Perfectly Nice Neighbors (25 in 2025 #7)

Author: Kia Abdullah
Title: Perfectly Nice Neighbors Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons Date Published: 01/19/2023

Read Dates: 03/17/2025- 03/20/2025
Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Perfectly Nice Neighbors is a multi-POV thriller. Salma and her husband Bilal have moved into a peaceful, quiet seeming neighborhood. Their immediate neighbors, Tom and Willa have a son Jamie who is close in age to their own son, Zain. Shortly after moving in Salma witnesses Tom removing an anti-racist banner from her front garden, and actions escalate from there. Animosity grows between the two families moving from petty vandalism to issues of life or death!

This was a captivating story! It’s hard to do it justice in a brief summary without giving things away but it was well worth the read. The ending was unexpected, which you definitely want in a thriller!

Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the safe suburban development into which she, her husband, and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family are in desperate need of a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place.

Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Choosing not to confront Tom, 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.

This time she does confront Tom, and the battle lines between the two families are drawn. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it's clear that a reckoning is coming...
And someone is going to get hurt.