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Other People's Houses by Abbi Waxman

Contemporary fiction

Other People's Houses

Early Release

This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait to read it.

by Abbi Waxman

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Quick take

This tale of four families in a tight-knit suburban community gets real about love, love affairs, and what's really going on inside your neighbor's house.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Family_Drama

    Family drama

  • Illustrated icon, Forbidden_Love

    Forbidden love

  • Illustrated icon, LOL

    LOL

Synopsis

At any given moment in other people's houses, you can find … repressed hopes and dreams … moments of unexpected joy … someone making love on the floor to a man who is most definitely not her husband ...

*Record scratch*

As the longtime local carpool mom, Frances Bloom is sometimes an unwilling witness to her neighbors' private lives. She knows her cousin is hiding her desire for another baby from her spouse, Bill Horton's wife is mysteriously missing, and now this ...

After the shock of seeing Anne Porter in all her extramarital glory, Frances vows to stay in her own lane. But that's a notion easier said than done when Anne's husband throws her out a couple of days later. The repercussions of the affair reverberate through the four carpool families—and Frances finds herself navigating a moral minefield that could make or break a marriage.

Why I love it

I’m not sure how Abbi Waxman manages to spin the day-to-day routines of rearing toddlers and teenagers in the suburbs into a story that I (a kid-free millenial) couldn’t put down, but she did it. Somewhere between the crises of the carpool routine and the heart wrenching secrets, this book sucked me in until I cared about nothing more than the private lives playing out behind the closed doors of one unremarkable Los Angeles neighborhood.

An honest and cheeky treatise on friendship, parenthood, and what it really means to grow old together, Other People’s Houses tells the story of four families tied together by a common street address. There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of life in suburbia—and a peek into the “totally normal” lives of a few “totally normal” families, all the while proving that even the most apparently mundane of existences can be anything but boring.

Above all else, this book is just plain funny. Waxman’s dry sense of humor and razor-sharp wit had me embarrassed to read this book in public; I could never predict when she’d spring her next laugh-out-loud-worthy line on me. Perfect for a quick beach read or a comical escape.

Member ratings (5,195)

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Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
What Does It Feel Like?
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
Honey
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Bye, Baby
Definitely Better Now
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Jackpot Summer
Adelaide
I Might Be in Trouble
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Again and Again
Evil Eye
Black Cake
Maame
Romantic Comedy
Someone Else’s Shoes
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
The Bad Muslim Discount
What Comes After
Olga Dies Dreaming
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Monster in the Middle
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
Honey Girl
In Every Mirror She's Black
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Sankofa
The Unsinkable Greta James
The Love of My Life
The Five-Star Weekend
A Home for the Holidays
The Wishing Game
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Little Fires Everywhere
The Music Shop
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
The Reckless Oath We Made
When We Were Vikings
The Girl with the Louding Voice
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
All Adults Here
Happy & You Know It
Friends and Strangers
The Comeback
True Story
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Chicken Sisters
The Prophets
In a Book Club Far Away
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Most Likely Club
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket