A review by nordstina
Lurkers by Sandi Tan

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

Sandi Tan's LURKERS revolves around the residents of Santa Claus Lane, located in a suburb of Los Angeles. Rosemary and Mira(cle) Park live with their parents who are immigrants from Korea- their father a pastor, their mother stays at home and thinks fondly of Korea, wishing to return. Mary-Sue Ireland lives across the street. She adopts a child from Vietnam who she names Kate and raises her as a single mom. An older novelist lives in the biggest house in the neighborhood and thinks he is seeing ghosts. LURKERS alternates narrators, jumping around with plot lines that do not always resolve. Subjectively, I struggled with this one. The majority of the characters are pretty repellant to me. And there are multiple instances of adults either fantasizing/obsessing or explictly preying on underage girls. The title of LURKERS resonates in that there are multiple instances of characters spying on others and "lurking" outside their houses.  There were flashes of character development that intrigued me, but threads were dropped and not picked up. Just left a bit of an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Perhaps not the right audience.

But thank you still to NetGalley and Soho Press for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.