"Best House on the Block" Review

Best House on the Block by T.R. Ragan

Amazon First Reads December 2024

Pages: 269 Genre: mystery thriller

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Kindle Highlights (you can watch me fully lose it at the end of the book)

I discuss the ending more in-depth with spoilers at the end. I encourage you to read the whole review, obviously. If you're just here to see me rant about the ending, though, you can scroll down or click here to be jumped there.

Shannon Gibbons always wanted to be an investigative journalist, but these plans got put on hold when she was building her family. Now, though, they're relocating to a new neighborhood — The "Fabulous Forties," an acclaimed neighborhood in San Francisco known for its variety in architecture — and she has an opportunity to work with Rosella Marlow. Rosella was once a well-respected journalist, but now she's turned bitter and suspicious. She thinks someone is out to get her, and everyone in the neighborhood has a motive. And when she turns up dead, Shannon has no choice but to follow through and figure out what's going on.

In the grand scheme of things, I enjoyed this book. It had its fair share of issues, but they're overall forgivable issues that didn't ruin the experience. The beginning had me hooked, and while there were definitely things I didn't like as I read, I was still very motivated and excited to finish.

While I was interested in learning everyone's secrets and seeing the characters put all the pieces together, I can't give any credit to the mystery itself. It was incredibly obvious what was going on (except for with one of the plot twists at the end, but that had the opposite issue — there were NO clues for that one). I generally try to keep my reviews spoiler-free by only including details that come from the description, the first chapter or two, or the genre. It's hard to do that, though, when the prologue does a very thorough job of spoiling the big reveal. There were too many key details that made it very hard to fall for red herrings.

Because it was so obvious who the murderer was, the whole "everyone has something to hide" aspect of this book sort of fell flat. There was a very clear difference between the "potential murderer" secret reveals and the "red herring" secret reveals. I wish the Main Mysteries would've been worked in better, both with each other and with the other secrets in the neighborhood.

Other people have said this, but there were also a lot of names to keep up with. Too many. I almost think this book would've benefitted from a map of the block at the beginning, because every house had parents and kids and sometimes pets and it was simply too many names.

By the end, the book also got a bit repetitive. Characters would repeat the exact same train of thought multiple times. Some variety in delivery would've helped a lot, especially for the times that it was meant to be very emotional. The impact was dampened by already knowing the exact monologue.

The ending was also kind of a letdown. In fact, I would've let a lot of other issues go if the ending had held up. Alas, when a book leaves me feeling bewildered and frustrated, I tend to be more critical.

Overall, I didn't dislike the experience of reading this book. While there were a lot of them, the characters were consistent and believable. While the mystery had an obvious solution, I think the way we were given clues and details was overall handled well. I don't think I'll ever revisit this book, but I enjoyed my time with it.

Also, the book is named after this contest the houses on the block do where someone is named "Best House on the Block," but that's not relevant to the plot at all and is honestly not even explained that well. This isn't a big deal (and really doesn't play into my rating at all), but it was weird. You can just … name your book something else?

---

The Spoiler Section

You have been warned.

As I said, the ending was disappointing. Rosella was set up to be a very interesting character, and I didn't like that all of that nuance fell away and we were left with a bitter, evil old woman. Having her so angry about her husband causing the accident that killed her son that she murders her husband was unnecessary. Having everyone's worst conspiracy theories about her intentionally trying to make everyone else suffer being confirmed was boring. I wish the author would've embraced an old woman who lost everything when her son and husband died, who knew that sleazy stuff was going on in her beloved neighborhood, and who wanted to put a stop to it. She can still be mean and underhanded, but making her as corrupt as she was with very little redeeming qualities felt like a lazy decision.

I was especially disappointed with the lack of nuance given to Rosella because I feel like every other character got off scot-free. One of the big reveals (the one with no real clues) was that Chloe was actually Shannon's birth mother. Shannon is initially really angry with her because she spent her whole life in foster care (which, you know, doesn't go well for a lot of children, primarily those who are fictional characters). Chloe also denied Shannon's request to meet her when Shannon was 20. However, all is pretty much forgiven when Chloe gives Shannon a bunch of letters that were written throughout Shannon's life.

I felt like Chloe should've faced more consequences from Shannon. I don't believe that what Chloe did was wrong (adoption is complicated), but my perspective is different than Shannon's. Rather than nicely, neatly, and quickly tying everything up with a cute little "happy family" bow, I think it would've been interesting to show that Chloe and Shannon still have some growth to do.

I was particularly baffled by the way the kidnapping was handled. The prologue is all about this kidnapping by a man who desperately wants to be a father, and whose wife approves this plan. Then, when we meet them in the main narrative, we get to know them as Nicholas and Kaylynn and their son Archer. However, they also have a son named Holiday, which is crazy because (1) that's a dumb name and (2) how are you going to justify your kidnapping with your infertility issues just to have a whole son already? I understand that he's Kaylynn's stepson, and that the fertility issues are with Nicholas and Kaylynn, but I think you should maybe work through your issues differently. Love your stepchild.

Anyway. the book ends with Kaylynn getting to keep Archer. The justification is that Archer has no other family to return to, and Kaylynn loves her son. It's described as a miracle that she gets to keep him, and she's a good mother who loves her son more than anything. And that's so great for her. Except I feel like we just fully justified and rewarded kidnapping this child. I don't necessarily think it's better for a kid to be sent into the foster care system instead of being with someone who loves him and who he sees as a mother, but holy lack of consequences, Batman! I feel like Chloe and Shannon (who are the only ones who know that Kaylynn knew Archer was kidnapped) could've at least judged her a little harsher.

I actually think this is a very interesting concept to discuss, but I'm incredibly frustrated by how the narrative treats it. Instead of confronting it as the moral dilemma that it is, the book seems to expect me to just be happy that everything worked out. But I'm not happy. I want Kaylynn to face consequences, even if those consequences are just social.

The topics of family and parent-child relationships were a huge aspect of this book. It was an interesting set-up, but I feel like they were never explored to their full potential.