Review: Other People's Houses by Abbi Waxman

Other People's Houses

by Abbi Waxman

Publisher: Berkley

Pages: 352

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  At any given moment in other people's houses, you can find...repressed hopes and dreams...moments of unexpected joy...someone making love on the floor to a man who is most definitely not her husband...

*record scratch*

As the longtime local carpool mom, Frances Bloom is sometimes an unwilling witness to her neighbors' private lives. She knows her cousin is hiding her desire for another baby from her spouse, Bill Horton's wife is mysteriously missing, and now this...

After the shock of seeing Anne Porter in all her extramarital glory, Frances vows to stay in her own lane. But that's a notion easier said than done when Anne's husband throws her out a couple of days later. The repercussions of the affair reverberate through the four carpool families--and Frances finds herself navigating a moral minefield that could make or break a marriage. 

Kritters Thoughts:  One of those books that takes place in a neighborhood and the reader gets a view into a few of the houses and how this neighborhood works day to day.  It is like a family drama but more since you get to see more than just one family in this book.  I have read a few of these neighborhood dramas and a few have worked and some have not and this one actually sat in the middle for me.

First, I have to compliment the author or editor by including in the first few pages a page with the breakdown of whose whose in each family.  AND then a map of the neighborhood!  Yes please, I loved these extra add ons in the beginning.

As far as the families as the stories, it was all just ok with me.  I loved the drama that is presented from the beginning with a stepford mom finding another mom having some sexy time with a man that is clearly not her husband.  There were also some moments in each family that I laughed or cried or cringed, but overall it was just ok.  The family that I loved peeking in on the most was Francis.  I could relate with her need for perfection and being the one that her family and friends called and the need to be needed, so I would say when she wasn't involved I didn't love it as much.

Beyond that the writing was the middle of the road.  I felt as though the writing could have been taken up a notch.  I don't mean to literary fiction, I know this is "women's fiction" or as I am using currently pop fiction.  I could tell at times the writing felt clunky and just not refined.  

I loved The Garden of Small Beginnings, Abbi Waxman's debut novel.  I will look forward to what she does next and see what kind of story she is going to tell.


Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Ebook 2018 challenge: 29 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Berkley NAL.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.