Do you finish books you don't like?
Kerri Miller's Must-Read
"The Couple Next Door"by Shari LaPena
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Ever stroll by your neighbor’s house and wonder what goes on behind that front door?
We might have a nodding acquaintance with the people who dwell in our neighborhoods, but a 2015 Knight Foundation-funded study reported that one-third of all Americans have never even interacted with their neighbors. And when
Things might have turned out better if Anne and Marco Conti, the young couple in Shari LaPena’s book, hadn’t trusted theirs.
Anne is still grappling with postpartum depression when their neighbors invite them over for a birthday dinner. She's reluctant to leave the baby with a sitter, but Cynthia and Graham insist. Aware that her husband is impatient with her “baby blues,” Anne finally agrees — and that sets a twisty kidnapping plot in motion.
LaPena unwinds the story of what happens next from different points of view, and she drew me in almost instantly with her unreliable narrators. The novel is written in the present tense, which makes it an even trickier feat to pull off. Anne's fragile state of mind is so convincing, there’s a moment when you start to wonder if everything you think you know about her is wrong.
One caveat: I got the sense that LaPena couldn’t decide whether to make this a police procedural or a flat-out thriller. But in the end, I didn’t care. I was along for the ride.
-K.M.
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