Hello friends and fellow bookworms! I’m here today to bring you my review of The Neighbor, written by London Clarke and published by BooksGoSocial on the 10th March 2021. You can read the synopsis here on Goodreads.
Also huge thank you and shout out to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC of this one to read and review!
Overall rating – 5 out of 5 stars.
From the start the atmosphere of this book was tense and frightening, set in a secure community it’s made even scarier by the thought of something going wrong and spoiling the idyllic lifestyle they’ve all made for themselves. I love the whole secure/gated community thing, it makes it feel so much creepier when things start to go wrong…
We’re introduced to Claire (who seems like she’s one bit of bad news away from becoming completely unhinged) and her family of 4 girls. Throughout the book the 5 of them play key roles in making the story, the children act like proper children of their age too, which gave it a real relatable feel.
And then once we start to meet others in the community and Steel… Well, the characters just absolutely made this book for me. They were so well crafted and linked with each other and the story so well. I felt as if I knew them personally, which made it easier for the rest of the book to influence me.
As the backstory builds, so do the creepiness levels, shadows and bumps in the night become frequent, and the book started to really unnerve me. I’m not usually easy to scare but this book definitely managed to scare me.
The author did an excellent job with setting the scene and making us feel as though we were there, we were hearing things go bump in the night, we felt the way Claire did, we too were drawn in by characters in the book that we shouldn’t have been…
And the supernatural element was weaved so effortlessly into the story that even someone who doesn’t believe in those kinds of things couldn’t help but be drawn in and enjoy the rollercoaster that was this story.
I did worry as we got deeper into the book that there may be too much going on, too many strands and plot lines to bring together, but as we neared the end of the book and it eventually reached it’s conclusion everything just seemed to fall perfectly into place.
The whole story from start to finish, including the smaller plot lines were absolutely made to work together and flowed perfectly. Every single plot used within this book was superb in it’s own right.
I finished this book and felt not only a profound sense of fear, but also a sense of awe. I hadn’t read anything so scary for a very long time, I was covered in Goosebumps towards the end and read it with my eyes open so wide I’m surprised they didn’t pop out of my sockets!
On the whole, The Neighbour by London Clarke was a superb read, and I will definitely recommend it anyone who is in need of a good thrill…
Until next time, Em xxx
What Em's Reading 