Welcome to the suburbs outside Chicago, where a group of moms meet monthly for movie nights that are really an excuse to drink wine and gossip. Amy, Melissa, Jess, and Liz have a tight, seemingly unbreakable bond, until construction begins on a SheShed in Liz’s backyard. Suddenly, Liz seems like a different person, and it isn’t long before strange events turn into deadly encounters as Amy, Melissa, and Jess scramble to figure out what’s causing Liz to act so strangely, and whether there’s a way to rescue their friend. 

Title: Suburban Hell | Publisher: G. J. Putnam’s Sons| Pub Date: 2022-08-30 | Pages: 336 | ISBN13/ASIN: 978-0593422373 | Genre: Horror | Language: English | Source: NetGalley | UnStarred Review

Suburban Hell Review

Suburban Hell visits in the form of this novel. Superficially, it best fits into horror because of the supernatural content and the demonic possession theme that drives the plot. However, it might be best to describe this as women’s fiction for readers that like a touch of woo-woo. 

The characters are superficially interesting. You have your stereotypical aloof PTA moms who can’t get their noses high enough into the air. You have the hot stepmom resented by the women loyal to her predecessor, despite the fact that Jess had nothing to do with her partner’s divorce and met him long after the dust had settled. You had a cluster of neighbors only too happy to stick their noses into your affairs.

Which accurately describes hell on earth, so the title fits.

Before I get deeper into this, I want to state that this story moves at a steady pace and it isn’t a long book, so it’s a decent beach read if you’re looking for something light and breezy. Anyone that loves neighborhood drama sprinkled with a little horror may find this book appealing, and it was the right kind of read for me when I picked it up, so I give it. 3.25 stars.

Within the core four women, there are some common character types. Melissa is the Type A personality who’s a professional married to a stay-at-home dad, and is happy to work in the business world. She’s efficient, impersonal, and capable of making the toughest opponents wither with a single glance. Jess is the stepmom with a heart of gold who loves to parade around nude. 

Amy, our protagonist, is a bit of a mess. She never seems to have it together, as a parent, partner, or professional. She’s been looking for work for months after taking time off to have her children. She’s supposed to be a social worker, but she’s more of the talker and pusher within her group, trying to get her friends on board with her plans, and one of her growth points in this book is actually discovering she’s taken her friends for granted. 

Amy at times felt very real because she’s messy, but at other times her arc felt forced. There were some conversations between the friends that felt like characters had words stuck in their mouths because the author wanted the objection on the page, rather than because it’s what the character would really say. For such a smart, business-savvy woman, Melissa flip flops on her religious position and doesn’t really have a firm anchor for her views. The resistance to the mega-church money grab stuff makes sense, but to outright dismiss any spiritual explanations or activities needed to save their friend is puzzling and reactionary, not logical. Her default is that her friends are asking her to go against her beliefs … yet she wears a cross as a protection item and does say she believes some things she was taught. She doesn’t come across as religiously confused but rather contradictory, and as someone driven by logic who takes a business approach to life, it wasn’t convincing. 

At the same time, Amy is also uneven. It’s hard to really buy into imminent danger and possibility of death when that tension’s interrupted for date night or festivities with friends. It was also troubling that Amy knew she needed help and could have received guidance from her mother-in-law, who she seemed to get along with well, but refused to turn to a trusted source for help. Instead, they trusted in the advice of a stranger in a bookstore and read one book about how to handle their situation and, despite Amy’s belief that the situation posed a real risk to her daughter and all three women had suffered unexplained physical injuries, Amy trudged off with a single author’s guidance and didn’t do additional research to back it up. It was hard to take it seriously, and although she meant well, it’s hard to believe Amy’s a capable leader ready to help women fix their problems when she’s barely managing to hold it together during summer vacation with her kids, which raises another point about Amy. She could have removed her children from the community and sent them to her in-laws to ensure their safety. She didn’t, yet was concerned about the safety of Liz’s kids. Given some of the things her daughter was saying and experiencing, it’s hard to believe in someone who thinks there’s a huge threat to her friend, but doesn’t take the threat to her kids seriously. 

All in all, a breezy read if you don’t think about it too much and just go with the flow.

This review first appeared at Leviathan Libraries.