This just wasn’t a winner for me. But I can see others enjoying this more than me.
Rating: 3/5
Sometimes home is the most dangerous place to be.
All Cintra Coutinho wants is to win her family back. After she tells her teenage son a despicable lie, her husband asks for a trial separation. She must go six months without a single fib. That’s harder than it sounds for a compulsive liar.
Cintra moves in with an old college pal, and befriends the sociable couple next door, who have a young boy staying with them while his mother is “in Europe.”
Then she spots a note on their door: “I’m being held” written in a childish scrawl, with a drawing of a boy with a gun to his head. Add in the eerie sounds she hears through their shared wall, and Cintra suspects they’ve kidnapped the boy.
To unravel the truth of what’s happening in apartment 3D, Cintra must return to her lying ways.
What she discovers proves the most dangerous people can be the ones living right next door.
I received a free copy of The Neighbors in Apartment 3D from the author herself, in return for an honest review.
When I posted my TBR stack on my Instagram @beautys.library for July, I featured this book. And one of my good friends, C @permanently_booked commented saying she was planning on reading this one in July, too. So we decided to do a buddy read! I’m so glad we did, too. It made for a fun discussion, we broke the book up into small sections and read only a little bit each day, and discussed in the evening what we thought so far and what could possibly happen next.
I really wanted to love this one. But in the end, I didn’t. However, it did have me captivated from the start. I wanted to know how it would play out. I really appreciated that it was able to keep me captivated all the way through, not all thrillers can do this. I usually get bored at some point. It was especially good with this as our main character felt a bit unreliable to me.
I really wanted to love this one. But in the end, I didn’t. However, it did have me captivated from the start.
We follow Cintra, who’s a pathological liar. She’d driven her husband away with her lies and is currently living with an old friend to give her husband some space after her most recent lie. Then, they get new neighbors next door and something feels off. Cintra becomes obsessed with them especially after a child tapes to the door a drawing that reads “I’m being held.”
I struggled to like Cintra. I wanted to feel empathy for her but given her situation with her husband, I just couldn’t. She brought it all on herself. And none of the other characters we meet were much better. It felt like everyone was lying and had their own secrets. Half the time I didn’t know what to think about the plot. I didn’t trust anyone.
Half the time I didn’t know what to think about the plot. I didn’t trust anyone.
Speaking of the plot, it felt much longer than necessary. There seemed to be a lot of unnecessary fluff between the main events of the storyline. And when the main twist came out there was still quite a bit of story left to tell. Which is fine! There is nothing wrong with that, just compared to other books I’ve read, the twist usually comes right before the end. And when this twist came out I was surprised by the number of pages left to read.
The ending itself was quite a disappointment for me. After all the events we see, I expected things to play out much differently. I couldn’t help but get disappointed. The ending I had built up in my head was much more involved, what we got just seemed flat in comparison. I was bummed to say the least.
The ending I had built up in my head was much more involved, what we got just seemed flat in comparison.
Overall, I did expect more than we got with this one. Though as I mentioned, I found this to still be a captivating read all the way through. I would say this would be a perfect read for those just getting into thrillers. I thought this was a fairly light thriller that plays with unlikeable characters and a somewhat unreliable main character. This just wasn’t a winner for me. But I can see others enjoying this more than me. If you enjoy light thriller mysteries, you might enjoy this one!