The Block Party by Jamie Day (2023)
As much as I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I couldn't help wondering......did author Jamie Day want us to take this stuff seriously? Or does "The Block Party" function as a sly, dry humor spoof of those plunges into uppercrust suburban dysfunction like "Big Little Lies" and "Little Fires Everywhere"?
I only mention this because the host of troubles in the sumptuous Alton Place cul-de-sac makes those other books look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. And the neighbors of Alton Place, to the everlasting entertainment of their community chatboard members, make the characters of TV soap operas look like the Teletubbies in comparison.
And that's what makes this book such a fun read........you'd have to plow through 800 episodes of "Days Of Our Lives" to revel in the Mt. Everest of tribulations that author Day compactly piles into one single swiftly paced novel. On this one cluster of houses, those "sands in the hourglass" come pouring out at the speed of light.
In cataloguing the sheer amount of heartaches, anxieties and deep dark secrets on display, I'm almost tempted to put them alphabetical order......
Just name your poison and it's all there waiting for you on Alton Place. Crumbling marriages, infidelity galore, spousal abuse, drug abuse, booze abuse, (enough wine guzzled to fill several Olympic pools) ,rumored mariticide, racy photo apps, psychotic stalking, rape, emotional wounding of adolescent kids, and some serious anger mis-management issues. That's as much as I can remember at the moment, but I'm sure I'm leaving out more than a few additional miseries and maladjustments.
And YA readers may also want to dive into all the turmoil, since one of the gang's teen daughters co-narrates, thereby providing a bonus list of teen angst tropes......parental torment, peer pressure, forbidden sex, aching crushes, college applications, bullying, drugs, cyber-revenge....and horror of horrors... summertime grounding!
As anyone can tell from these descriptions, sooner or later, this ongoing melodrama kept a constant boil will not bode well for more than a few of the neighbors and come to a rip roarin', twist-revealing finale. In that regard, "The Block Party" doesn't disappoint.
Whether you swallow this for real or chuckle along with it as a guilty pleasure, I fully admit I had a great time with "The Block Party"......but never, ever as a neighbor, just casually visiting.....like slowing down on the highway to rubberneck a fender bender. 4 stars (****)
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