I read Tara Conklin's previous novel The Last Romantics and absolutely loved it! That book was so well-written, with characters that were memorable albeit not always likable, an emotional story arc, and a plot that unfolded slowly but still had a good balance of surprising moments that felt both poignant and genuine. Given the above, it should come as no surprise that, as soon as I found out Conklin would have a new book out this month, I jumped at the chance to read it. While there were aspects of her new novel, Community Board that appreciated and even enjoyed, I didn't really take to the book overall as much as I did her previous one. Perhaps my expectations were too high going into this one, which I thought would be in the same vein as The Last Romantics, but of course, turned out to be entirely different.
The story revolves around main protagonist Darcy Clipper, who, driven by the heartbreak of her husband leaving her for another woman, returns to the small town of Murbridge, Massachusetts where she grew up. Expecting to be consoled by her parents, she is disappointed to find that they had left on a trip to Arizona without telling her. Darcy then shuts herself inside her childhood home in a self-imposed period of isolation where she shuns all contact with the outside world and subsists primarily on a diet of Chef Boyardee and chickpeas. During this solitary period, Darcy spends most of her time alternately feeling sorry for herself, blaming her friends and family for abandoning her, and reading decades-old issues of National Geographicmagazine cover-to-cover. Her only contact with the outside world, for the most part, is through the community board where the residents of Murbridge post various updates and messages related to their little town. After a few months, Darcy starts to run out of food and, not wanting to ask her parents for money (because she is still mad at them for not being there to take care of her), she has to find a way to make money, which finally forces her to venture out of the house. She ends up working for a guy named Marcus Dash-Lagrand, who had just moved into Murbridge with his husband Dan and their 3 sons, and through increased interactions with the family (as well as a handful of others), she slowly emerges from her shell and, more importantly, learns that she can indeed survive on her own.
The format of the story consists of mostly a third-person narrative interspersed with Darcy's emails (ones that she drafts but never sends out and ones that she actually does send) and posts from the Murbridge community board. I thought this format was interesting and effective — I especially enjoyed the community board posts, which I recognized as being similar to the quirky stuff I typically see on my local neighborhood's community board. I also liked the humor that permeated much of the story line — sure, some of it was cynical and raunchy and borderline outlandish at times, but for some reason, it worked in this instance (which is saying something because I usually prefer more subtle humor — "slapstick"-type humor is generally a hit or miss for me).
With all that said, what didn't work for me was Darcy's self-imposed isolation and self-absorbed pity party taking up nearly half of the story. I'm not opposed to characters having to work out their feelings after facing a difficult situation, but the setup here was a bit too excessive in my opinion. Darcy essentially spends the first half of the story revisiting over and over again everything that is wrong with her life; alternating between blaming her husband (for having an affair), her friends (for abandoning her), and her parents (for coddling her and doing too much for her); and depriving herself of proper sleep, nutrition, and hygiene. At first, I did feel sorry for Darcy, but after having to spend page after page (after page after page) absorbed in her complaints, I started getting increasingly annoyed and frustrated. Luckily, in the second half of the story, Darcy finally ventures out and allows herself to interact with people in the community, which is when things actually started to get interesting.
Overall, I would say that, while I don't regret reading this one, I wish I hadn't gone into it with such high expectations. Definitely lesson learned!
Received ARC from Mariner Books via NetGalley.
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