Book Review: The New Neighbors | Simon Lelic

A truly unique reading experience with some fantastic twists that had me up turning pages frantically to the end!!! When I first started to read The New Neighbors by Simon Lelic, I honestly didn’t know what to make of it! Lelic uses a really interesting style with this book, where for about the first 2/3 the two main characters are writing back and forth journal entries trying to explain what happened and what led them to the first big twist (no spoilers, sorry!). What was interesting, though, was that their journal entries almost sounded like they were reading each other’s as they wrote, even though their intended audience was a third party. Sometimes they’d respond to what the other said in a very humorous way. I really ended up enjoying it! Though I’m not sure I completely trusted either narrative, since they repeatedly mentioned that they were leaving some things out. Discovering those things was half the surprise, though!

About the Book

Jack and Syd have found their forever house…

After looking at houses all over London, Jack and Syd finally find the house. THE house. The forever house that they can grow old in. Sure, the house is dark and a little creepy, but it is large and in a good neighborhood and they get an offer accepted almost immediately. Strange, though, that they offered jut under asking, with several other buyers on the market… Don’t worry, the agent tells them. The owner took a liking to Jack and Syd. He chose them out of all the offers.

Jack makes a shocking discovery…

After a horrible smell starts to emanate from the attic, Jack goes up to investigate. And then he finds it… the discovery. He can’t tell Syd what he found, though. It will only upset her. And he can’t tell her about the sounds he hears at night when he can’t sleep. Meanwhile, Syd has formed a friendship with a young girl across the way. She can’t be bothered by the problems with the house. And yet, why does the former owners’ picture look so familiar?

And then a dead body is discovered outside the house, and Jack and Syd realize they should have told the police what was going on from the beginning, before it was too late…

Reflection

If that summary seemed confusing or disjointed, don’t worry! That is sort of the thing with this book. I actually found myself repeatedly going back to the plot summary because I couldn’t figure out if I had missed something. It takes a bit for the pieces of the puzzle to reveal themselves with this one. But it is intentional! At first it will feel like a ghost story. In fact, I wondered if perhaps it was a ghost story! And in a way it is. The author says at the end that he has always wanted to write a ghost story, so he wrote this. Because after all, ghosts are just things from our past that haunt us. And that is truly what this book is about!

I wish I could talk more about the plot, but I absolutely refuse to give away any spoilers! This book is really fun in the reveals. I had to read it closely, because the twists and knowledge bombs get dropped so quickly. They are easy to miss if you don’t pay attention! And the characters are all keeping things from each other, and sometimes from the reader. But the way the final twist comes together is just fantastic! I really enjoyed the ending of this one.

Finally, I do want to talk about the characters. Jack is a great character, but Syd is the one that I found truly compelling. She is wild and temperamental, but found herself finally tamed by her love for Jack. And yet, her other side is still lurking there, popping out in her journaling and in her responses to things. I also really enjoyed Elsie as a character, particularly in her relationship with Syd! This book delves into a lot of issues in Syd’s past, so I do want to warn readers that it gets kind of dark. Nothing graphic, though. More just mentally disturbing.

Thank you to the publishers at Berkley and to Simon Lelic for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.