This book had the potential of being good. If we take some of the basic elements, move the murder plot to earlier in the book, maybe, just maybe, we’d have something there.
It really gave me the same feeling of when I’d have a writing assignment in my science class back in middle school, where it was rumored that my teacher would only care about how many pages long out essay was, but not read it at all. My sister once put an entire cake recipe within the assignment and the teacher never noticed. I guess the author thought we wouldn’t notice either. I know James Frey said we wouldn’t notice what was written by him or AI, since it was all reviewed by him, but to that I’d say he’s either underestimating our intelligence or I really, really dislike his writing style. This book was SO REPETITIVE. One of the chapters even has an entire paragraph written the same way! A lot of their actions were written as if they were lists. There’s a chapter that it’s like a random Ode to Connecticut (a cake recipe would have been better). There’s another chapter where he lists who the secret is spreading to and is just a list of random names saying they wouldn’t spread the secret anyway but did it. It could have been summarized to something like “no one was supposed to know, and yet, everyone knew”. Matter of fact, if this book could have been rewritten, without the repetitiveness and the unnecessary info, it would have been a short story.
As much as I love a good dumpster fire of a story, this was not it. Use your time reading something else, go tackle that TBR.

On a technical side, the audiobook was skipping about 5 chapters towards the end and there was either some bonus chapter in the end, of a chapter fell out of order as well. Also, the interview with the author and narrator wouldn’t play entirely. Hopefully they fixed it before the release. The narrator was great though.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of the ebook and audiobook in exchange of my honest opinion.

I am so disappointed to find out that this author uses AI to write his books. I was looking forward to listening to this audiobook but I decided against finishing after finding out. I did listen to a short part of it and the narrator did a great job so my rating in no way pertains to the narrator.

This is a very trashy summer read. Seems like James Frey wants to reinforce his self-described reputation as a “bad boy.” Readable and also forgettable. Seems destined to be the next Nicole Kidman limited series about the ultra-wealthy and ultra-despicable crowd…and of course a murder and betrayal.
Thank you to Net Galley for an advance copy.

The audiobook version seemed to be missing a few chapters. Hopefully that is addressed before the audio book is available to the public.

Let’s chat about AI.

It’s not going anywhere, so how does it fit into society in an ethical (and more environmentally friendly) way? I’m sure it will serve society in many valuable ways in terms of technology, but does it have a place in the creative world?

James Frey (touted in the early aughts as “the man who conned Oprah” seems to revel in controversy. I was still curious about his new book, and learned of his usage of AI in his writing just a few weeks ago. In an interview from two years ago, the author is very blatant about how he not only uses AI for research purposes, but to copy his writing style. So the reader is left not knowing who (or what?) generated the words they are reading.

My first instinct is I am not interested in consuming art of any kind generated by AI, but I was curious to see what an AI generated book would look like and tried to read this one objectively. And being that I received an ARC, I’m comfortable with not supporting the author monetarily.

It’s ever evolving, but at the moment AI can still be pretty shitty. Like how it STILL can’t get hands to look like hands. Or how the AI blurb that comes up at the top of every google search is sometimes wrong. Well, the same goes for writing. AI or not, this book wasn’t that amazing. While Frey does have some decent writing chops (I truly enjoyed his first two novels), I wouldn’t classify his writing as any better using this tool.

What seemed like a sordid story with a number of rich people doing rich people things with a lot of infidelity happening, it sounded like a juicy enough read. I was invested enough, despite struggling to keep all of the characters and pairings straight, but it felt really whomp-whomp by the end. It also didn’t help that the audiobook arc was a true dumpster fire, missing chapters that I had to go back and read in the print version.

I will chalk this one up to being a little experiment, and have no intentions with consuming AI generated books in the future. Why would I, when there are so many incredible minds already writing wonderful books with just their imaginations?

2⭐️ (rounded down from a 3⭐️, because you know, cheating).

I enjoyed this story. Listening to it as an audiobook was difficult for me because there were so many characters and I couldn’t keep straight who was who. Would recommend it to physically read instead of an audiobook.

"Next to Heaven" is where I live in Connecticut. The exacting details of setting and people are spot on in James Frey's newest work of fiction and what I enjoyed thoroughly. Thankfully my own neighbors are not as obnoxious and egotistical, but deplorable characters have great big comeuppances in "Next to Heaven." What begins with a high class key party among three couples and a lacrosse coach and girlfriend, ends in a trip to hell, a long plotted murder and break ups. The key party is RACY stuff and definitely written by a male author. It's shock and awful at points but the consequences of the night are the main story. Mr. Frey's writing is repetitive at times and he has said he's experimented with AI - this would seem to be a result. All said, it's a good and quick summer book but one to listen to as Gina Gershon is the reader. She and Mr Frey have an excellent conversation following the book's conclusion and discuss his inspiration being "Hollywood Wives" by Jackie Collins. These details increased my post reading satisfaction. He's already working on the screenplay.

What a fun read! This book is perfect for summer and who doesn't enjoy reading about rich people behaving badly? Sprinkle in a little swinging and you've got a banger addition to your pool bag. Frey shines here in the nuanced specificity of his characters. In spite of the sheer number of folks we're following, once I settled into the narrative I was never confused. No mean feat. This is absolutely worth the read. My favorite kind of brain candy.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I really enjoyed A Million Little Pieces. It was so raw and emotional, but then I found it most of it was embellished. Kind of broke my heart a little bit because I loved it so much. When I saw James Frey had a book on NetGalley I thought maybe he could have a redemption book. Even if I did not know(which now I do) that James Frey admits publicly that he uses AI, I would not have finished the book. So much repetition that i feel like I am reading a book that a drunk person wrote(we all know about the drunk ones that love to repeat themselves.) But now that I know its just AI written I will never even attempt a James Frey novel again.

receiving an advance copy of this novel has in no way steered my thoughts on this novel. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Audio.

I'm not sure if I would really consider this a thriller. It's more of a story about how some choices have everlasting effects on people and their lives. The "thriller" didn't come into play until much later in the book.

This book was... messy to say the least. Billionaires, plan a swingers party and it just kinda has a domino effect on the community.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Authors Equity for the Advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date : 6.17.2025

Mmmm nope. Giving authors who shamelessly use AI instead of their own brains to write books is SO not the move, Netgalley.

I decided to DNF this one at around 10% through.

The reason for this is that the writing was so repetitive and surface-level, crass and just not my cup of tea. I've heard speculations that the author uses AI frequently as a tool, but I'm hesitant to support it due to its controversy. If I were to continue reading, I think this would have been a 2-star read just because it's not my type of read and type of plotline I would enjoy. You can also really tell that the female character was written by a man, but it felt a bit weirdly written.

DNF at 30%. I honestly couldn't tell you what was going on except that there was a lot talk about sex. It just seemed to go off on tangents and I had no idea where the plot was.

Finding this was made with a heavy use of AI was very disappointing. That, along with more than a few POVs was a no from me. Nothing about it really gripped me either. The narrator was good though.

I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.

I hate to give a bad review for a book; however, I cannot in good faith give this book a good review. It is information overload from the very beginning, which makes it very hard to follow along. Hats off to the narrator, who does a phenomenal job of keeping the listener engaged.

Thank you James Frey and Macmillan Audio for an audiobook ARC of Next to Heaven.

Sigh. I really wanted to like this book. The auto really did keep my attention the first quarter of the book and then suddenly it stopped making sense? The chapters would repeat or skip, switch to Spanish or sentences almost sounded generated? Ive never personally read a James Frey book but I was not a fan of the writing style. It almost seems like there are several authors or part of the story was generated, not something created by one person? I’m not sure how to explain that to someone who isn’t an avid reader. I wasn’t even able to fully listen to the book because I was so confused.

Book of the month quoted this to be like a Gatsby book? Absolutely not. If you want confusion and a none personal writing style then I guess check this out, otherwise I’d personally pass. Disappointed for sure. Are the rest of James Frey books like this?

Definitely don’t know if I’ll be trying another Frey book anytime soon.

I also had someone from “marketing operations” email reminding me about being approved for the arc and that it’s the weekend before publication and I still have chance to get in on the “guilty pleasures” everyone else is talking about? I have NEVER had this happen to me in my history of ARC approvals through NetGalley. Felt really pushy to me like they are always expecting a flop.

First off, a big thank you to the publisher who provided me with this ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Now, on to the meat and potatoes. I really wish I could have given this book a higher rating, I really do. But in good faith, I cannot.

First: The writing is just not good. Especially not what I would expect of a seasoned author like James Frey. The amount of INFO-DUMPING that happens is WILD. He is consistently “telling” instead of “showing” and 75% of the information is completely useless to the story anyway.

Second: What even was the point of this book? Truly, I don’t know. It just felt like words on a page that were only there to meet the minimum word count, like a kid writing a last-minute essay for their class. And while it tries to be provocative, it’s not, it’s just poorly-done clickbait. Also, how can it be a murder-mystery when the murder doesn’t even happen until 73% into the book? (It can’t and it isn’t.)

Third: The characters are (almost all) unlikable and unrelatable and somehow seem irrelevant, even though they are “driving” the story.

Finally: Not that I’m holding this against the author, but I thought it important to note that my copy of the ALC was completely messed up… I mean, about 20 chapters in the audiobook while listening sequentially just were not there. They looked like they were there, but nothing played and it would skip to the next “good” chapter. Until I got to the end of the audiobook and realized, all of those “missing chapters” — were randomly at the very end of the audiobook. Like ?!?!

I was truly expecting more from an author who co-wrote some of my favorite YA books.

Next to Heaven is a wild and fun ride—beautiful settings multiple strange characters, and totally Frey. The writing is super raw and it really makes you feel things, even if you’re not exactly sure what’s happening all the time.

There were parts that felt a bit scattered or hard to follow between all the different characters but I still found myself really drawn in. It’s one of those books that you just can't put down. If you’re into unique style, great narration, and a fun twisty plot, this one’s worth checking out.

There was so much character development, I was wondering when we would get to the story. I did enjoy reading this book; the details were great. There were some difficult parts to get through, like sexual and drug abuse. I found myself hoping some of the characters have the HEA at the end. There were a lot of dimensions to the story, but it was easily consumed.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the free copy to share my honest thoughts.

A story of murder, affairs, and money among the rich of affluent New Bethlehem, Connecticut. When four unhappy couples attend a key party, affairs form and troubles ensue.

I am aware of the controversy surrounding this author and the use of AI. While I’m not against AI to help edit a book after being completed by the author, I am against AI writing complete passages/paragraphs/chapters. Some parts that were weirdly repetitive in words or phrases seemed very AI-ish, or reminiscent of a very novice author. I read another review that pointed this out as positive, so I guess it’s up to the reader’s own preferences on writing style.

The plot sounded fascinating. I love rich people drama, and a mystery?! Sounded exciting! It was not. The mystery doesn’t start until way past the halfway mark, and even then, not exciting. While the story lagged in the middle, the ending really did pick up and kept me engaged until the last page.

Most characters were fleshed out decently well. A lot of them were described in the very beginning to the point of overwhelm. I’m not sure why the histories were told, they didn’t affect the story once. Also, it was hard to keep track of the characters and who they were actually with versus who they all interchanged with.

Usually I fly through books like this but it took me over a week to finish it because I never wanted to reach for it over other books.

Three stars for the premise/execution, one for the character building, and a half for the ending/reveal. Minus one for repetition (didn’t work for me), minus one for the plot, minus one for interest. 1.5 total rounded up to 2.

I got the opportunity to listen to this book 🎧 and Gina Gershon was the perfect narrator! She brought out the spot on tone for the elite in their element and behaving badly! I think if it werent for her voice, I would have had a harder time with the book.

New Bethlehem, Connecticut- one night, multiple betrayals and a facade that will come crumbling down around the couples.

I went into this book blind and wow was it wild! It was more provocative than I was expecting and I got more than the murder I was expecting. The book is heavy on detail but was a slow burn to the action.

Thank you to author, James Frey, Publisher AE Titles / S&S Audio | Simon & Schuster Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

***Unable to review on GoodReads as they have restricted reviews on this title***