This book will definitely have your mind racing like crazy! I read the last half in one night, because I just couldn't put it down. Many twists and turns, you think you know what is going to happen...and then BOOM...another twist. I would recommend this book, just make sure you leave yourself enough time to finish it when you can't put it down.

To begin with, the book has a gripping beginning-- the prominent George, husband, father and beloved teacher who stopped a school shooting in his younger years, is accused and hauled off to jail for allegedly sexually assaulting several female students at his upper class, private school in his all-white, upper class, insulated community. The book focused more on the effects this has on the family members left in the wake of this tragedy. This is not a book about the investigation into the accusations or really into George's side of things at all. I was pulled into the lives of Sadie, Andrew and Joan, George's children and wife, respectively. The story addresses not only the effects of George's arrest and accusations on these characters, but it also addresses the culture of a community that is insulated to a fault. The author addresses issues of homophobic attitudes among this group of people as well as rape culture. The book derailed a bit at the end, as the trial takes place and left me thinking, "I have followed the lives of these characters for an ending that is so abrupt and unsatisfying for the characters?" This isn't to say that the book is unsatisfying as a whole....it was compelling and engaging throughout, up to the end. Thank you to netgalley for a couple of this book in exchange for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2085160380

Avalon Hills is wealthy, privileged and, above all, white. Not a hint of scandal has touched it since a long-ago event where a man came into a school to shoot his ex-girlfriend and anyone who got in his way. George Woodbury was a hero that day, tackling the gunman and saving the school. Since then, the wealthy-by-inheritance teacher, has been Teacher of the Year and everyone's favorite mentor. His marriage seems perfect although his gay son has left the unforgiving suburb. His later-in-life daughter, Sadie, is a prodigy on her way to Ivy greatness. His wife, a nurse, is beloved by neighbors and colleagues, alike.

Then it all goes wrong, George is arrested for allegedly molesting and raping four young women on a senior class trip. He denies the allegation, but he is hiding secrets, monetary failure, a long ago molestation, and other behavior his loyal wife, June, knows nothing about.

As George goes to jail, the Woodbury's perfect life collapses like a house of cards. A man Sadie trusts betrays her. Andrew returns home, but destroys his stable relationship in the process. June walks a tightrope between disbelief and pure denial of her husband's behavior.

This is a solid read with good character development and more than a whiff of believability in this current climate of tabloid news and shocking revelations. George, who maintains his innocence but circumstances would seem otherwise, receives retribution in jail. Joan seesaws between developing strength and choosing the practicality of remaining in the marriage for financial reasons.

Sadie is the most complex and well developed of the characters as her teenage perfection skids into getting high and dropping out of her life as her idealized parent fails her.

Well written and a solid, page turning book perfect for book club discussion.

I admit that I could not put this book down, but is disliked every one of the characters. Well written, compelling, thought-provoking, but I just didn't like anyone. So I didn't really care what happened to them. Still.....I couldn't stop reading. Maybe that's the important thing.

Certainly the best kind of characters inhabit this beautifully written story. Ms. Whittall has genius for getting inside the minds of the family of George Woodbury, a respected teacher and local hero, as their lives come apart at the seams after George is arrested for sexually assaulting a student. What kept me reading — and I finished the book in just a few days — was not so much the question of George’s guilt or innocence, but how the people close to him deal with the accusations. The characters are complex, endlessly fascinating, well-drawn and totally believable. I once heard Elmo Leonard say that he simply created his characters and then they told him what they want to do. The Woodbury family and their friends and neighbors appear to me to have a life of their own. Highly recommend this book!

I have wavered between many different emotions with this book. I can't recall reading a book where you never meet one of the main characters. Your perceptions of this individual are created by learning about how the rest of the characters in the book. feel about them. Almost the entire book centers around what one believes to be the all American Family, a wife/mother, daughter and son and their feelings for the husband/father., The book is about loyalty, love, perception, doubt, societal stigmas, and truth. The book left me agonizing over the husband/father and how I would feel about him. You can never make a judgment because his character is never developed autonomously. The end of the book was very disappointing as it felt that author wanted the book to end and left you high and dry. It is a divisive novel. If you prefer feel good stories, you hate ambiguity, you prefer a clear, likeable protagonist this is not the book for you.

It's not giving anything away to say that a Dad gets arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting some minors at the top of this book. So it's not unreasonable to assume that the reader would want to know, by the end of the book, the answer to the big question: "What really happened? Did he really do it?"

Well, sadly this book isn't going to give you that answer. (You or the characters in the book, one of which never even learns all of the facts behind the case). Actually for the first half of the book (which, in my opinion, has pacing issues) you will mainly sit with the family while they ponder the awfulness and oddness of the whole situation and no questions are answered at all. Yes, you will end the book knowing MORE about this man and if he's capable of the crime, but you will not end the book knowing the TRUTH. So, for me, that was frustrating.

I can only suspect that the message of this book is that people seldom know the "real truth" during these types of events. Perhaps that it's for this reason that the father and the girls he assaulted are so removed for much of the story. Instead this story focuses more on the family this man destroyed with his alleged actions. While I found their stories (particularly the wife's) interesting, in the end I kept coming back to the man and the girls and wanting to know more about them.

So, would you like this book? That's up to you and the type of story you'd like to read. If you'd like to read a story about a family struggling with the fall out from something awful, perhaps you will find this book interesting. However, for me, that fall out is more interesting when placed in the context of the event, which was ultimately unobserved and unreported.

"I'm just saying that we shift around on a seesaw moral continuum for our whole lives. Nobody stays the same."

George Woodbury is the most popular teacher at Avalon Hills prep school and he is also a hometown hero. So when he is accused of (undisclosed) sexual improprieties while chaperoning a school field trip, the battle lines are drawn. His family -- wife, Joan, (gay) son Andrew, and high school senior, Sadie, are caught up in the crossfire and drama.

This book could have been great -- it had all the right ingredients for an intense story that provided insight and instigated discussion. It's meant to be, I think, a look at rape culture. The main concept a sort of "he said, she said" but it fell short -- the reader never hears anything about the actual accusations, the girls involved, or from George, the accused. So it was basically a one-sided look at how the immediate family dealt with the situation. George is remanded to prison without bail so his voice is absent throughout. The characters in this book were a mishmash of messed up, stat quoting, stereotypes displaying some absolutely ridiculous behaviors. I felt NOTHING for any of them and no empathy for their plight was evoked. Frankly, I didn't like them, wouldn't want to know them, and definitely wouldn't be interested in them as people.

The pace was incredibly slow and I had to force my way to the end hoping for some kind of payoff, some information about the case, and a resolution of sorts. The conclusion was abrupt and unfulfilling and reader is left with more questions than answers. I'm not recommending it even though the subject matter is something that does beg discussion. Not sure why this is getting rave reviews or winning awards. I also don't like when the author's own bias and politics shows so clearly.

Thank you to NetGally and Ballantine Books for the e-book ARC to read and review.

Last night right after I finished: My preface to the review should definitely say that I work at a private high school. The teens in this book in no way resemble any type of adolescent that I have come across in over 14 years. I have no idea why authors write teenagers this way -- yeah, I know some smoke pot and engage in sexual behavior, etc. But I must say, I do not like how these young adults are portrayed in literature. I have two daughters -- if anything untoward -- such as a sexual impropriety by an adult -- had ever happened to either of them I would have gone crazy. Why are the lines so seemingly blurred these days between what is acceptable and what is not? Full review tomorrow, but this book left me flat.

This novel starts out strong. When George Woodbury, a respected teacher, is arrested for sexual misconduct with minors and attempted rape of a minor, the lives of his wife of nearly thirty years and his children, Andrew, a lawyer, and seventeen-year-old Sadie, are torn in pieces.

The arrest divides the town of Avalon and the private school where George teaches and Sadie is a senior. It was hard reading the stuff from the men’s rights group, who think women make up rape charges when sex didn’t go as they wanted or they felt some kind of guilt for their bad behavior. But that was the point: Do you believe George, who has never said anything improper about young girls and whose computer is without child porn, or do you believe the young women?
As his wife and children waver about whether they believe his claims that he’s being set up, they find themselves ostracized at work, school, and church. Andrew fairs better since he lives in the city, not the small town anymore, but it wreaks havoc on his relationship with his long-term partner.

I didn’t love the ending. Maybe it was the author’s point that such cases are never black and white, but in the world of fiction, I wish the author had made some different choices.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine for the opportunity to review this book.

I opened this book and read the first page. It pulled me in immediately. I found this book to be a deep exploration of the psychological effect a major event has on a family. We follow Sadie, Andrew and Joan as they come to grips with their father and husband being charged with sexual abuse. At times it felt so raw. At times I wanted to look away. But, of course I couldn't.

I was really looking forward to reading this book and I have to say I enjoyed the plot line, I felt the characters were interesting and multi-dimensional. I was motivated to keep reading as I wanted to know how it ended, however while I enjoyed the book I was completely underwhelmed by the ending. It wasn't a matter of not liking the way the plot ended, but rather in how it was written. It was so abrupt it seemed as if the author just needed to finish the book as fast as possible and wrote the last page in a hurry.

Unfortunately, I believe that the book "The Best Kind of People" is way over rated and over hyped. While reading, my inner voice would sometimes whisper, "wouldn't you rather be listening to nails scratch across a chalk board?" Seriously though, a wealthy and respected man in a generic upper class New England town is charged with sexual contact with minors, among other things. We never find out the details of the crimes he was accused of committing and throughout the book this man, George, is treated as a very one dimensional character anyway so we don't really care if he is stuck in jail. What happened on this "field trip" that ultimately causes a man to fall from grace so quickly and be charged of assaulting young teen girls? I felt that it was a mistake that the author did not include the details of what George was put in jail for and denied bail for. I am having real trouble reviewing this book coherently because it tries to hit so many topical subjects-teenage drinking ,drug use and sexual experience, bullying, homosexuality, rape, slut shaming, feminism, and anti-feminism while failing to reach its mark in any of the categories. One of the major story lines includes the constant pot smoking that Sadie, the teenager daughter of George, does. Yes, I feel that marijuana should be listed in the book blurb as a main character of this book. Sadie is constantly high, wanting to get high, wishing she wasn't high, having sex with her boyfriend, being "confused" about her feelings and having a flirtatious relationship with a forty year old man. Enough. I forced myself to finish the entire book only because I was drawn to Joan, the wife of George and Mother of Sadie's story. I wanted to read about how she dealt with her husband's crimes. In the end, even her story line did not satisfy and I can only hope that all of the loathsome characters in this book eventually get their just desserts.

Thank you to NetGalley for a chance to read and review this book.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I liked this book or not. The topic seemed really interesting and it started out strong, but it kind of wandered aimlessly from there. There was a lot of fluff that didn't really go anywhere. It's hard to review this book without giving spoilers because the things I didn't like about it are major plot points and the way it resolved. So without giving spoilers, I can say that I would like to have seen a stronger storyline in this book. It was a book that had a lot of potential that just fell flat. The writing was good, but some of the characters could have been fleshed out better and it could have benefitted from better resolution. I was left with a lot of questions and not feeling very satisfied. I mainly wish we could have seen some of it from George's point of view. I feel like we never really got a chance to understand him. Same for his accusers. I would have found this book more interesting with their stories and their points of view. Without it, it felt like a mystery that was never solved.

A novel about a family trying to cope with the sudden arrest of the father for attempted rape of a teen during a school event he chaperones. A well thought of man and teacher, we follow his teen daughter, adult son and wife through the initial days all the way up through the trial. A unique perspective of the ripple effect of charges for not just the accused and accusers but their families. Characters are well developed and sympathetic

This book was SO good! Once I started reading it, I only put it down to sleep.

George is somewhat of a hero in his town for stopping a school shooter when his daughter was young. Years later he’s suddenly arrested and jailed under the assumption of attempted rape of girls he was chaperoning on an annual ski trip.

The story is good, showing the conflicts of his wife, son, and daughter through the process of his arrest and subsequent jailing.

This book will draw you in and keep you turning the pages until you’re finished. Highly recommend!

The book stared out good, then near the middle I got board with it, you never felt like you knew one way or the other how it would end, just ok.

**Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary copy of THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE in exchange for my honest review**

***This review contains plot spoilers***

If four teenagers accuse and then recant sexual abuse allegations does that mean the accused is innocent?
What if years before he was guilty of raping a teen?
What if someone convinced the four to take back their allegations?
What is the difference between legally and morally guilty?
How about if the teacher is only a few years older than the student?
In what ways does sexual orientation matter?
How does the amount or trauma or lack of impact change the scenario?

Teacher George Woodbury, once deemed a hero for being in the right place to stop a school shooting, is arrested for sexually assaulting four students. His wife Joan defends his innocence, as does his adult son Andrew. High school senior Sadie can't believe her beloved father would do such a thing. As possible evidence makes family members question George's guilt, secrets are revealed.

Zoe Whittall provides no easy answers for the Woodbury family or for readers. As teens, both Sadie and Andrew are attracted to older, inappropriate men. Was George an influence in their choices? What role did their mother play? I found Joan the most sympathetic character because she continued to treat others with kindness and respect despite numbness from discoveries about her husband. Yes, she lapsed parenting Sadie, but I admired her ability to get out of bed in the morning. I didn't like how Andrew treated his partner like an afterthought instead of the unmarried husband he has been before George's arrest.

Whittall told THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE from the third person points of view of Sadie, Andrew and Joan. I wish she had used first person to bring me in closer to the characters. I didn't feel their angst as much as I wanted to be immersed in their pain and confusion. Whittall's writing is almost lyrical. I thought her inclusion of "men's rights" group, challenging the veracity of rape accusers to be an effective means of showing how women and girls can be each other's worst enemies, when we should be standing up and protecting each other. I wish we knew more about Dorothy's motivations and from where her extreme beliefs arose.

The only real problem I had with the plot was the ambiguity between the rape that George committed twenty-some years ago and the recanted allegations. Yes, a real rapist can be falsely accused (or was the recantation the false part), but the likelihood that a man would rape a teenager then never rape another for 20 years (or not) seemed to muddy the waters too much.

THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE will be an excellent book club choice.

“A practical joke? It’s so strange.”

George shook his head. “I really don’t know. ” This was a phrase George- learned, stoic, opinionated- rarely used. He prided himself on knowing the things that really mattered.

Is it a joke? Could George have possibly done what he is accused of? As Joan watched George cuffed and led away, everything she thought she knew about her husband, marriage and family comes into question. Is it all just a ‘mistake’ to be ‘sorted out’ or is it so much more serious than George is letting on? Accused by students of ‘sexual impropriety’ the did he didn’t he consumes the novel. This beloved man, the very man that prevented an early event that could have been a tragedy at the school now stands accused, but who is the liar? His daughter knows her father is a kind man, a good father, nerdy even! For Sadie’s birthday, this is more nightmare, it can’t be real- being questioned as if her father is some sort of molester pervert! He is a teacher of the year winner, every year, he is beloved in the community. How could they turn on him so fast? Yet, why would the young girls lie, though they are devious? His family, daughter Sadie just turned 17 and son, Andrew returning home realizing the severity of the accusations along with their mother Joan are left to make sense of the nightmare. The family splinters, each searching for solid ground alone. Andrew has an immediate sense that his father could never do such a thing, detached from all things bodily. Joan, where is her mind in all of this? What if he is guilty, then something is wrong with him, an illness? Joan is an intuitive woman, wouldn’t she have known if he were that sort of man? A fascinating part of the novel is the ‘inappropriate’ relationship Andrew had in the past. with a coach. It raises questions about boundaries.

The story never gets much into George’s head, the accusations aren’t deeply explored which I was waiting for. Maybe the intention is for the reader to feel like the family members and the community, to not really know the truth. It begs the question, do you blindly stand beside your loved one always, even if you aren’t sure you believe in their innocence? I wanted to chew on the accusers and George, I wanted some fight! What is worse, though, then not knowing for sure either way? Interesting is the sides taken by the female teachers, something one wouldn’t expect or would they? What will happen if Joan and the children discover he is guilty? That maybe something is the past can tie to the present accusations?

I wish I could rant a bit about the ‘truth’ or one of the things we do know later about George, but I can’t ruin the story. The focus is on his children and wife more than George or his accusers. An interesting ending, I think. An uncomfortable story, because anytime young girls and older men are involved as a female it shakes you. I went into this expecting to get into George’s mind more, and you do briefly but again- it isn’t really about him.

The problem is, even if we try to remain fair, most of us will have an opinion of guilt or innocence with the majority of news we hear. We deny it, but people still look at a suspect and say ‘he looks like a criminal’ but even looking upstanding (whatever the heck that means) can be suspect too. Some jump to believe a child, and usually the child is telling the truth, but there have been cases (look it up) that were lies though it’s my belief the usual reality is people get away with horrendous crimes against children. Now I digress… this is the tale of the family of the accused and how their lives split open because of it. Innocent or not, the family is never going to be the same. You can’t unknow the truth, and if it’s the past that rises up, can you forgive? Should you?

Even the Best Kind of People are flawed. I read a review that mentioned Sara Polly may make a movie out of this (writing and directing an adaptation) I am giving her a shameless plug, I loved Take This Waltz which came out in 2011, I would love to see this novel on the big screen with her touch.

Publication Date: September 19, 2017

Random House

Ballatine Books

I'm between 3 and 3.5 stars here.

"When someone is your husband or father, that's simply who they are. You don't stop to question much about them, unless you're given reason to, and they'd never been given reason to."

The Woodbury family is well known in their suburban Connecticut town; in fact, the family has lived there for years and the Woodbury home is a fixture in the neighborhood. About 10 years ago, George, a popular science teacher at the town's prep school, thwarted a gunman who came into the school to kill one of the receptionists, so he has been viewed as a hero for some time. It's more than a bit of a shock when one night, George is arrested for allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior with several female students.

The news ripples through the Woodbury family and their town, causing a multitude of reactions. George's steadfast wife, Joan, an ER nurse, cannot understand how the man she has known and loved and lived with and raised children with could be the person who did the things he's being accused of. Their 17-year-old daughter Sadie, smart and popular, suddenly finds herself a social pariah, and she isn't sure her father deserves the benefit of the doubt that everyone expects her to give him. Andrew, their son, who couldn't wait to leave their suffocating small town so he could finally be himself, is now a lawyer in New York City, and is struggling with memories of his past he has tried so hard to leave behind, as well as a partner who wants to support him and his family.

As the family grapples with reconciling the man they've known, or the man they thought they've known, with people's reactions toward his alleged crimes, they struggle with their own feelings. Did they miss the signs all along, did they deny seeing anything out-of-the-ordinary, or did all of this really come out of the blue? Is it part of a plot to discredit George, as he claims, or has he done a masterful job at hiding his true nature? Dealing with this on a day-to-day basis proves difficult for each of them in different ways, especially given those in their family and community who both want to help and who think they all should pay.

"Even if they turned out to be lies, those stories were there, obstacles between them, things she couldn't un-hear or un-imagine. Someone had taken Joan's only confidant, the one person who actually knew her completely, and her best friend, and replaced him with a monster. The person she knew and trusted was gone."

The Best Kind of People starts with an interesting premise, how well we truly know those we love, or if they are capable of pulling the wool over our eyes and harming others. We need to figure out if we're in any way to blame, either for somehow enabling the behaviors or denying their existence, or if the person's sins are all their own. It's also a story about the dynamics of a family who always thought had everything, only to find out there were lies underneath it all.

While this is a compelling albeit familiar storyline, the story gets a bit muddled when it looks at the social reaction to George's alleged crimes, pitting those who immediately believe what the girls accuse him of versus those more conservative voices in the community who believe women make false claims of sexual misconduct and rape simply to cover up their bad judgment or mistakes. Additionally, a thread in which a local author (who also happens to be dating the mother of Sadie's boyfriend) decides to write a book about the scandal, and manipulates Sadie to get information, felt a little bit creepy, and actually raised more questions that the story never answered. And honestly, I'm not really sure what the ending meant.

This is the first book of Zoe Whittall's I've ever read. She definitely knows how to unravel a story little by little, and create memorable characters. I felt that The Best Kind of People tried a little too hard to be dramatic, and actually wound up creating melodrama instead that undercut the story's power. But it's definitely an interesting story, even if the characters aren't as sympathetic as you'd expect them to be.

NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

How would you react if a close family member or friend were charged with committing a horrible crime? Against young girls?
In The Best Kind of People, we experience this very situation through the eyes, lives, and actions of his wife, children, colleagues, and students. Some are firmly convinced of his guilt or innocence, based on the media reports and/or their personal experience with him or the girls who made the charges. Others, like his immediate family, struggle for most of the book.
George (the husband/father) is a well established pillar of the community (and one with family money) and my initial impression of him was formed in a very compelling first chapter of the book. But, was my impression accurate? So, tension is established early on and it continues throughout most of the book, as the story follows along with the judicial process taking its normal course.
The story was an interesting look at the side we don't normally see when reading about rape/sexual abuse cases. Lingering under the surface, for me, were questions about if he wasn't wealthy and so well regarded in the community, would he be treated differently? Would there be a different outcome? Did his status contribute to the charges that were filed or to the eventual result?
Even though I finished the book with a lot of questions, I did enjoy it and would recommend it as a compelling, interesting read. Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for providing me with a copy!