I honestly never imagined we'd get this far: THOSE PEOPLE.

Those People by Louise Candlish

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Lowland Way is the place to live. Just ask the slightly smug and well-off group of residents who live there. But all that changes when Darren and Jodie move in. They don't adhere to the unwritten set of rules and suddenly their neighbors find themselves subjected to loud music at all hours, Darren's endless construction projects, and what appears to be a car business run out of their private home. Then, one weekend, a horrific death occurs on the street. The already high tensions reach a boiling point as the police start looking for witnesses, and the neighbors share their many grievances.


"He's the proverbial neighbor from hell."


So I was really excited to read my first Louise Candlish novel and while I found this one interesting enough, it wasn't as intriguing as I'd hoped after all the hype over OUR HOUSE. I'm all for neighborhood tensions and drama, but my goodness, it feels like this book took forever. And while I get that this was probably the overall point, these people were mostly all so insufferable that I really didn't care if they all just killed each other!

The book makes some good points about social class, but it does it all so slowly. There are a few twists, yes, but they don't come often enough, and I had a decent idea about a few of them. Maybe the drawn out element was meant to mimic the neighbor's "agony," but good grief. The book is told via police reports and narratives. We learn early on there was an incident in the neighborhood, but don't know what happened or who was involved. I was definitely interested in knowing what went on, which is why I kept plugging away. It's pretty clear early on that nearly everyone has a reason to harm everyone else; kind of makes me glad for my eight acres.

So, overall, while curiosity kept me reading on this one, and I enjoyed a few of the twists, it was definitely a slow read filled with a lot of annoying characters. Maybe if I'm brave enough to pick up OUR HOUSE, it will be more my jam. 2.5+ stars.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an honest review.

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