A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

 

Title:  A Good Neighborhood

Author:  Therese Anne Fowler

Narrated by:  Ella Turenne

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 35 minutes

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

 

What book club book have you read that prompted a lot of good discussion within your group?

I unfortunately had COVID in September and was not able to make it to the Pageturners Book Club meeting at the Kewaunee Public Library.  I was sad to miss the meeting as A Good Neighborhood was a book that covered a lot of topics that I think would have led to a good conversation.

In a quiet neighborhood, an older home has been torn down and a large home has been built in its place that doesn’t quite fit into the neighborhood.  Brad Whitman is a successful HVAC business owner and local celebrity due to his television commercials.  He has built the house and moves there with his wife Julia, and two daughters, Juniper and Lily.  Juniper is a teenager that finds herself attracted to her new neighbor, Xavier.  Xavier is a prodigy on the guitar and has a scholarship to a prestigious university for classical guitar. His mother, Valerie, is a widow and university professor in ecology.  She is also African American raising a biracial son.  The neighborhood has been a close-knit community, but things change when Valerie decides to sue Brad Whitman and his builders for killing the ancient oak tree that is in her back yard.  How will this change the neighborhood?

This novel explored many themes including racism, classism, purity culture, and sexism.  It also had a unique narration as the neighborhood itself told the story.  I was not sure where the story was going, and it turned into a wild ride in the last half of the novel.  I’ll admit that I thought it was very well written and enjoyed the first half, but I didn’t really like the direction it took the second half of the novel.  I thought that they made Brad too evil and the way he was evil really disturbed me.  I did not like the direction that Xavier took either.  I just wanted to smack everyone and tell them that they should just sit down and talk about things rather than involving the police, suing neighbors, etc.  It did give me things to think about and I think it would have been a great book to discuss at book club.

Ella Turenne was a good narrator, but I had to stop listening for awhile as I just couldn’t stand Brad’s evil thoughts.

If you’ve read this book, what did you think about it?