Frank Phillips's Reviews > Cul-de-sac

4.4 Bright Stars, rounded down.
Man, there is a lot to unpack with this story! Talk about a community full of dysfunctional families! Oddly, that's what made it come across incredibly realistic, and I bought into each family storyline. The controlling, abusive husband. The unemployed husband lying about the plentiful job interviews he's at during the day. The elderly woman being thieved by her grandson. A mother who's lost her spark and confidence, in the process pushing her husband away. A husband who always sides with his mother, over his newlywed wife. All very intriguing story lines that I was captivated by!
By the time I was halfway into the book I was completely enthralled and had to know how everything was resolved and who it was in fact that got shot. I was correct in my prediction, however I did waver a little bit towards the end, which is on account of some great Thriller writing! It took me a little while to get all of the couples and their children correct and by the time that I did I was really connected to each household respectively, although I do believe my favorite character was Maggie as she just seemed to be the most level-headed, despite her issues with paranoia. She was genuine and truly wanted to help it seemed anyone and everyone. I had some issues with how her daughter Erin treated her, but her attitude came off incredible as a 16-year-old. We all know we've been there, and that is the time in our lives we just hate at least one of our parents. Thank God we grow out of it, for the most part! If I did have to give any sort of negative critique of this novel, it would be that there were no lesbian or gay couples, nor were there any couples of color included in this neighborhood which seemed lacking in diversity, but perhaps next time!
I think that this is a book that I went into blind, not really knowing about any of the story lines, and it served me very well in the end. I would recommend this to anyone out there that loves themselves some family drama, a bit of suspense, gossip, and of course, murder mysteries!! Fielding is an author I've only read prior a couple times, but I think I will definitely have to remedy that and go read some of her previous work, her prose and world building in this novel especially were fantastic!
Now that the year is slowly coming to a close, I can say that there have been some phenomenal suspense / thrillers in 2021, this being one of them, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds in the store!!