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A review by bookbosomed_jess
The Perfect Neighbors by Sarah Pekkanen
2.0
Let me start by saying I hate the term “women’s fiction”, as if women’s brains are so different from men’s that we need our own shelves at the bookstores so we know what we’ll actually like. If this is typical “chick lit” then I may need to have a sex change because this was not for me. This is definitely the closest I’ve gotten to a DNF in a very long time.
In the town of Newport Cove, voted one of the top 20 safest towns in America, four women bear their for the most part incredibly mundane secrets. Gigi’s husband is running for Congress but something in her past may muck it up. Kellie is just going back to work and is apparently desperate for attention and develops a crush on a married coworker. Susan is the most functional of them but a divorced single mother who runs a successful business who may or may not be stalking her ex. And Tessa is new to the neighborhood, moving her family to escape a mysterious incident in their past.
I was never given a reason to care about any of the characters, except maybe Susan. They were shallow and way too much time was spent describing what was happening as opposed to letting us into their heads, in extremely passive writing no less. The only intrigue was what happened with Tessa’s family but after we got a name and little else, it took so dang long to reveal who the guy was let alone what happened to him, that I just didn’t care by the end.
This was Desperate Housewives on sedatives. It was like lying in a puddle of water with not enough energy to get up. The saving grace was a little bit of comic relief provided by the listserv, specifically Frank Fitzgibbons. I finished it so it gets 2 stars but I would not read again, would not recommend, and would not trust the opinion of anyone who rated this highly. I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and taste but holy snooze fest was this incredibly boring.
In the town of Newport Cove, voted one of the top 20 safest towns in America, four women bear their for the most part incredibly mundane secrets. Gigi’s husband is running for Congress but something in her past may muck it up. Kellie is just going back to work and is apparently desperate for attention and develops a crush on a married coworker. Susan is the most functional of them but a divorced single mother who runs a successful business who may or may not be stalking her ex. And Tessa is new to the neighborhood, moving her family to escape a mysterious incident in their past.
I was never given a reason to care about any of the characters, except maybe Susan. They were shallow and way too much time was spent describing what was happening as opposed to letting us into their heads, in extremely passive writing no less. The only intrigue was what happened with Tessa’s family but after we got a name and little else, it took so dang long to reveal who the guy was let alone what happened to him, that I just didn’t care by the end.
This was Desperate Housewives on sedatives. It was like lying in a puddle of water with not enough energy to get up. The saving grace was a little bit of comic relief provided by the listserv, specifically Frank Fitzgibbons. I finished it so it gets 2 stars but I would not read again, would not recommend, and would not trust the opinion of anyone who rated this highly. I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and taste but holy snooze fest was this incredibly boring.