Those People Next Door by Kia Abdullah
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 28th January 2023
Published: 19th January 2023
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
You can choose your house. Not your neighbours.
WELCOME TO YOUR DREAM HOME…
Salma Khatun is extremely hopeful about Blenheim, the safe suburban development to which she, her husband and their son have just moved. Their family is in desperate need of a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like the place to make that happen.
MEET YOUR NEW NEIGHBOURS…
Not long after they move in, Salma spots her neighbour, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in their front garden. She chooses not to confront Tom because she wants to fit in. It's a small thing, really. No need to make a fuss. So Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window instead. But the next morning she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint.
AND PREPARE FOR THE NIGHTMARE TO BEGIN…
This time she does confront Tom, and the battle lines between the two families are drawn. As things begin to escalate and the stakes become higher, it's clear that a reckoning is coming… And someone is going to get hurt.
A gripping thriller about nightmare neighbours, Those People Next Door explores the loss of innocence and how far we’re prepared to go to defend ourselves and the people we love.
MY THOUGHTS:
I've not read Kia Abdullah before so I wasn't sure what to expect though the premise certainly sounded intriguing. However it took me a while to get into the story and connect with the characters, some of whom I found a little irritating.
The story focuses on Salma and Bilal who moved to the more affluent area of Blenheim with their 18 year old son Zain. Upon arrival they receive an RSVP for a May Day BBQ with the neighbours and despite not really feeling ready to be thrust into the limelight of being forced to meet them, they go along anyway sporting a homemade potato salad. The whole "meet and greet" proves to be a bit awkward especially meeting their direct neighbour next door Tom and his irritating and outspoken wife Willa. The night couldn't end soon enough and upon walking in their door, the couple felt they could finally relax.
Zain heads up to his bedroom in the attic space where he spends most of his time coding or having a cheeky cigarette out of his bedroom window. He knows his mum would kill him if she caught him. And then he notices movement outside his window where he meets Jamie, the neighbour's son. The pair get talking and Jamie, who's partially deaf, reveals he has been working on marketing an app for the deaf to communicate with the hearing, but he just had to find someone to build it. That's when Zain reveals he codes and offers to create this new app.
It all seems idyllic, right? Wrong. Things start to unravel somewhat quickly when Salma witnesses her neighbour Tom rip out their "Black Lives Matter" banner. And because they are new to the neighbourhood she doesn't want to create a fuss so she moves the banner to the window. But the next day, she discovers the window has been painted over. The battle lines, it seems, have been drawn. And the nightmare begins...
Racism has been at the forefront of our news in recent times, particularly the whole "black lives matter" movement, which to be honest I had grown a little weary of. I don't like racism or agree with it but at the same time I don't like it shoved in my face either. As with most cases, there are wrongs to both sides and no one is completely innocent, as the courtroom scenes reveal. But I must admit that I'd heard enough about the BLM movement at the time and wasn't entirely enamoured to read about it. However, having said that, Kia Abdullah does approach it and handle it well. It was certainly a different aspect for a thriller that I had not come across.
On the whole, the storyline was intense and you could feel the tension in the courtroom scenes that made for a riveting read. We've all had nightmare neighbours at one time or another but I don't think we have experienced it in quite the same way as Salma and Bilal. One thing I didn't like were the endless length in the chapters. There were perfect opportunities to turn "breaks" into chapters and I don't see why they weren't.
THOSE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR is a gripping read about the neighbours from hell in this toxic tale of bigotry and prejudice of family drama.
I would like to thank #KiaAbdullah, #Netgalley and #HQStories for an ARC of #ThosePeopleNextDoor in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Kia has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Times, The Telegraph and the BBC, and has received a JB Priestley Award for Writers of Promise (2020). She is also the founder of Asian Booklist, a nonprofit that advocates for diversity in publishing.
Born in Tower Hamlets in East London, Kia was raised in a family of eight children. As the most stubborn of six daughters, she constantly found herself in trouble for making choices that clashed with her parents’, a habit they came to accept when she became their first and only child to graduate from university – with a first in Computer Science.
In 2007, Kia left her job in tech to pursue the one thing she had always wanted: a career as a writer, taking a 50% pay cut in the process. She worked as sub-editor and later features editor at Asian Woman Magazine where she interviewed British-Asian luminaries including Riz Ahmed, Meera Syal, Nitin Sawnhey and Anoushka Shankar.
Kia went on to join global publisher Penguin Random House where she helped grow digital readership at Rough Guides to over a million users per month. In 2014, she quit her day job to found Atlas & Boots, an outdoor travel blog now read by 150,000 people a month.
Kia loves to travel, hates to cook and periodically highlights that, in actual fact, she is one of nine children (one passed away), making her number Seven of Nine… which is cool but only if you’re a Star Trek fan… which she is.
Today, she spends her time writing, hiking, mentoring pupils from Tower Hamlets and visiting far-flung destinations for Atlas & Boots.
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