Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - A Good Neighborhood

Where to start?

A Good Neighborhood's best quality was its characters. First of all, the narration style was fascinating. I've never read a story told quite like this and I ate it up. As for specific characters, Juniper was full of flaws and virtues,

Brad and his relationship with both Juniper and her mother

was something I loved to hate, Lily was adorable, and Xavier and his mother Valerie were just perfect.

They were too perfect. For a story that on more than one occasion

flung the N-word at its Black characters

, told the terrors of modern-day racism from a Black woman and her biracial son's perspective, and covered such horrors as

hate crimes and a young man's suicide by the penal system

, it had a very clear audience: White people. White like the book's author. Of course Xavier had to be a star citizen and half-white to boot – How was a white audience to believe

his purity of character otherwise?

I don't know that white authors shouldn't write from the perspective of non-white protagonists. I do know that this story of racism coming from a white woman was far too stiff, far too orchestrated to be believable as the true Black experience. Are fictional stories of anti-Black racism in the U.S. valuable? Absolutely. But their telling is best reserved for those who have experienced it, and who are willing to use their creativity to share it with the world. This book did move me because like I said, the author is excellent at developing (most) of her characters. I just wouldn't put this title on a list of... well, any required reading, really.

Content Warnings

cassielaj's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The writing in this book is stunning and compelling, but the subject matter is really difficult to read sometimes.

Content Warnings

ekmook's review

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

snslayer's review

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A short book but a long read. I did not like this book but I can't help feeling it might have been a good book nonetheless. The tension is built so well it threatens to suffocate and I had to put the book down frequently because it made me so miserable to read it. I thought it was bad in the first half of the book but it only got worse in the latter half, forced into the perspective of a racist pedophile.

This book was well-crafted but I couldn't in good conscience recommend that anyone read it. It felt a lot like misery porn with no point. I'm sure there's an audience for that, or someone who needs to read this story to learn empathy, but that someone isn't me.

ETA: I live in a community in North Carolina, likely the type on which the community of this novel is loosely based, and I am just trying desperately to figure out who in the hell has ever found a person charming or attractive because they do their own commercials? Every single "small business" commercial starring the owner is terrible and offputting and I don't know anyone who feels anything for that owner except secondhand embarrassment. This is obviously very minor and totally beside the point but I cannot stop thinking about it.

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