Book Review: The Couple Next Door

By Hanna Young

The Couple Next Door, by New York Times Best Selling Author, Shari Lapena leaves readers confused and wanting to know more. This book is set in a quaint little village where the neighbors are friendly and close by. 

Anne and Marco Conti live with their only daughter, six month old Cora. They seem like a perfectly happy family. When their friends and neighbors invite Anne and Marco over to their home to celebrate a birthday they ask the pair not to bring Cora to the party because a crying baby would surely kill the mood. Since they were just going right next door and it was going to be after Cora went to bed, Marco convinced Anne that if they checked on her every half hour and brought a baby monitor over everything would be fine. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t. When Anne goes to check on her after midnight, Cora is gone. After making the call to the police, the detectives start asking questions and there are secrets that are revealed, some going back years. 

This book left a lot for me to desire, the plot was there and there was a lot of potential. However, the book was really slow in several spots and it took me forever to get through it because of how wordy it was. I will say that I was really surprised with the ending and where Cora actually was, that definitely helped the rating a lot. 

Overall, I give this book a 3/5. This is mostly because there seemed to be a lot of potential wasted when it comes to where the book could have went.