This is exactly the book I expected from Cecily von Ziegesar - as a superfan of Gossip Girl, I was grateful for the opportunity to read and review in advance. This doesn't quite hit the mark of that treasured series (I mean, what can?) but was still an engaging tale of four families in Brooklyn (my former stomping grounds) and I recommend it to anyone who would like a character-driven read that takes place in the greatest city in the world.

Very quirky and fun, but nothing to write home about. I'd love to see this play out in a TV series or movie, as the characters and overall plot were enjoyable.

I love a contemporary novel that takes place in Brooklyn and let's you peek into the lives of the rich & privileged. The characters are what really drew me in here, but I must say that the plot was not so compelling. A light, fun read.

Cecily von Ziegesar, the bestselling author of the Gossip Girl series, returns with COBBLE HILL, a novel that revolves around four families dealing with fresh starts, unrequited crushes and failing marriages.

Cobble Hill is known for being one of Brooklyn’s trendiest neighborhoods, a place where cool moms and dads raise their equally cool kids, and hip eateries crop up according to trends and Instagram-ability. Here, von Ziegesar focuses on the Littles, the Clarkes, the Parks and the Paulsens. The Littles are Stuart, Mandy and their elementary school-age son. Stuart was once a member of a rock band called Three Blind Mice, but with a wife and kid, he is now much more engaged with domestic pursuits. However, he continues to keep up with his former bandmates, both of whom are still living the rock star life. The Clarkes are Roy, a bestselling novelist with writer’s block; Wendy, his magazine editor wife; and Shy, their appropriately named shy daughter. The Littles and Clarkes make up the meat of the novel, while school nurse Peaches Park and her family, along with the Paulsens, flesh out the story.

Each member of these families is facing some sort of conundrum. Stuart is married to a former model, Mandy, who has not left her bed in months, claiming a diagnosis of MS. When his attempts to help her go unnoticed and unappreciated, he develops a crush on his son’s school nurse, Peaches. As he tries to flirt his way closer to her, we watch as Mandy, desperate to come clean about her fake diagnosis, deals with her new fuller figure, the real reason she has taken to her bed. At the Clarke house, Roy’s writer’s block is a well-known and much-argued point of fact, but Wendy, too, is facing some serious struggles at work: delivering edgy fashion pieces and fitting in with her hip coworkers. At the same time, Shy deals with an obsessive crush on her Latin teacher and her inability to focus on anything else, including Liam, her classmate and math tutor who is clearly in love with her.

Rounding out the cast of characters and tensions, Peaches is battling her own very serious crush on Stuart, along with her dissatisfaction with her husband’s obsession with wealth and their nerdy son who just can’t seem to fit in. Just around the corner from the Clarkes is Tupper Paulsen, an introverted, lonely designer with an enigmatic wife...who just so happens to be missing.

Written in five parts and told in a variety of voices, COBBLE HILL is a difficult novel to summarize. There is no grand narrative, but the microcosms of the characters’ individual storylines touch at surprising points, making nearly every occurence a spoiler. This is very much a character-driven novel, as the many players here push the plot forward little by little while advancing their own developments and encounters with the bizarre. While each character has a definite conflict and motive, there were so many of them that I often struggled to orient myself whenever I resumed reading. That said, taken as a whole, this is a thoroughly enjoyable and tension-filled novel that reads a lot like a grown-up Gossip Girl book. Von Ziegesar is skilled at character development and creating chaotic, practically combustible scenes of love, community and desire.

Though I do not feel like I can safely describe the plot without spoiling it, I can discuss the characters: Roy and Peaches were highlights for me, but the magic of this book is that every reader will find a different protagonist to root for. As a reader, I loved watching Roy work through his writer’s block and grapple with the ins and outs of the publishing world. As a woman, I appreciated Peaches and her no-nonsense attitude (and the fulfillment of her lifelong crush; who wouldn’t want to run into their celebrity crush in their own neighborhood?). Stuart was another very well-developed character who I believe readers will truly enjoy.

For all of the issues it explores, COBBLE HILL is not the deepest of books; eating disorders and mental illness are touched upon only lightly, and some of the motivations of the characters, like Mandy, were dreadfully under-explored. But this did not affect my enjoyment of the novel, which reads very much like a television program. As a light, humorous look at a pretentious Brooklyn neighborhood, it excelled. Von Ziegesar examines everything from trendy eateries to fancy schools with a keen eye, and her wit flowed through her characters’ observations in a way that was as self-aware as it was funny.

Cobble Hill by Cecily von Ziegesar (of Gossip Girl fame) was an eccentric read about a group of neighbors living in, you guessed it, Cobble Hill - a neighborhood in New York. I liked some characters more than others (hi Stuart!), but overall, there was a lot going on in the book and hard to follow at times and a bit distracting. With so many characters, I feel like I didn't develop a strong connection to any particular character, but I was just trying to keep up for most of the story. I did enjoy that all of the characters felt very human with their own sets of flaws and tribulations they were trying to work through.

Thank you to Atria Books and Netgalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Cecily von Ziegesar may be known to many for her Gossip Girl books. I have not read them (or seen the TV series) but know that they are set in a moneyed Manhattan world. Cobble Hill is in Brooklyn, not Manhattan, and the characters are adults not teens, but I wonder to what extent this title reflects the same sensibility.

One of the book’s protagonists, a British author named Roy, rightly observes that living in Cobble Hill is like living in a small town, not the metropolis. This means that there is none of that city anonymity. The novel tracks Roy and his wife, a band member and his family, a school nurse and others. They interact and intersect over the course of the story.

Many others have reviewed this book quite positively. For me, for some reason, I could not get involved enough in the story lines and did not care enough about the characters. We are all different so, if you are looking for a clever story by a successful author, you may want to give this a try.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

This book which takes place in an upscale section of Brooklyn, is mainly about the characters, of which there is a wide variety of bizarre ones that somehow ends up in each other's stories. But I think the book was a little confusing, was it reality, or sarcasm, or just confusing writing? and then there seemed to be no protagonists in the adults, they all had really major flaws--although the children were somewhat redeeming. I found it somewhat confusing and left some of the characters and stories up in the air at the end.

Just like she did with NYC's Upper East Side in Gossip Girl, von Ziegesar perfectly captures Brooklyn's Cobble Hill in this astute take on the families that live in the neighborhood. There's drama, humor and heart as the neighbors' first world problems play out but look closely and you'll see that they're all struggling for something universal - love, understanding and acceptance. Take a trip to Cobble Hill - you won't be disappointed!

Thanks to Atria books and NetGalley for a copy to review.

There is something about the crazy characters in this book who are so full, eccentric, and entertaining that I loved. The book is about four married couples in Cobble Hill and their crazy antics that bring them together. I loved that the characters had depth. They are not insipid, vapid characters whose every actions are a foregone conclusion. Rather, I found them hilarious with their cluelessness. This book was completely entertaining and would be an amazing move as well! Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for my copy of this book.

Cobble Hill was the book I didn't know I needed or wanted in 2020. I loved Cecily von Ziegesar's young adult books and I'm so glad to have this as an adult book it's like they aged up with me. And this a genre that is seriously underdone in Adult fiction. Can't wait to read more from her.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

Cobble Hill is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Apparently it is filled with very quirky people, or at least in this story it is!

The main characters are four families that eventually connect with each other. Each one unique in their own way.

Roy, his wife Wendy and their daughter Shy who have moved to Cobble Hill from Britain for Wendy’s job at a magazine Roy is an author and can work anywhere, though he is struggling to come up with his latest, greatest novel.

Stuart, his wife Mandy and their son Ted. Stuart is an ex band member of The Blind Mice, his wife is faking an illness to keep from having to do anything.

Peaches the school nurse, her husband Greg and their son, Liam. Stuart meets Peaches at Ted’s school and kind of has a crush on her, but almost everyone has a crush on Peaches.

Then there is Elizabeth and Tupper. Elizabeth is an artist that disappears for weeks at a time.

Each character is so different, I didn’t really have trouble keeping track of them.

I really enjoyed this slice of life novel. I am partial to quirky characters and humor and this novel had both. I kept thinking that it would make a good movie.

I was really excited for the drama within this book, but unfortunately I found most of this to be lackluster and distasteful. There was a lot (and I mean A LOT) of talk in regard to weight in relationship to being successful/attractive. One example is when Stuart tells Nurse Peaches his wife is going through a lot and her first thought is she must have gotten so fat after having a child that she is now depressed. This could have been used in order to get the audience to dislike Nurse Peaches but other characters have a similar thought process. I also found Shy's storyline with her teacher really gross (although could be realistic). Now for a possible *SPOILER*: Mandy using MS, a chronic illness, as an excuse and not actually having the diagnosis was so distasteful and really disrespectful to the MS community and anyone with a chronic illness.

Thank you @atriabooks for gifting me a copy of the much anticipated, Cobble Hill! I’m sure a lot of you have been seeing this one around and it seems to me that it has some polarizing reviews. You’re either going to love it or not. Sadly I fell in the latter camp. I didn’t end up loving it, but I really wanted too. Let’s start off with what worked well for me… I enjoyed the environment and community of Cobble Hill. Maybe it was more of the idea of it because these characters are a mess! It was very focused on the characters, what drives them, their every day intricacies and the strange ways that they’re all tied together. For me, this is what kept the pages turning.

So what didn’t I love? The characters 😂 They were definitely human. They have secrets and are flawed and I get that, but I also didn’t really care. I felt indifferent about every single one. And there were so many characters it was hard to figure out who was who and who’s storyline went to who for a while. I could honestly see this as a tv show though! Nothing much seemed to happen over the course of the book either and at the end found like self like huh 🤷🏼‍♀️ I also had some issues with a few of the topics that were approached like talk of infidelity, drug use and child neglect, body shaming, mental illness, and it felt pretentious too. And the audio… turned it off real quick. Wasn’t a fan of the narration at all.

So, while this one may not have been my favorite I found bits of it entertaining. I’d encourage you to research it, read reviews, and give it a go before making your final call. It seems that those who love a well driven character plot line would end up enjoying it more than myself.

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Gossip Girl series, a deliciously irresistible novel chronicling a year in the life of four families in an upscale Brooklyn neighborhood as they seek purpose, community, and meaningful relationships - until one unforgettable night at a raucous neighborhood party knocks them to their senses.

Welcome to Cobble Hill.

In this eclectic Brooklyn neighborhood, private storms brew amongst four married couples and their children. There’s ex-groupie Mandy, so underwhelmed by motherhood and her current physical state that she fakes a debilitating disease to get the attention of her skateboarding, ex-boyband member husband Stuart. There’s the unconventional new school nurse, Peaches, on whom Stuart has an unrequited crush, and her disappointing husband Greg, who wears noise-cancelling headphones - everywhere.

A few blocks away, Roy, a well-known, newly transplanted British novelist, has lost the thread of his next novel and his marriage to capable, indefatigable Wendy. Around the corner, Tupper, the nervous, introverted industrial designer with a warehose full of prosthetic limbs struggles to pin down his elusive artist wife Elizabeth. She remains...elusive. Throw in two hormonal teenagers, a ten-year-old pyromaniac, a drug dealer pretending to be a doctor, and a lot of hidden cameras, and you’ve got a combustible mix of egos, desires, and secrets bubbling in brownstone Brooklyn.

Smart, sophisticated, yet surprisingly tender, Cobble Hill is highly entertaining portrait of contemporary family life and the colorful characters who call Brooklyn home."

As long as NONE of the colorful characters happens to be a Humphrey I'm happy.

I’m torn on how to rate this book. On one hand, it’s gossip girl— it’s meant to be shallow. On the other hand, this isn’t based on the upper east side any longer, and people should evolve. The consistency of body shaming in this book is disgusting. One character is repeatedly referred to as fat yet pretty. It’s as if those two must be blatantly stated because if you are one you mustn’t be the other. This is done multiple times through the lens of a variety of characters upon meeting this lady. I couldn’t get past it to enjoy the story. When you repeatedly body shame fictional characters, what hope does it give us in real life???

A great story about intertwined families living in tony Cobble Hill. Loved how the author wove them together, most of them not realizing they were intertwined until circumstances unfolded.

DNF - I just couldn't get into this one at all. Unlikeable characters and way too many of them. I just couldn't force myself to read any more.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for my gifted copy. I also won a physical copy on goodreads so thank you goodreads as well. I honestly didn't care for this book. It seemed like it would be similar to Big Little Lies but it wasn't. I actually liked Big Little Lies and didn't like this book. The book just had way too much going on. There was a case of lice, drugs, fires, Mandy faking an illness, cheating etc. I just don't care for any of that kind of stuff. This probably isn't a good book for someone who hates drama because there is a lot of it. Despite not liking this book I gave it 3 stars because it wasn't horrible, I didn't hate it, and it kept my interest. Is it a book I would recommend? Absolutely not. The audiobook wasn't horrible either. I feel like the narrators did a great job. I just didn't care for the story.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this novel but I'm glad that I read it. It did have a Gossip Girl vibe to it but not as much as I was expecting. I found the story moved at a nice pace to stay interesting. I would still recommend!

Entertaining story about 4 couples and their children in a Brooklyn neighborhood over the space of a year. The plot moves at a good pace and was enjoyable to read. Each character is quirky in a different way-some relatable but others not. There's Stu and Mandy-Stu used to be in a famous band and Mandy was his high school girlfriend. Mandy is faking MS so that she can stay in bed all day and then starts stealing neighbor's meal kits. Then there's Peaches and Greg. Peaches in the school nurse, is hot for Stu and gets close to him by combing his head for lice. There's Elizabeth and Tupper. Elizabeth does odd art installations and then disappears, leaving her husband no notes about where she is. This is just a sample of the strange interactions and motives that the Cobble Hill residents have.
Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.