Good Neighborhood

Wow. Read this for book club, and it had a lot of stuff for discussion. My hardcopy didn't have discussion questions or author interview, but they are easy to find online and i posted two links below. Having just finished Little Fires Everywhere for July's book club, this felt like a really good follow up to a neighborhood theme. Oak Knoll is a very tight knit community in North Carolina, but the neighborhood is slowly changing as the new rich move in. Valerie, a widow with a bright and talented biracial son Xavier who is headed to college in the fall, is one of the old school neighbors affected when Caucasian Brad Whitman and his wife Julia, stepdaughter Juniper, and daughter Lilly move in next door. With lots of new money and a need to show it off, he razes the existing house and builds a huge house while removing all the old trees and landscape. The Whitmans and Valerie quickly find themselves at odds over a historic oak tree in Valerie's yard, and the blossoming romance between Xavier and Brad stepdaughter, Juniper. The novel explores so many themes, including what it means to be black in America socially and in the judiciary system, and the inherent hypocrisies in all of us when it comes to the roles of men and women, and "purity". I liked how the narration has a "we" viewpoint, "the neighborhood", reflecting how neighborhoods gossip and take sides, a viewpoint the book weaved in and out of all of the characters. This book really made our group think about our own prejudices and viewpoints, and made for lively exploration of race, class, and social justice. https://thereseannefowler.wordpress.c... https://booknationbyjen.com/2020/04/0...

GREAT READ!!!! A MUST!!