I have read all of Elizabeth Noble's books, it has taken me a bit longer to get hold of this one but she did not disappoint. The Girl Next Door follows the many inhabitants of an apartment block in New York. We have Eve Gallagher and her husband Ed who have just relocated from the UK for Ed's job. Violet is in her 80's and very private yet she sees something in the lonely Eve that makes her take her under her wing. Jason Kramer is fed up with his wife Kim who is constantly miserable and overprotective of their young daughter plus he thinks he may be in love with Rachel Schulman who lives right next door. Trip Grayling is a very wealthy bachelor living from day to day on his trust fund until he meets Emily Mikanowski who causes him to find some purpose and direction in his life but will this be rewarded with her affections?
As you can see there are a fair few characters in this book. The ones mentioned above are only a handful. Elizabeth Noble includes a list at the front so that the reader can keep up with who's who and how they are all connected. I was a little anxious about this initially as I do not usually like books with lots of characters to keep tabs on. However, I very quickly got to know them all and I didn't have to refer back to the list too often.
By having a large amount of characters I think the author gives you a real feel of apartment living. All these people coming and going with their own lives and their own problems and only very rarely connecting with each other despite living so closely.
I think this is probably Elizabeth Noble's longest book and there are so many different areas covered in it; love, loss, infidelity, friendship, jealousy betrayal to name but a few. The story lines are linked well and quite subtly considering how many there are. I enjoyed the book, especially the ending as I thought that it was all tied up and concluded really well. If you have read Elizabeth Noble's other books and enjoyed them then don't miss out on this one. I think she is very brave in that she doesn't always give her readers the perfect ending that they may have been expecting. She balances a lighthearted writing style with heavier subjects, a book to make you laugh and cry.
