Everyone has secrets. While everyone’s secrets may not be big life-shattering truths, most people still don’t want everyone to know them. We keep them hidden because of guilt, fear, or shame. The Block Party by Jamie Day showcased a street of people with skeletons in their closets. Each person’s secret(s) really had adverse effects and ripples. The story begins at a neighborhood block party. The reader gets a feel for the families on the street and soon we know someone ends up dead. The story then goes back a year to get the reader caught up with what hidden information resulted in the death of someone at the block party.

The Block Party’s closing lines “If there is anything more interesting to study than the planet. It's the people who live on it" was accurate. People will always be entertaining. Motivations and actions are not always what they seem. The Block Party was a bingeable thrilling domestic suspense. While some of the book's themes were heavy, the author's treatment was light enough while appropriately handling the situation.

The moral of this story seems to be secrets are plentiful. Hiding hurtful actions, bad behaviors, and bullying can be deadly. It seems like the takeaway is to not do those things that cause you to have those kinds of secrets.

Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced copy.

-Audiobook ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️highly recommend! The narrator had a great voice to listen to, used lots of inflection, and used a different voice for each character.
-favorite read this month
-couldn’t put it down
-all characters had tragic backstories to keep it interesting
- surprise ending

Let’s meet the Housewives of Meadowbrooks. If you’re up for a slow murder mystery with a ton of gossip and wine, that’s the novel for you!

Alton Road is the place to live in Meadowbrooks. The neighbourhood is close knit and infamous for its yearly block party. Only this year… there is a murder!

The novel takes us back a year and we get the POV of Alex and her daughter Lettie. Lettie is not exactly a troubled teen, but a rebel at core and an outsider. After her suspension she befriends the son of their new neighbours. Jay helps her with her revenge plan on her former best friend, turned bully. Meanwhile Alex discovers secrets of her own. She suspects her neighbour to abuse his wife. There is so much more to this novel. Secrets, cheating, stalking… but it’s set up in a classy and sophisticated way.

All this is the perfect setup to destroy friendships and families.

The writing took me a while to get used to and the daughter got on my nerve with all that environmental talk. Don’t get me wrong, important topic, but none I want to read about. In general I am getting more annoyed by teenagers in books. So entitled. Maybe I am getting old…

All in all this was a pleasant read. It did not blow me away, but kept me entertained.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this ARC

I both listened and read this book and ultimately preferred to read it myself. It was a slow build for me, but I definitely was invested in the characters and wanted to see what happened with them. I wouldn't say the characters were likeable but were relatable. Overall, it was a solid read but not a favorite.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced listening copy of "The Block Party" by Jamie Day. I was hot and cold on this listen. I found that everyone had so many secrets that every family was terribly disfunctional. It took me a minute to realize it was told as few timelines, that wasn't clear to me at the beginning. If i could listen to it for longer than 30 minutes I was able to get into the story pretty well, but for shorter listens, there were too many storylines with too many complicated situations. Overall it was an ok listen, maybe reading it is better.

“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. “

On the night of the annual summer block party, there has been a murder. To find out what happened, we go back a year to see what led up to the dramatic events. The timeline alternates between last year and the present. The story is told from the point of view of two main characters: Alex and her daughter Letty. This book is filled with juicy drama. The neighborhood community forum was entertaining and wonderfully petty. It reminded me so much of one of my local town talks Facebook groups. The narration was perfect and I really enjoyed the way this unraveled. The audiobook kept kept me intrigued and in my opinion this was the perfect summer domestic suspense. I’m looking forward to more from Jamie Day!

This book was so good, from cover to cover. The topics are believable and at some times even relatable.

The neighborhood group chat was hilarious and petty at best. Reminded me of our Nextdoor app. The narration was perfect and I actually liked the mother- daughter dual POV of Alex and Liddy.

Overall, this was a good summer read full of drama and suspense.

The Block Party is focused on one seemingly quite street full of people who have their lives together. All is not what it seems, however, as the listener quickly finds out. The story is told in dual points of view between Alex and her daughter Lettie and spans over a year. All the neighbors on the street have secrets that they are keeping from each other as well as their own families. Some of the secrets are harmless, while others turn out deadly.

I thought this was a good domestic type thriller, but was sort of predictable at times for me. I did expect some of the twists, but was surprised by other turns. I do think it got a bit repetitive at parts, especially with Alex's drinking. I felt that the reader was knocked over the head with this information time and time again, almost wanted to roll my eyes at the frequency. I found the format to be interesting, telling the story in dual timelines and chronologically. I liked the development of the characters, but most of them were just kind of unlikeable, which is fine because you're not always going to like your neighbors, but there were few redeeming people besides Lettie honestly. Either way, I had fun reading this book, and look forward to recommending it to my friends who like a little neighborhood drama that isn't their own. I also enjoyed the narrators take on the different characters. It gave it a more entertaining listen for sure. I give this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced listen of this audiobook. All opinions within this review are my own.

Get ready for some summer block party drama! In this mystery thriller we are all sucked into the neighborhood drama that exists between these people. There is a murder that happens the night of the block party. We go back and forth through the timeline of last year to the present. We slowly learn about all the secrets and scandals and what led up to the murder. I loved how it was perfectly unraveled at a good pace.

The audiobook narration kept me engaged and wanting to find out everyone’s gossip. It was easy to keep track of the characters and storyline. I think this book is the perfect summer listen!

💚We made it to Friday y’all! 💚

I picked up the The Block Party because let’s face it I’ve got nosy neighbors. 😆

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.

On the night of the annual Summer block party, there has been a murder.

But, who did it and why takes readers back one year earlier, as rivalries and betrayals unfold—discovering that the real danger lies within their own block and nothing—and no one—is ever as it seems.

The premise of The Block Party is interesting and definitely relatable as a person living in a nosy neighborhood. I did have trouble following at times due to multiple characters, POV’s and dual timelines. Once I got them straight it was a juicy read. SO many secrets! I can only imagine what’s going on in my hood that I don’t know about. 😆 I enjoyed the nosy neighbor storyline but it could have been just a bit shorter IMO.

Tell me about your neighborhood! Are y’all nosy or do you keep to yourselves?

Thanks to @stmartinspress for sending me this gifted copy!

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4.5 stars bumped up to 5 for this slow-burn neighborhood mystery! This is definitely domestic suspense at its best. Everyone on Alton Road has secrets, and this book starts off with a dead body.

At the annual Memorial Day Party, secrets start to become exposed and there are rumors of a dead body. To find out what happened, we go back a year to see what led up to the dramatic events. This story is told from the point of view of two main characters: Alex and her daughter Lettie. Both characters know enough about what is going on in the neighborhood to keep the reader guessing. There is a lot of unresolved trauma in the homes on Alton Road, as well as a lot of secrets. I guessed a few, but was still surprised when I was correct. There were also twists and turns that I never saw coming.

The narrators of this audiobook were fantastic! They played their characters well, as well as all of the other characters in the story. There are also trigger warnings that you should check out before reading this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read this book! Jamie Day is an author to watch out for - I cannot wait to read what she writes next!

Well-written and plotted mystery with a great pace and good character development, especially with a larger group of characters! The Block Party stands out as a creative and engaging mystery without the predictable tropes or unbelievable, over the top plot twists present in many lesser novels in this genre. The narrator was also excellent and had a performance that consistently kept me absorbed in the story. Highly recommend!

This was a fun summer thriller! In this suburban suspense, everyone is hiding something and I truly relished in Day’s choice of not only having to uncover a murderer but who was murdered as well!

The narration decision by Day was also pretty intriguing as although we had an abundance of characters to meet in this story, we only get two POVs as we rotate between a mother and teenage daughter. These extremely different perspectives adds a very compelling element and layer to the plot!

While a bit too long for me and slightly unrealistic at times, I still enjoyed the juicy drama and found it certainly entertaining! Solid debut!

Thank you Macmillian Audio for a copy of this e-audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Both narrators did a great job with changing their voices to fit the characters. It made it a little easier to follow all the characters since there were so many. My main complaint lies within the writing and plot of the book.

I was very excited to read this summer-esque mystery. I was let down fairly quickly. I had such a hard time getting into the plot of this book. My first complaint was there were WAY too many characters with not enough differences. It was extremely hard to keep track of names. Because of this, there was WAY too much drama happening in the book. There should have been one major storyline that the author focused on and not three/four. My other complaint was that the ending was extremely predictable.

Overall, this book was a letdown for me, but I would still be open to trying future books by Jamie Day.

First off- I wouldn't really call this a thriller. This is a suburban drama with LOTS of secrets, triggers, and drama. The book starts in present day. Every memorial day, this neighborhood has a block party and this year something crazy happens. Then we jump back to a year ago to learn about the people in the neighborhood and what happened leading up to the climax of present day. Honestly, I love these suburban neighborhood drama stories where everyone is connected and everyone is morally gray, so this one was thoroughly entertaining for me. We get mostly the perspective of Alex and her daughter Lettie. While there are a lot of characters and it can get a little confusing, reading it in print was no problem and even on audio, there are multiple narrators so its definitely helpful. My only real complaint is that something about the way Alex's alcohol abuse was written really rubbed me wrong. It somewhat trivialized alcoholism and felt like it was just a plot device to create some confusion over who we could trust and it felt icky. This also won't be a book I remember forever, but thats not really the point. The point was entertainment throughout and that was a success. I don't want to say a whole lot more than that because when you find out all the connections it is twisty and fun and I dont want to spoil, but definitely look up triggers if needed!

SPOILERS AHEAD:
Alex's drinking has caused some problems in her marriage with her husband Nick. Her sister lives in the neighborhood too with a scumbag husband named Kent. They have a son named Dylan who was dating the cool girl, Riley. Riley was cheating with an older man and Lettie works with the new kid in the neighborhood to expose the affair because Riley was a big jerk to Lettie. Riley's dad is not actually her bio dad and she finds that out in this book. Her adoptive dad, Ethan, is addicted to pain pills. There is so much more in the way of details but long story short, Kent was the guy that Riley was sleeping with (her boyfriend's dad) and so her dad killed him in a drunken, pill induced rage. He had also been apart of a rape scandal in high school with the new mom in the neighborhood so she poisoned his alcohol, which Ethan drank and ultimately killed himself, saving those who confronted him. So both Kent and Ethan were dead and everyone else was safe. Alex quit drinking and all was hunky dory.

This book and narration with the alternating narrators was spot on!

I loved the way we start the book in present day and then learn about all the “players” in the past year. It’s never surprising to me how many secrets people have. I’m just always surprised that they don’t think they’re gonna get caught and this is one of those books where people are never what they seem.

I like the way that the book was told, and I like the way the story was layered so we know someone dies from the very beginning, but I think I mentally put every single person in the category; of this could be the one that died, before we got to the end, and we finally got to see what happened.

If you like a Mystery with some drama and this book has a lot of that pick this one up, it’s a fun read.

The twists at the end made this entire story worth the listen… but I have to be honest, it was 3hrs over my attention span for a book of this nature. It took way too long to get to the best part of the storyline, so my attention and keeping me interested in the book was hanging on by mere threads by the time we got to the whodunnit part.

I want to thank NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with an advanced audiobook version of this publication. In return, I have promised to provide an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me on my toes. The characters were well developed, and there weren’t lulls for me. I genuinely did not want to put this down.

Thank you to Jamie Day and Net galley for the chance to experience this ARC!

The Block Party
Thank you, St Martin's Press, for the gifted copy of this debut novel! {partner}

Genre: Fiction
Format: 🎧
Audiobook Narration: ☆☆☆☆
Pub Date:
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆

"Guys who bully tend to punch or shove. But girls are far more insidious. They're emotional ninjas, delivering steals wounds you don't see or feel until you're already bleeding out."

Wow, what a debut! Jamie Day packed quite a lot into her first novel — exploring themes of alcoholism, infidelity, global warming, parenting, drug abuse, pregnancy loss, revenge, and depression. There was no stone left unturned.

I'm not going to lie; I made it to the halfway point of the audio and almost didn't finish because I had over 6 hours left. But I'm stubborn, and I stuck with it. And what do you know? I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. Don't get me wrong, some editing needed to be done to shorten it, but it was still a fun read. Sure, the characters were all awful people (minus one), and there's more drama than I can typically handle, but it was a fun (and wild) read. I can't wait to see what she writes next!

Oddly enough, my favorite character was the teenage daughter, Lettie. While she did bring a YA vibe to the story — she was truly such a good person and easy to root for. She might be the only sane one in the group, too. 🤪

😒 Neighbors behaving badly
🤫 Secrets
🎭 All the drama

The Block Party will be perfect for fans of one of my OG favorites - Desperate Housewives.

Do you have a neighborhood block party? Do you wonder what everyone else is doing while you're enjoying a glass of wine? Celebrate summer with this fun, twisty tale of parties gone wrong.