Good Neighbors by Sarah LanganMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
After finishing this book and perusing these reviews, I think it’s quite possible that I read something COMPLETELY different than the writing upon which so many of you bestowed 4 and 5 stars. Suburban horror? Domestic noire? While the genre may be unclear and up for debate, the prose “I” read was quite clearly an overzealous attempt by a writer to appear profound and insightful; a series of stylistic choices that smacked of self-indulgence in the form of overplayed metaphors, surreal dialogue and stereotypic characters. Passages of clipped conversation hint at layers of meaning but only truly deliver hazy and obscured inference. I felt like I was missing some underlying text and was seeing the plot unfold from behind a layer of gauze. I repeatedly blinked to try to clear my field of vision, to no avail. Entire sections here were related in the form of thinly veiled PSAs as well—statements of politics and mental illness, of pedophilia and the implications of socio-economic life stations. It was as if the book needed to be all things to all people—an overly ambitious reach that resulted in confusion and chaos.
It’s clear Langan has chops and can craft an intriguing tale. Taking on less would have resulted in so much more.
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