thecandlelightlibrary's Reviews (1.25k)

Thank you to Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press for sending me an ARC of this title. I received this copy for free and this review contains my honest opinions. 

 

The Block Party is a domestic thriller that takes place over the course of a year in a fictional affluent suburban neighborhood. The novel is broken up into seasons, which was a good thing: the passage of time within each section was difficult for me to follow, with some chapters skipping months ahead without any indication and I needed those breaks to reorientate myself. 

 

This isn’t my usual genre, but I did enjoy the writing style. However, I think this would have been a more successful read if it hadn’t been limited to only two POVs (plus the occasional online community board gossip). I think the entire plot would have benefited from rotating POVs throughout all the characters, especially when I was more interested in characters other than the two POVs. Thank you again to the publisher for sending me a free ARC. 

This wasn't as good as the first book for me, mostly because of the gratuitous number of deaths (many of which I felt were unnecessary) and frustratingly dense characters (I connected so many more things well before the characters themselves, which isn't necessarily bad, but I didn't feel so disappointed with character decisions in the first book). I hope this trilogy finds its stride again for the third book.

I love this series, these characters, and Schwab's writing but

I didn't care for the sheer number of character deaths. For almost all of them I found myself asking "Was this really necessary? There was no way to write yourself out of this?"