She Treads Softly: The Block Party

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

The Block Party

The Block Party by Jamie Day
7/18/23; 384 pages
St. Martin's Press

The Block Party by Jamie Day is a highly recommended domestic drama with murder, secrets and scandals emerging on every page.

In Meadowbrook, Massachusetts, Alton Road is known for it's exclusiveness and the annual Summer block party the wealthy residents hold every year. This year, however, something more serious than the egg toss competition occurs. Murder. Then a jump back in time introduces us to the residents and the secrets and scandals that lead up to the present.

The novel starts at the current block party and then jumps back a year in time to introduce all the residents. Readers follow these characters through a rich plethora of action, lies, secrets, and all the potential motives for murder leading up to the current party. Everyone could be a potential victim or suspect.

The narrative is told through the alternating point of view of Alex, party organized and divorce mediator, and Lettie, her teenage daughter. They introduce you to the large cast of characters that are all distinctive and unique enough to easily keep track of who is who. And this cast of characters displays all manner of dysfunctional behavior and relationships, subterfuge, and secrets. As the action unfolds, interspersed between the chapters are excerpts from comments and speculation made on the Meadowbrook Online Community Page.

The Block Party is well-written and a great choice for an entertaining summer read that will hold your attention to the end.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.