Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Neighbours by Nicola Gill. I have a review to share with you today and if you like the look of that, you can order your copy using the links at the bottom of the post. Don't forget to check out the other stops on the tour for more exclusive content and reviews!
Meet Ginny, 34, and Cassie, 55. Neighbours, and (very) unlikely friends.
Some women have it all. Others are thirty-four and rent a tiny flat alone because they recently found their long-term boyfriend in bed with their boss. Ginny Taylor is certain her life can’t get any worse. But then she meets her downstairs neighbour…
Cassie Frost was once a beloved actress, but after a recent mishap she desperately needs a new publicist. And Ginny is a publicist who desperately needs a job – but can she be persuaded to work for the prickly woman who lives below her floorboards?
Ginny and Cassie are two very different women, but they have more in common than they’d care to imagine (or admit). And when their worlds collide, they realise that bad neighbours could become good friends…
Review: If you love character driven novels then this one is definitely for you! This book is very different from what I thought it was going to be based on the synopsis and the cover but I’m really not complaining about that because we basically step into Ginny’s shoes and we’re taken on a wild ride through her life.
Ginny is a great character to follow along with because she is flawed and she knows it. She doesn’t have the smoothest ride and she voices some of the things we would all love to voice in our lives or perhaps love other people to hear-she doesn’t think she can do it. She is convinced every career move, friendship & relationship is going to fail and so it is a joy to watch any moment where she actually succeeds.
Ginny befriends her neighbor, slightly washed up celebrity Cassie and this is where we get into some of the issues that this book covers. I think this writer did a great job of using Cassie as a platform for exposing the dangers of online trolls and the way society seems to think they can talk about people online in very different ways than they would to their faces. This topic is so timely and it is so important that it is explored further.
This book also deals well with the subject of depression-again through a characters first hand experiences, that does mean that there are care warnings for depression and suicide so make sure you exercise caution here. I think this was handled very well too, again using first hand experiences and really delving into the various different approaches to treating as well as living with depression.
There is romance in this novel but it’s a bit of a secondary storyline that goes alongside the rest of Ginny’s life and her insecurities. This is the area where some of the real comedy in the book comes out because there are some embarrassing mishaps as well as some very real moments. I really like that the romance was a bit of a subplot here just going hand in hand with everything else life throws at Ginny because that is real life and when you’re this involved with a character in a novel it’s always great when things feel true to life.
I really enjoyed this book despite the difference from what I thought it was going to be and I think you will to.
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