would of loved to just have a book on Harlow and how she came to be. ( )

Review coming soon on scifiandscary.com ( )

Nowhere near as good as [b:Seed|11422798|Seed|Ania Ahlborn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1305997493s/11422798.jpg|16356035], but it had some fun moments.

I guess the three things that bugged me were

1 - Drew was a little too nice, at little too moral to either run away from his mother, or to run toward Harlow.

2 - We just never got enough of Drew's roommate Mickey to understand him at all. He could have been a much more tragic character than he was.

3 - Red's abrupt about face irritated the hell out of me. It came out of nowhere.

However, having said that, I loved Harlow. Loved her.

Overall though, this feels like the second book slump. I'm guessing the author raises her game in upcoming books. ( )

I won an advanced reading copy of this book in a Goodreads give-away.
I am a huge fan of this author's first book [b:Seed|11422798|Seed|Ania Ahlborn|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1305997493s/11422798.jpg|16356035] and I was excited to begin this, her second. I'm happy to say that I was not disappointed.

As a young man of 23, Andrew(Drew),is already no stranger to disappointment. Between a father that deserted him and a mother who became agoraphobic as a result, Drew doesn't have much of a chance. Resentful of the fact that he is trapped in his hometown and trapped by his mother's illness, Drew finally snaps and moves out on his own. That's when the trouble starts.

Drew moves in with an old childhood friend, who seems to have appeared out of nowhere, offering him a way out. But there is a problem. There is no way out.

I won't go any further into the plot, but I found it to be intriguing. There were a couple of things that rode the border of not being believable, but I was having so much fun I didn't care. The story was fast paced and the protagonist compelling and truly a nice guy. I was really hoping that he would make it through. You will have to read it yourself to find out whether or not he does. ( )

I’m genuinely confused. I read Seed a couple of years ago (or whenever it came out) and I remember that I enjoyed it. I even gave it 4 stars (it was probably more of a 3 or 3.5, I was more generous then). I didn’t think it was amazing or go-down-in-history literature, but original and well written (I thought).

Enter “The Neighbors”. A few days ago I came across her other books and they all had pretty high reviews. So I deliberated on which one to read first and chose this. And now, confusion. It isn’t that the writing isn’t very good (though it really isn’t) and it isn’t that the plot is weak (though it is), in fact, it really just isn’t anything.

I stuck it out because it’s short and I kept hoping to get to the good part but it turned out there just wasn’t one. Nothing really happened in this book. In fact, more happened in the history of the characters, sprinkled here and there, than during the actual (book) present. I really just don’t understand how the author went from a pretty good, decently written, enjoyable and original book to this poorly written, absolutely boring and completely unoriginal one.

Now I’ve been known to binge-read true haunting books, which we all know are silly, unoriginal, poorly written, and potentially boring. So I do have a tolerance and even a soft spot for this, especially in the “horror” genre (which really this book can’t qualify for on the grounds of nothing happening!)

So my solution to this quandary? I’m going to give it one more go. Last chance, Ania! I’m going to read The Bird Eater, also highly rated. As to this book, I cannot recommend it, because it’s just a nothing read. As to the author? I’ll reserve judgment momentarily.
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