Reading The Block Party was like taking a step back into Wisteria Lane. An affluent and privledged neighborhood full of secrets and this year the annual Memorial Day block party has ended with murder.

The story is told through dual POV of Alex and her daughter, Lettie. Like many stories in this genre the information is slowly fed to the reader as they continue the story. Some things catching the reader up more than others. There was even the all too real callback to the overly-dramatic neighborhood Facebook page in the midst of all the drama, secrets and lies.

I enjoyed this book but I don’t think it was anything groundbreaking.

3/5 stars

Thank You to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Block Party" is a debut novel by Jamie Day. On first look it is overwhelmingly positive as it currently has a goodreads rating of 3.87 with close to 1000 ratings. I was very lucky to be one of the 1000s who received a ARC of this one. Lol. I love the “flood the networks” with as many copies as possible strategy.

First thought: Beach Read! Turn off your brain and just enjoy it. This might be neighborhood domestic suspense at it’s finest. Or it may just be a long, drawn out story. I have about ten minutes to decide because this review is “go time”.

This book starts at a block party at a well to do neighborhood on memorial day and it's a total shit show. We have our main protaganisht Alex who is the main organizer. She also happens to be, luckilly, shit-faced drunk enough to fall into a pool. As her husband whisks her out of sight she learns there has been a murder. And then we flashback to the same block party a year ago and go through the whole year leading up to this murder. We have multiple POVs of course, with one being Alex’s teenage girl: Lettie.

Obviously this is standard fair but I'm going to try argue how this one stands a little tall above similiar domestic suspense books. Mainly the writing and prose is very sharp and crisp. It really flows and you can just read and not think to yourself, “Who talks like that?” Or “WTF, this scene doesn’t make any sense at all”. It is beautifully written and edited. Also I thought Lettie would be the most annoying character, of course, being a teenage girl but she was the actually the most entertaining and level headed of this bunch. We go through the entire year between two block parties to slow burn our way into who dies at the second one.

The bad. It’s too long. For some reason people think these books have to be over 300 pages. They really don’t. If I’m on the beach it’s happy hour time. I don’t have time to finish this book. And it was really brought home way too much that Alex was developing a drinking problem. “Well, I’ll just have one more glass of wine.” “One more won’t hurt”.

Ok, this book is recommended but maybe speed read?

I really appreciate St. Martin’s press for giving me the opportunity to review this book for a honest review and it has a publication date of July 18, 2023.

In a privileged neighborhood, a small group of families gather annually for their Memorial Day Block Party. Except this year, there is murder on the menu. 'The Block Party' begins with the murder, and winds the clock back to the year prior when the wheels are set in motion, eventually resulting in a death. In the beginning, it may feel like there are too many characters, but eventually, you come to know them all and understand their essential role as players in the drama that unfolds.

As an audiobook it was overall a good listening experience, with two fairly strong narrators; one for the older characters, and another for the younger ones. This split made sense because in some ways there were parallel dramas among the adults, and a different one among the young people with both intersecting very seamlessly near the end of the book. It was very intricately and tightly plotted so that I honestly didn't know what was coming let alone who was a hero(ine) or who was a villain for much of the story. That is NOT easy to do, especially when you've got folks who are seasoned readers of this genre and prone to suspecting everyone who appears, including the UPS delivery guy. So, definitely kudos to the author for maintaining uncertainty and suspicion throughout.

Still there were a couple of elements that made me enjoy this a little less than I otherwise might have. There was a fair amount of repetition of stock phrases, making it feel like the author was paying attention to the story but not the writing, if that makes sense. And the story was sufficiently complicated that it definitely required her to keep track of precisely when and how things happened, and who was connected to whom. But I guess I wanted a different kind of narrative which is just a matter of taste. The other factor that made the book lose a little luster for me was the explanatory chapter, where all the motives, coincidences and connections were explained to the reader in exhausting detail, and characters who were morally ambiguous were thoroughly rehabilitated as "good" people. Again, a matter of taste, but I dislike expository introspection, and I dislike even more when characters are restored such that they leave us as unassailably likable. That renders them less interesting to me. I prefer when the author trusts the reader to "get it" re: motives, etc. and doesn't feel like they need an entire epilogue or chapter to explain; and I really like it when at the end, characters remain complex and in some ways unknowable. In this instance, the explanation was soooo unnecessary, it disappointed me a little.

Recommended for a fast reading (or listening) experience if you like domestic suspense. Thanks #NetGalley!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC. I ended up getting approved for the audiobook of The Block Party and that’s how I ultimately read it.

This is a drama filled slow burn thriller of the likes of Big Little Lies and Desperate Housewives. I do think this book would be best read physically due to the online forums and multiple POV.

I’d recommend this book for a quick summer read by the pool!

First I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC copy of this book.
I’m sorry to say, but I didn’t like Block Party very much.
It starts out on Memorial Day with a block party where several wealthy families live. Someone is killed then the author takes us back a year and tells us about all the characters. It got tedious and boring, but I liked the teenage girl, Lettie. A typical teenager with opinions and is smart, she is also a rebel with her dress and attitude. Th author did not need to spend four hundred pages and make the reader wait until near the end of the book to find out who was killed.
I don’t mean to offend the author but this just was not a novel I liked.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Block Party by Jamie Day.

Every year the neighbors on Alton Road get together for an exclusive block party that is the talk of the town. But a lot of the talk comes from the never ending surge of betrayals, infidelities, and even murders amongst this seemingly cheerful group of friends. One block party in particular brings everything crashing down.

I've read a lot of sketchy, upper class neighborhood books, and this was pretty middle of the road for me. It has the usual shady yet shiny cast of characters, with nothing being as it seems. However, it also drags a bit, and gets fairly convoluted, a least enough for me to fall in and out of interest.

This story is an “I told you so” for anyone who has moved off grid to get away from having neighbors or even being around people.

A suffocating neighborhood where everyone is involved in everyone’s business and privacy doesn’t exist.

The Facebook community page tells us at the start that there has been a murder but then it takes almost the entire book to get to the incident. It’s a slow, slow burn.

If you like rubber necking when you pass a car crash then this one’s for you.

This is not the best suspense book I ever read, but it was very entertaining. I kept reading to find out what was going to happen. There was plenty of drama including cheating, lies, stalking, revenge, and even a death. The death happens at the beginning, but then goes back a year so that you have to keep reading to find out who died, who did it, and why. There are plenty of candidates as you learn more about this neighborhood. It reminded me a bit of Big Little Lies, though not quite as good.

You’re invited! Come to the suburbs where all is not as it seems …

The cul-de-sac on Alton Road is the scene of the annual Memorial Day block party and all is going well … until it ends in murder.

You be offered a side order of juicy gossip, a heaping spoonful of drama, a smattering of unlikeable characters, and an extra order of over-the-top scandals…everything you’d expect from this type of party. The checklist of ‘required’ topics is available, too - teen angst, philandering, drunkenness, etc.

While this may not seem any different than other books with the same setting or even similar to a block party you’ve attended (minus the death!), it will have a unique twist that will keep you guessing. I like supporting debut authors with promise and Day knows how to keep her readers guessing. Meadowbrooks has some surprises awaiting. Come and see!

If juicy gossip, wayward teens, and nosy neighbours are something you like to read about, this domestic drama debut will interest you. It’s the perfect beach read.

I was gifted this copy by St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

The Block Party

The Block Party is a hot mess! No wonder someone gets murdered in the opening scene. With all of the tension and drama poppin’ on that cul-de-sac it was bound to happen. Well, who gets murdered and why? The answers to these very important questions become clear as the author flips the story back a year to when trouble on the block first begins to brew.

This novel is narrated from the dual perspective of main character soon to be empty nester Alex and her seventeen-year-old daughter Lettie. Alex is the unofficial leader of her cul-de-sac community and as a result she cannot help but take a matriarchal approach to how she interacts with many of her neighbors. As a result, she is involuntarily drawn into their private lives and their darkest secrets.

While Alex is Queen Bee of the Alton Road cul-de-sac her daughter Lettie is most definitely the opposite. For the majority of the book she is focused on getting revenge on her former best friend Riley who is the reason behind her getting grounded for the summer of her junior year. Honestly, I wish Lettie’s perspective is not included in the book. I couldn’t care less about went on in her teenage world of first crushes and childhood nemeses. However, the inclusion of her viewpoint is justified once the final scene occurs and the murder victim is finally revealed.

“The Block Party “ is a pretty good summer read. Also, it will make you happy to not have neighbors like the ones in this book! Thanks, Netgalley for providing this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A block party. A group a friendly neighbours. Secrets. Murder. This was a good read that I enjoyed very much.

Told in the dual POV of a mother and daughter, the story recounts the year leading to the fateful block party. It felt a little stretched out sometimes, but I feel like it helped set up the mood. I was still fully entertained. I even audibly gasped at some point. Solid domestic thriller.

I enjoyed this book. It for sure kept me guessing up until close to the end and I thought the characters were well fleshed-out. I would definitely want to read another book by this author. I highly recommend!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Wow this is a great domestic suspense novel about a murder at a block party. I was invested in the story and the characters from the first page all the way through until the last page.

The setting: "The residents of the exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other."

A murder on the night of the annual summer block party [Memorial Day]. Go back a year earlier and learn the background of the many dysfunctional characters who inhabit the neighborhood. They include a drinker, a womanizer, a cheating spouse a controlling husband, troubled teenagers, a stalker, and more. And secrets galore. And then delve farther back into the past of many of the characters.

The novel started out so promising--setting up the thriller/mystery. BUT. I found it just kept cycyling down and I was bored. NONE of the characters were particularly likeable [MAYBE Lettie, a teenage daughter]. It did NOTHING for me. I could have put it down at any time, but persevered, the word in my head repeating: OY, OY, OY!!.

Question: would a parent be allowed to call a university and find out the status of their child's admission?

Only plus--a fast-enough read. Skip.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my ARC in exchange for me honest review. This book will be published July 18, 2023.

Block Party centers around a neighborhood Memorial Day party and coincidentally I started reading it a few days after I attended a similar party. 😱

The book started off strong but about halfway through it started to get a bit too convoluted. There were too many characters and too many subplots. I guess that can work to keep the reader guessing but I felt it was just too much.

The ending did surprise me but by then I had lost interest.

This was a middle-of-the-road suspense for me. It had a decent, if not overly original, plot involving a neighborhood block party and a cast of sordid neighborhood characters and was mildly entertaining but it will not be a book that stands out for me a year from now.

The Block Party is easily one of my favs this year so far. Love stories about neighbors and all their dirty secrets!! The characters are great, the story was easy to follow and so well written. Lots of surprises along the way, full of suspense. this was hard to put down! Highly recommend this summer read!

I appreciate the opportunity to receive an ARC from Netgalley. I’ve never read anything by this author before and I have to say I was surprised that I didn’t like this book.

It began with a block party in a neighborhood of parents and teenagers, The main character, Alex, was becoming increasingly drunk, while her husband was becoming more and more judgmental. Then something happens, which prompts a text thread among the neighbors. And suddenly, we are transported back in time to a year before the party.

My issue was both in the pacing and the writing. It was slow for me and I didn’t find the storyline compelling at all. And the use of phrases was so sophomoric and out of character in current times anyway. The teenager’ dialogue, written in first person while everything else was third, was not the dialogue I hear from modern day teenagers at all. for examples, words and phrases like “tempest in a teapot”, “young love and naïveté go together like cookies and. milk” and at one point, a neighbor hurried back to her “abode.” If this were billed as a cozy mystery, it might have worked for me, as my expectations would have been completely different.

I couldn’t get into it easily at all and I found myself rolling my eyes and not caring at all what happened to any of them. This is definitely my opinion and I can see it has some good reviews. I’m glad as I want the author to achieve success. It just didn’t work for me at all.

This was my first book by Jamie Day but I really liked her writing style. There was a wide cast of characters in this so I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep them straight, but the author did a great job of making their voices and personalities distinct. I found every character to be really interesting and intriguing because of all the secrets they were hiding. I liked how the stories all ended up intersecting in some way as well. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. An exclusive cul-de-sac holds a block party for the residents every year and it is a time to relax and enjoy some drinks with your next door neighbours....only this year someone is murdered. The neighbourhood chat rooms start to go crazy trying to guess who it is. The new family who just moved in a year ago seem to be hiding something and why does Ken act like he knows Mandy? Especially when his wife and sister in law asked him if he did and he said no. What about Ken's niece who is 17 yrs old and just can't wait to move away to a College of her choosing. There are many secrets being kept behind closed doors on Alton Road and soon they will all be revealed. I really enjoyed this quick read and look forward to reading more from this author. Enjoy!!!