way in a life of drama and privilege that you will never be privy to!
Okay the cons…. It was hard to read this and see some choppiness that was to me not lyrical as he was trying to say in the bonus audio info.. and that coupled with the AI interview drama it rubbed me the wrong way.
Overall solid book. Honestly if I didn’t know anything about the drama surrounding Mr. Frey.. it probably would have been a 4 ⭐️ and not a 3.5… but I am very skeptical of the usage of AI in this book, so I have to be honest.

The book is very repetitive. I felt like I was going to a murder mystery dinner but its a murder mystery sex party instead. It took way too long to get to the main plot of the book. It felt very disjointed. There is so much build up but not nearly enough delivery.
There is a lot of details which would be great if they were not repeated over and over, just in slightly different ways.
This was just a different style writing than I am used to and because of that I don't believe this book was for me.
I do appreciate the publisher, Author's Equity, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this audiobook for my honest review.

This book is basically rich people behaving badly, conniving, plotting, gossiping. Not very much happens, the writing is a bit repetitive, and there are too many indistinct characters to keep track of. I was happy with the ending, though it did seem to wrap up quite quickly compared to the build up of the first 2/3+ of the book. The audiobook was well read. I think this would be a fine beach read, it's fluffy and salacious and easy to read.

This was disgusting! I could tell that the influence of this book was written by a man. This could be my fault for not doing more research but I wanted to give this book a shot because it is so controversial. NOT FOR ME! If I could give it 0 stars I would.

Ahhh, James Frey. I read A Million Little Pieces when I was 10. Why did my parents let me read that book when I was 10? Unclear. But I remember the fallout of his lies. I remember the Oprah segments. Perhaps it’s when I began to fear lying… because if you lie, you have to confess your sins to Oprah on national television. All this to say, Frey’s reputation spans most of my literate life.
Look, he says he used AI to do research for this book. Not to write. He exchanged one platform for another. There are too many people playing telephone with ill-informed reviews. He’s got a reputation that makes everyone distrust him. He messed with big publishing in 2005, and in 2025, big publishing doesn’t exactly trust AI. So I get it.
Even if I don’t care he used AI, I was still wary of this novel. Would it be pretentious? Would it glorify the grotesque? The answer is yes to all. But that was the point.
The only thing I really remember about A Million Little Pieces is his unique writing style. It was the first time that I, as a 10 year old at the time, had read something that broke free of the standard grammatical handcuffs. I liked it. And I liked it in this book, too! I think it’s even better when it’s an audiobook, because he writes as though it’s spoken. The audiobook narrator, Gina Gershon, was phenomenal!
The storyline was messy and juicy. I really enjoyed the relationship dynamics. It read like reality TV.
So yes, it was a good storyline with messy characters through a unique writing style. It’s what I wanted. And yet, even still, James Frey still puts a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t know how to correct that automatic association.
So do I recommend this book? Ugh, yeah, I do. It was a good one. Unfortunately? Sorry.

I thought Next to Heaven started off promising - who doesn't love a good scandal in an affluent community? I thought the storyline was engaging and it kept me listening. I didn't care for really any of the characters and the writing was weird for me - it felt very simple, repetitive, and lacked any real details that allowed you to see the characters as human beings. I felt like I was reading a book about robots. I did listen to the conversation between the author and narrator hoping for some insight into his process. The author said he wrote the story in 57 days - I felt like that explained my feelings about the story - it felt rushed and not fully developed. However, it could be a great beach read.

I saw a lot of negative press surrounding this book when I started reading it, but alas, I was already committed, and decided I would try to listen to it as objectively as possible. It is very repetitive and there's a lot of backstory that just feels really fillerish. None of the characters are particularly likeable - a lot of bad and questionable things happen. In a way, the bad guys are served justice in the end, but overall this book was really underwhelming.
Edited to add - I did see that the publisher shared an edited, updated version of the book, but unfortunately I don't have time to listen to it at the moment! I appreciate that they listened to feedback and made some edits though.

A slow burn thriller that had a few too many characters. But also really liked the characters as I know Fairfield county well and the way John Frey got the descriptions of people in that area so well. It did end up a bit predictable. Still absolutely love the way John Frey writes but while good not one of his best.

A special thank you to NetGalley for my audiobook ARC.
I was not familiar with Frey, or his work prior to this review. However, the story synopsis was right up my alley. While reviewing it, I started seeing articles about how he fictionalized his own memoir, drama with Oprah (and her famous book club), and recently that he might or might not have used AI to write Next to Heaven. Whatever the case is, I know this to be true for me….I enjoyed it! This is the first book in a long time, that I have read (in this case, listened to) that did not feel censored, did not feel like it was shaped and molded by society’s view of morality, religious suffocation, but felt refreshing to read something (even if it was done with AI) that I felt was written in a manner much more humanly, than any other book out there.
From the very beginning, I enjoyed the wit, sarcasm, and sense of shock factor that I imagine is what Frey is known for.
Debauchery at its best!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC in audiobook format.
Next to Heaven by James Frey, narrated by Gina Gershon
James Frey’s Next to Heaven is a fever dream of privilege, performance, and moral decay—a novel that struts through the manicured lawns of New Bethlehem, Connecticut, only to peel back the turf and reveal the rot beneath. It’s a murder mystery, yes, but one that arrives fashionably late, preferring to luxuriate in the decadence of its characters before letting the blood spill.
The story orbits around Devon and Belle, two women who have everything—beauty, wealth, status—and yet crave something more dangerous, more primal. Their solution? A party. Not just any party, but a curated bacchanal of the town’s elite: a disgraced NFL quarterback, a predatory hockey coach, a Wall Street shark with a God complex. One night. One murder. And a thousand cracks in the town’s porcelain façade.
Gina Gershon’s narration is a casting coup. Her voice drips with irony and allure, perfectly capturing the novel’s tone—equal parts satire and seduction. She doesn’t just read the characters; she performs them, slipping between drawls and clipped consonants like a socialite changing outfits. Gershon brings a theatricality that elevates the text, making even the most morally bankrupt characters feel magnetic.
Frey’s prose is lush, lurid, and unapologetically over-the-top. He leans into excess the way Gatsby leaned into green lights—obsessively, tragically. The novel riffs on The White Lotus and Big Little Lies, but with a sharper edge and a more nihilistic grin. It’s not subtle, but it’s not trying to be. It’s a mirror held up to a world that’s too busy admiring itself to notice the cracks.
For listeners who enjoy their thrillers soaked in scandal and their satire with a serrated edge, Next to Heaven is a guilty pleasure that dares you to feel clean afterward. Spoiler: you won’t. And that’s the point.

I liked this because it reminds me of home and all of the wacky drama that surrounds that lifestyle (minus the murders). There is SO MUCH petty drama, but I love it when the women STICK it to the men.
This book finished with good winning and the perks losing hard; which I loved. If you love petty, rich people, and drama, you have to listen to this!

This was a slow burn, stage set up was at least 50% of the book but it worked. I was intrigued throughout. Though I knew the outcome I was still impressed by the plot twist. Having Gina Gershon as the narrator worked well.

So this is why I don’t read what books are about and get a little surprise in the middle. So it starts by giving details about each couple and how they met fell in and out of love. These couples stay together because they love money more than anything else. My surprise was the murder that happened after the swingers party that occurred. So I thought at first this is about swingers then BAM a murder! It was entertaining listening to this book on a long drive.

I saw this as a BoTM pick from an unfamiliar author so I had to check it out! I had just finished watching the White Lotus TV series and this book gave me a bit of that feel. There was a lot of background building for the first 2/3 of the book where we got to know the characters (flaws and all!), knowing somebody was going to die, but not who yet. It also had a Desperate Housewives/reality show feel. I honestly think this may have played better as a movie than reading as a book. There were a lot of characters to keep track of, which I did have a hard time with in the beginning. Overall, it was just okay. I didn't love or connect with many of the characters and the pacing was just too slow.
Thank you to Netgalley, James Frey and S&S Audio for this ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Next To Heaven by James Frey and narrated by Gina Gershon was a audiobook.......I found very hard to get into, but the build up to the murder was very good and turned out to be fun to listen to. If you loved watching the series called White Lotus this is a audio-book or book for you, as it has the vibes of White Lotus. - which I loved watching.
Next To Heaven is the New Bethlehem, Connecticut. with picture-perfect lawns and manicured hedges. People who own these homes are very wealthy and they are multi-million dollar homes, so the best to live in! But beneath the designer yoga gear and country club memberships lies a darker reality and it is very dark. . . . . . .From the outside it looks perfect, but as you look closer it is full of dark secrets etc.
This audiobook is told in multiple POVs who were brilliant, the characters and very different from each other,
They varied from extraordinarily wealthy but morally bankrupt.
Next To Heaven was beautifully written by the author from start to finish, the cover was beautiful and a eye catcher, so glad it caught my eye.
Big Thank you to NetGalley and AE Titles / S&S Audio | Simon & Schuster Audio for my ARC.

I was all in for the rich people drama! I couldn’t stop listening. I absolutely loved the narration style.

Given the controversy surrounding Next to Heaven, I went in with no expectations, hoping to judge it on its own terms. The book is more of a conceptual art piece than a traditional novel—minimalist, repetitive, and focused on themes of death, the afterlife, and existential reflection. At times, it feels profound and meditative; at others, overly self-important and inaccessible.
Frey’s ambition is clear, but the execution can be hit-or-miss. The lack of narrative or emotional throughline makes it hard to stay engaged, though the visual layout and poetic fragments offer a unique reading experience. It’s a bold, polarizing work—neither great nor terrible—which lands it squarely at three stars for me.