You never know what goes on behind closed door, and that's especially true in The Block Party! This twisty novel begins with an annual summer block party (held on an exclusive cul-de-sac) that ends with a murder. From there, the story (which is told from the perspective of Alex, a divorce mediator and heavy wine drinker, and her daughter Lettie, an environmentally-obsessed high school student who was recently suspended) rewinds a year. As the book progresses, many juicy secrets are revealed, as story makes its way back to that fateful party.

This book made me want to grab a glass of wine and gossip with my neighbors! It was a little hard to keep the characters straight at first and the pacing was a bit slow at times, but this thriller kept me hooked right through the surprising conclusion. The Block Party comes out this summer, and it would make the perfect beach read!

The story has a little bit of everything into one complex web of secrets surrounding the Alton Road residents and a one year timespan between their annual Memorial Weekend block party. It kept me interested to continue reading and find out what happens but was not one that kept me hooked to feel the feed to read every spare minute of my day until I finished it. The book flips between first party narrative and third party. There’s nothing wrong with this but I’m not sure what the point of it was.

NOTE: I received an advanced reading copy of this novel in exchange for a review. The ARC was a digital version.

I found myself compelled to keep reading chapter after chapter, much more than I thought I would be. Some of the main characters felt a little bit formulaic, designed to create tension and conflict amongst one another. The male characters especially were a bit flat and not fully developed, though maybe that was because the narrative POV was a female character (Alexandra, 3rd person, and Lettie, 1st person). And that's a shame because the male characters are rather central to the narrative and plot.

The primary female lead, Alex, I found pretty insufferable. She is a meddler and gossip, which perhaps is how supposedly close-knit neighborhoods can be. But I felt it left her making silly choices, with little to no self-awareness. That is her Achilles' heel and blindspot, which leads to more dramatic tensions. Oh, one particular point I didn't understand is that the novel starts with a Memorial Day BBQ, and Alex drinking. Then the timeline shifts to earlier in the year and we witness Alex's descent into alcoholism. And we see her finally ask for help, go to counseling, get sober. Then, inexplicably, she's drunk at the party. Of course, alcoholics struggle and relapse, but the regression was unexplained. Or perhaps I got the timeline wrong? Hmm...

Basically, if you read and like Big Little Liars (by Liane Moriarty) then I think you'll enjoy The Block Party. The plot is along the same vein of neighbors, families and the secrets we keep.

SYNOPSIS:

Several families live on an exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road. Someone is murdered at the annual block party. The book jumps back in time to a year before the murder, and in that year, you learn about the characters, the motive, & the murder.

MY THOUGHTS
- I really liked this book. It’s my first read by Jamie Day, but I found it easy to read & suspenseful throughout the book.
- This was nail-biting, tense, fast-paced thriller, and the author does a wonderful job crafting the story.
- I liked the idea of a neighborhood scandal/drama, and it felt pretty original to me. I read a lot of thrillers, and I haven’t come across one with this block party setting before.
- This story involves a lot of drinking, gossip, scandals, & drama.
- The story is told from multiple POVs (namely, a mother & a daughter).
- Author’s writing style is solid.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Nail-biting, fast-paced, tense thriller with original plot. Solid writing & good story.


Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. It's due to be published on July 18, 2023.

*BIG thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this novel

Do you like scandal, drama, secrets and maybe a bit of murder? If so, the block party on Alton Road is for you!! It’s Memorial Day - beautiful weather, cookout food, boozy beverages, and neighbors all around partying and having fun. But what’s a picnic without murder? All the sudden, we are taken back a year where we learn all about the families of Alton Road. We learn their stories, secrets and scandals. Everyone has them. As we learn about the happenings of the prior year, we come to understand why tensions were high at the picnic. Who was killed? What secrets do they have? Who found out?

This story gets 5 🌟s from me! Each page made me more excited to uncover the next drama, the next secret and next scandal! I love that the story was told from Alex, a mother and from Lettie, a teenager. It gave you different perspectives of everyone’s story from very accurately described points of view. This book was a soap opera type story that I did not want to end. I felt like I was in the community watching everything unfold and I loved every second! The online posts were very comical throughout - really captured the different types of Social Media users today.

I really enjoyed this book. It reads like a lot of other thrillers and was very Desperate Housewives. I love St.. Martin’s Press and they have put out another winner with this. I preferred Alex’s POV to the teenage daughter but it all worked out in the end. I’d definitely recommend this domestic suspense! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press and the author for the ARC!

Really enjoyed this one.
For fans of Big Little Lies, The Lifeguards and the Nest I think will a good read for you too.
I’m a fan of domestic drama/thrillers and found this one to be well composed. The residents of Alton Road were certainly not short on the drama. This book was full of surprises and I enjoyed watching everything unfold over the course of the year.
So excited for more readers to get their hands on this one when it publishes this summer. Thank you Netgalley and St Martins Press for an early copy of this one.

As soon as I read the email NetGalley sent informing me that "The Block Party" would be available for 72 hours, I knew I had to read it immediately! The title, cover, and synopsis drew me in at once, and I couldn't resist despite the fact that I was already juggling about four other books.

The story is set in a wealthy neighborhood (that's where all the crazy stuff always happens, right?) and told from the alternating perspectives of Alex and her teenage daughter Lettie. Alex tries to get along with all of her neighbors, but relies quite heavily on alcohol to get her through the day, while Lettie, an aspiring environmentalist, is bored and easily tempted by the neighborhood bad boy.

I enjoyed this book a lot since I am a fan of messy neighborhood dramas. It wasn't quite as compelling as I would have hoped, but it was still a quick and worthwhile read. 4.5 stars rounded up. I am thankful to Jamie Day, St. Martin's Press, and NetGally for this arc!

A murder is committed at the annual summer block party on Alton Road. With all the families on the street seemingly having something to hide, everyone is a suspect.

I love an idyllic neighborhood with a group of neighbors who all have something to hide. While I found the plot interesting and enjoyed many of characters, it felt a little slow at certain points Additionally, the writing style took a little to get used to. But all in all, I ended up enjoying all of the complexity of the characters and twists along the way.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC.

The Block Party is a Liane Moriarty want to be....I don't mean that in a bad way! In my opinion, it's hard to top Liane Moriarty's books. She is the queen of the suburban-murder-drama-infidelity-scandal all wrapped into one story. Day attempts this in The Block Party but falls short.

Aspects of this book were enjoyable. I appreciated that the reader received a teenager's point of view throughout the story. However, the story would have been even stronger if the reader received points of view from more of the neighbors. This story alternates between a mother and daughter. I liked those narrators, but definitely felt like the story lacked because those were the only voices present.

My biggest complaint about this book was that the author didn't seem to trust the reader to connect the dots. SO much of the "twists" were spelled out by the characters. It was a real bummer. Trust your readers to make the connections! I promise we can do it!

Overall, I think most people should skip this thriller. It was fine, but there are SO many stronger thrillers out there so I wouldn't waste your time with this one.

There is nothing I love better than some neighborly domestic drama. This thriller had it all. Each character was likable in their own way. One of the main characters, Lettie, exhibited amazing character development, ranging from an "angsty teen" to developing her own ethics in the year that the book takes place. You really love to encourage her throughout the book, and she is someone you could keep rooting for. Lettie's mom, Alex, is the other main character. Alex has her own struggles, making her relatable and entertaining. The Block Party follows neighbors on Alton Road from one year's block party to another. Each neighbor has well-kept and sometimes dangerous secrets, which will come out in full force by the end of the novel.
This book was utterly enjoyable each step of the way. Highly recommend for anyone who loves domestic thrillers, neighborhood and family drama, and general fiction.

I knew from the premise of this book, I was going to love it, and I was right. I live in a neighborhood of 19 homes all built around the same time, and we had annual Block Parties here for years….without the drama! I’m not usually a fan of books written from multiple perspectives, but sometimes it’s the only way you can tell a story effectively This author did that perfectly, and this book is so well written. So well written in fact that I had to do a search to see if this was really a debut novel. The dialogue was spot on, the words flowed, and it was easy to read. Onto the suspense. I really did not have this one figured out at all. With lots of twists and turns, this book kept me guessing until the end and I stayed up late reading in the dark on my kindle.
With a neighborhood as diverse as the one in the novel, it’s easy to see why it would be a hot bed of gossip, scandals, and drama, and deliciously so. It would be difficult to give a synopsis of the plot without spoiling things so I am just going to say read the book. It was a fun, suspenseful read, and I look forward to reading more from this author. This would make a great mini-series!

I can definitely see why "The Block Party" is already getting rave reviews. WHAT A BOOK! Ready to read another by Jamie Day.

I thought that this was a very enjoyable story. The writing was very good and it kept me on my toes the whole time. I was confused at the beginning with all of the different characters. But as the book went on, it was very easy to differentiate the different characters. They all had very different personalities that definitely came out as the book went on. I kind of guessed the ending, but it was still a shock when I read it. The drama in this book was very good and just made me more and more invested. This is a book that I would definitely recommend to my friends!

I was excited for this book, expecting a fun, maybe cheesy murder thriller based on the synopsis. And maybe that is what the book is, but I couldn't get far enough to find out due to the writing. The writing reads like a first draft where every single detail the author thought of had to be put on the page. It is extremely clunky, tiring to read, and every character is obnoxious. I was especially annoyed by the teen character, Lettie, who very much reads like a 50-something's idea of what a "rebellious teen" is. This book should have been given several more passes from an editor, and then maybe it would've been readable.

First of all, I will always read a neighborhood thriller. There's something so underlyingly creepy about what seems like a normal/safe neighborhood, only to have that trust and safety ripped away. This one was so good at doing just that. I enjoyed the characters, the story, and the setting of this book so much. It's definitely a fun summer thriller, and I will definitely be recommending this to my reader friends! Thank you NetGalley and Jamie Day for letting me read this- I truly enjoyed every page!

The neighbors on Alton Road are MESSY! No one in this neighborhood keeps to themselves in this Desperate Housewives meets Big Little Lies drama-filled book. The Block Party is a juicy and soapy type of novel that is a perfect summer escape. Releasing in the US in July 2023, you will want to have this one in your beach bag.

I really enjoyed the twists and turns in this story. The main narrators were both likable, but with their flaws. The mix of mysteries that unwound made the book a page turner. I couldn’t put it down.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Alton Road is full of secrets and scandal… BUT… Maybe too many secrets and too much scandal! This book was told from the perspective of Alex and Lettie, one of the families residing on the cul-de-sac called Alton Road. Throughout the book, we learn about the lives of Alex and Lettie and also the lives/secrets of the other families living on the private street and how their lives intermingle. There is a lot of tea spilled in this book, and again maybe too much - there were some side situations that I felt like really had no place in the final outcome, and therefore didn’t need to be added.

While I did decide that I enjoyed this book upon completion, I wish that I would have had some insight into the final outcome while reading… I had to be 90% done reading to actually get some of the shock factor. I knew all of the secrets and scandals were building up to something, but it took a long time to get there, and a lot of the information provided could have been left out and the book would have finished the same way. It was like every page told another crazy secret and I found myself bored waiting for some sort of gasping moment…

I am giving this 3.5 stars – rounding up to 4, because I did enjoy the different character dynamics, and ultimately the end result of the book. I would recommend this to any friends who want a book full of drama, secrets, scandal and a somewhat shocking ending, but don’t mind what felt like a slow read at times.

I really enjoyed The Block Party and the events leading up to it. I saw a lot of my younger self in Lettie - particularly her penchant to be a loner and activist. I also saw a fair amount of my older (mom) self in Alex - trying to juggle a work/life balance and learn who she is, even as an adult. I found many of the characters relatable on different levels and the who/why kept me guessing up until the end.

DISCLAIMER: I was given an ARC of this book from @netgalley in exchange for my review. I was not compensated in any way.

Cross-posted: NetGalley, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and Instagram