Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy of this book!

I loved the twisted mysterious story about people living on a suburban block who all have secrets they’d kill to keep hidden! It was interesting to see chapters written from a 3rd person perspective alternate with chapters written from one character’s first person perspective. I don’t know how I feel about it. Not sure if the author was testing out the different POVs or if she was trying to hone in on the first person for a different reason.

Other than that, great book, good pacing, characters were believable, and I love a good old fashioned story about privileged people brought down by their own hubris!

Alton Road is anything but boring! The neighborhood seems idyllic but the Memorial Day block party shows all the crazy that’s been hiding on the street. Lots of surprises and action in this enjoyable read.

Jamie Day has created a block party unlike any of the block parties I've attended. My neighborhood seems very boring in comparison to the cul-de-sac on Alton Road. In fact, I was reminded of Desperate Housewives and Knots Landing, two of my favorite night-time soap operas from years past. I predict that this will be a very popular summer read. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy to read and review.

Dollycas's Thoughts

Welcome to Alton Road, an exclusive cul-de-sac that is hosting its annual block party.

Do they really know their neighbors as well as they think they do? When one of them is murdered they realize there are a ton of secrets being held by everyone.

We have to go back a year to see which scandal, betrayal, rivalry, and/or secret drove someone to murder.

____

As soon as I started reading this book I felt like I had landed on Wisteria Lane 2.0 (Desperate Housewives). Saying Jamie Day's characters have issues is a huge understatement. The book is mostly told from Alex's point of view. She is a divorce mediator who has a dangerous relationship with wine that she thinks she is hiding. Her 17-year-old daughter Lettie is doing whatever she can do personally to save the planet. She is also crushing on the son of their new neighbors. After a suspension for vandalism at the end of her junior year she just wants to graduate high school and go cross country to attend USC. Alex's husband is miserly when it comes to his daughter's education and is trying hard to get his wife to give up her vino.

The other residents of Alton Road include a widow who may have killed her husband with an interesting occupation, a teen that is having trouble coping with life especially when his girlfriend breaks up with him, a controlling husband, a wife hiding a connection to other residents on the road, a stalker, a drug addict, a cheating husband and more. All of these things come out over the course of the story. Because of my personal experience, I was very drawn to the troubled teen especially because I could feel what was in his future. I felt all of the characters were complex but needed more depth but with the large number of characters, it is hard to do that in one book.

The author fills the book with a lot of hot-button issues. Alcoholism, drug abuse, adultery, statutory rape, computer hacking, blackmail, stalking, revenge, and more. Not one house on the cul-de-sac escaped having problems, and many of those problems could destroy others. Truthfully, all the characters were unlikable but their situations kept the pages turning for me. Plus I needed to know who was murdered, who did it, and why.

I did enjoy the Facebook chat group talking and gossiping about what could be happening on Alton Road. I belong to similar groups for my hometown and the town where I currently live. Thankfully our moderators don't allow gossip but they are a great way to find out what is happening around town, like when you hear a ton of sirens and wonder what is going on or what is on fire or if there is a prison break which really could happen here.

The Block Party is filled with dysfunction and drama. So much drama. If you were a fan of Desperate Housewives you will enjoy this story but unlike the housewives, I have no desire to be friends with anyone on Alton Road but they will probably stick in my brain for a while.

This appears to be Jamie Day's first novel. She is an author to watch. I am open to reading more of her work.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!

Synopsis: told from two perspectives (Alex and her daughter Lettie), there's a lot of drama in one year on Alton Road. As the year progress, you dive deeper in to past connections, revenge, teenage angst, and a lot of booze. In the end, Alex and Lettie get a satisfied closure at the end, and the secrets of their neighbors are fully revealed.

What a trollop! A perfect book for those who like Desperate Housewives, the Real Housewives, or authors May Cobb and Lucy Foley- there's a lot of neighborhood drama here (some that's a bit over the top). I would list this more as a domestic suspense more than a thriller or psychological drama; it doesn't have strong character development, but that doesn't mean the plot isn't a whirlwind. I found myself quick caught up in the Alex's story right at the beginning of the book. It gets a little slower and stagnant towards the middle third of the book, but things pick back up quickly about 75% through the book- I finished the last portion in one night!
Lettie's story took me a little longer to get into- I just didn't like the writing style of her story as much as Alex's. I also could have done with all the alcohol references for Alex, as I don't think it added much to the story at all; the other neighbors stories were much more interesting. Overall, still felt satisfied with how the book wrapped up, and would read other things by Jamie Day.

Overall, good summer read or for someone who wants to forget their own stress and drama for awhile and get caught up in someone else's.. 3.75 stars.

Every neighborhood has its cast of characters and antics that at times has you shaking your head, this one is no exception. Like mother like daughter; sometimes being bossy has its advantages and sometimes it doesn’t. In this lighthearted novel that tackles some heavy emotions surrounding alcoholism, drug use, suicide and rape, one family and neighborhood comes together even as it’s being ripped apart. Well written and fast paced, Day delivers a neighborhood mystery with a lot of heart.

I love uncovering new great authors!

I loved this book!

Who wouldn't want to read about a murder on a street where all the neighbors know each other and all have secrets and are up to some unsavory shenanigans!!

This book has a lot of characters but Day writes them so seamlessly that you're able to keep them straight and not get lost.

Highly recommend picking this one up!

A neighborhood full of secrets can only lead to trouble. When one resident turns up dead, we are taken through the lives of the residents to learn what lead up to the death. Told from multiple viewpoints, we are given a view into 2 generations of residents and their drama. This book read like a movie, with building suspense, strong characters and a satisfying resolution!

3.5 stars for this one by Jamie Day! It was a story about a group of neighbours who live in a cul-de-sac community. Everybody in this story is hiding something - it's full of secrets and lies! There are secrets between neighbors, friends and even families.

Each year, the community hosts a block party for memorial day. But this year, things get sinister when there is a murder on site. In order to figure out who dies and how it happened, the author takes you back to a year earlier and explores the characters and their stories leading up to the fateful night. I really liked that aspect of the story. It was a quick read for me and I found it quite entertaining. The twists weren't exactly mind blowing, but I liked them.

My one issue, and it's minor, is that there were quite a few characters and at times it was hard to keep them straight.

I'd like to thank St. Martin's Press for my review copy. Overall, I liked it! This book published on July 18 and is available now! If you enjoy deception and a bunch of people behaving badly, this may be for you!

Revenge is a dish best served.. at a Memorial Day block party. Jamie Day's soapy new novel is reminiscent of Big Little Lies and Ashley Audrain's latest, The Whispers. The novel is narrated by Alex, a wife and mother, who maybe has a drinking problem, and Lettie, said teen daughter of Alex. The cast of characters are the neighbors of Alton Lane and the plot of the story takes place over the course from one Memorial Day black party to the next years. At the latter Memorial Day party police are called for a homicide. Flashing back over the course of the past year we get to know some of the neighbors and the many, many dark secrets they are keeping from their families and each other. While I thought there were maybe just one or two too many dramatic secrets for one small block. Overall a very entertaining read for fans of domestic and neighborhood suspense!

⭐️3 I thought the story was going to be based more on the murders. Insteresting plot and compelling story. Didn’t predict some of the twists. Felt like the Facebook comments about the block party were uneccesary to the plot. Overall an entertaining read.

Even though I feel like I’ve read a number of books with this same concept before, I had high hopes for The Block Party. Unfortunately, it left me kind of underwhelmed.

The story centers around Alex and her daughter Lettie, who live in a swanky neighborhood where everyone seems to be very involved with each other’s lives. While mother and daughter have their own share of problems and secrets to deal with, they spend a lot of time getting in the middle of everyone else’s.

Going into the book, I thought it would be a bit more of an ensemble cast, with lots of POVs, but we only get Alex and Lettie’s. And while that was ok, I thought it really could’ve benefited from featuring other characters, too. Getting the story from the two most boring characters in the story made for a bit of a boring reading experience. The few snippets of the community social media page didn’t really add much to the story, either. While there was some initial intrigue that made me invested in the story, the slow development of the mysteries didn’t keep me engaged. I also guessed every twist long before they were revealed.

Overall, The Block Party, had promise, but didn’t live up to it’s potential for me. The pace was slow, the characters were kind of dull, and the mysteries weren’t all that mysterious. I also thought the end tried to tack on some moral lesson with a very heavy hand, which it didn’t really pull off. This isn’t a book that I would pick up again, but I have seen some more positive reviews on this, so others may enjoy it more than I did.

The Block Party, by Jamie Day, is a perfect beach read! Serious topics like family drama, gunshots, domestic violence, male predators, grief, revenge and coming of age issues are all woven into this tale in a very readable, entertaining fashion, akin to a television mini-series that you just have to keep watching to find out what happens next!
The residents of Alton Road have an annual Memorial Day BBQ, with food, games, and plenty of neighborhood drama. The timeline of the story actually spans two years and includes three memorable Memorial Day gatherings. The protagonists, lawyer Alex Fox and her environmentally responsible daughter Lettie, voice their thoughts and propel the plot in alternating chapters, which lends a bit of a YA vibe to the story. All the characters are well-developed, with very distinctive personas, and mysteries about their pasts and current actions abound.
As in any good domestic drama, everyone has secrets, some dark, some innocent. While there are serious issues related to death and abuse, there is also a warm family vibe, especially with the Foxes.
I enjoyed the hip, modern storytelling style and Lettie’s fresh, witty observations. I recommend this novel for readers looking for an entertaining summer read, with some depth.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

A simple, annual block party. What could be more innocent? Nothing in this neighborhood. And now someone has been murdered and secrets are coming out. It seems that everyone in this privileged neighborhood has a secret behind their so called “perfect” lives. This book is a combination of thriller and humor. When the people on neighboring blocks hear the sirens, they immediately take to social media to theorize what is going on. These comments remind me of the ones I see on my Neighborhood app, from snarky to nosy to off topic. This levity during a murder lightened things up a bit. Many good twists and turns kept me going and I never would have guessed the ending! I highly recommend this book!

Also reviewed on B&N (1IrishEyes430) and Kobo (IrishEyes430)

The Block Party by Jamie Day is a wickedly fun neighborhood drama wrapped up in a domestic thriller story.

I loved the neighborhood drama. Readers who enjoy reality tv for the over-the-top drama will absolutely eat this up. The story gave me all the jaw-dropping dirt, and I lapped it up.

I also love the social media used during the story. It reminded me of an app called NextDoor that I'm on and love for the drama. The story's social media entries were very authentic compared to what I see on NextDoor.

I enjoyed the mystery very much, and the conclusion surprised me. There are clues to what the mystery will be and clues to the conclusion throughout the story. Drama enhanced by a mystery is simply sublime.

One issue is that, though it's not predictable, it also could be more original. This is the same neighborhood drama story told repeatedly. But I knew that going in and looked forward to it.

Another area for improvement is the large number of characters and how difficult it is to keep them and their stories straight. And this continues until the end. I found that it never got better for me.

The characters are well-developed, especially Lettie, though most of the development is wrapped up in the drama, making it very complicated to explain in a non-spoiler review.

The narration is third person focused, and it focuses on Alex, a wife, and mother who oversees the yearly Memorial Day block Party and her teenage daughter Lettie for the neighborhood teen drama. I liked having the story from 2 generations in the neighborhood rather than just one because the stories are intertwined and interconnected, as you would expect them to be.

I found the pace to be breakneck. The story is focused even though it covers quite a few families that live on the block. Still, it focused on the relationships between neighbors, so it never got mired down in irrelevant backstories.

The setting is Meadowbrook, Massachusetts, but it could be any upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood in the US. This works for relatability, but I would have loved to see some aspects particular to that part of the country.

Read if you're in the mood for:
Juicy neighborhood drama
A jaw-dropping conclusion
A cast of flawed characters

3-3.5 stars, rounding down to 3 though.

This book was just okay for me. There were some redeeming qualities, but overall, I was a bit underwhelmed. It falls into the domestic suspense category and gave me Desperate Housewives/ Big Little Lies vibes, so if you are in the mood to read something like that, you may want to check it out.

I will say for it to be such a large cast, I felt the author did a great job keeping everyone apart. I didn't have trouble distinguishing each character or getting them confused with one another and that isn't always the case for me.

We have multiple POVs and lots of drama. One of my favorite aspects of the book and what I thought was unique and fun was the occasional breaks between the chapters with the social media community page where neighbors gossiped and speculated about what happened at the neighborhood Memorial Day block party. It reminded me of my hometown's community pages on Facebook, especially of late. 😅

What made this book hard for me to read and caused me to drop my rating was the pacing. I felt towards the middle it slows down too much and it was hard for me to stay focused to continue reading.

**Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me an advanced copy of this book and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion. I am posting this review to my Goodreads account immediately and will post it to my Amazon & Instagram accounts upon publication.

The Block Party by Jamie Day

My rating:
4/5
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The neighborhood of Meadowbrook is filled with close knit people with lots of secrets. The Meadowbrook Annual Block Party is the celebration season, but one year, it goes terribly wrong.

Told in both mother and daughter perspectives, you slowly find out what secrets people have been hiding.

Overall I liked this book. I rounded it up to 4 because it was pretty enjoyable. However, I will say that for as long as the book is, not a lot actually happens until the end of the book. There was a lot of build up to the end part of the book. I think what I was missing was emotion from the characters. I did however enjoy reading from Lettie’s perspective.

If you like surburban drama with a murder thrown into the mix, I would recommend this one! Overall I really enjoyed, it was just a little bit of a slower pace than most of the thrillers I tend to read! There was definitely lots of secrets and lies!

Thanks netgalley and St Martins press for the Arc! You can read this one now! 🏡

Gun shots were heard at the annual block party? Everyone is speculating. Who shot who? Why? Read this thriller by Jamie Day to find out. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy of The Block Party in exchange for my honest review.

I'll keep this short and sweet since this one wasn't for me. I ended up skipping quite a bit of the book just to get to the end. I think I would've preferred more than two narrators for this since there ended up being SO many secrets and lies and general chaos.

In fairness I won't review this on any other retail sites aside from NetGalley since I didn't *technically* finish it.

The story had me guessing the entire time. The story is told from Alex and Lettie’s POV (mother and daughter). It shows that you never truly know what’s going on in a person’s life. Surrounding neighbors think everyone on Alton Street lead perfect lives and have no troubles. The events of the past year prove that wrong. Everyone has secrets. Over the course of the year, these secrete are slowly revealed, until everything comes to a head. The story was well paced and everything wrapped up nicely.