This book feel like a Stardew Valley fanfiction, drafted during Covid lockdown. It's plenty unique, but the themes and beats kept me suspicious from start to finish.

Community Board is about Darcy Clipper, a 29 year old woman who after her husband leaves, moves back into her childhood home. She recluses, until a community message board gets her fighting for the construction of a new playground, and the heart of her small New England town.

This one was an eh for me. I finished it and I don't regret it, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people.

What I liked:

-The characters were quirky and colorful. I loved Marcus's ambitions of creating an inclusive playground for his community. Fanny's dark chocolate and deceased husband, Officer Omar, that mom of your ex boyfriend who's now your mom's friend, and all the other townies who popped in and out of the plot.

-The interludes with the town's forum page were funny more than twice.

-Conkiln's writing is very quirky in a good way, it's the only reason I got through the first 194 pages of dredge.

What I didn't like:

-The first 194 pages are only worth reading for context, they're gratingly slow, then the rest of the pages are spent cramming the plot into the second half.

-The central conflict isn't even established until halfway through. The antagonist is a tired, startup-bro conservative caricature that the author really wants us to hate without giving him teeth. His bumbling, almost wacky schemes make him more endearing than the protagonist at moments.

-On that note: Darcy Clipper is not likable enough to get away with being as annoying as she is. She's almost 30 but acts 13 for most of the novel, whining about her friends and family because their lives don't revolve around her.

-I don't think books should be written exclusively from firsthand experience, but Conklin's depiction of the tinytown middle-class America feels plastic

What I think people should know:

-There were zero quotation marks anywhere in the text. It didn't really bother me, but it did bother everyone I talked to about the book.

-Comedy stems entirely from "self aware" Millennial humor. Got a couple laughs out of me, but it largely wasn't my thing.

All and all, it was fine after 200 pages, pretty good near the end.

★★✰✰✰