The Girls in the Garden

I really enjoy Jewell\’s writing and have read a few of her other books, which is why I wanted to read this one. Seriously wish I hadn\’t. I enjoyed the story, though it is a slow build, but the ending is possibly the worst I\’ve ever read. Why?! The writing is enjoyable and up to Jewell\’s standards and I started to care about the characters (only for that to be completely destroyed at the end) and I am still thinking about the story a day or so after reading it, but mainly it\’s because I can\’t stop asking myself, \”What was the point of that?\” I don\’t understand what happened. I guess if you want to try to get really, really deep it could possibly be a statement about modern methods of parenting? MAYBE??? But it feels plausible that the author came up against a deadline and had to slap an ending on it real-quick-like to get it published. It was such an incredibly unsatisfactory ending. Ugh. Just… don\’t. ***(Angry) Spoiler Alert*** Completely ruined in the last 20 pages! The entire book is about this very serious event that happened to a girl and this other very serious event that happened with the girl\’s dad that — oh em gee — just makes the girl\’s mother *sooo scared* and we go on and on for chapters about the mom being so scared. But then in the last chapter the mom decides everything is *totally* fine and she\’s just going to carry on like nothing ever happened because really, everything is *totally* fine and *teeheehee* it wasn\’t THAT big of a deal! And anyway the whole thing with her mentally unstable husband is completely fine now! And then every other character in the book, including the secondary characters, no longer care about the the main event that happened to the girl (including the girl herself??) or the event with the girl\’s dad. Good times.

Overall, this story was okay at best. Shockingly, in one chapter there’s a part where a couple of 13 year-old kids (age 13!!) are engaging in oral sex. The young kids could have easily only been kissing and the story wouldn’t have changed at all. I’m sure the completely age inappropriate sex part was written for “shock value” purposes but I think that’s unfortunate and it wasn’t unnecessary. All the pieces seemed to fall into place too quickly. Showing empathy is one thing, but the crime being committed was assault and battery and the guilty person’s life actually improved after everything settled. In the end, everyone seemed happy with the choices they made, but I thought the story seemed incomplete.

n a quiet, family friendly neighborhood in London, children play outside together, and neighbors are friendly. That is, until a thirteen year old girl is found unconscious in the garden and no one knows what happened. Told through multiple points of view in alternating timelines, we learn about the secrets families keep and how they can come back to haunt you…and how they relate to the mystery of the unconscious girl… I think I went into this one with the wrong expectations. For some reason, I had it in my head that this was a thriller, when in actuality it was more of a domestic mystery. It was not fast paced and there was no action in this book. I think because of that, I found it very slow moving to the point where I was often bored. I found myself wanting to skip pages so I could get to the action! The book opens up with twelve year old Pip finding her sister Grace unconscious in their neighborhood garden. Immediately, we jump back in time and learn about the events that lead up to finding the body, and I found the middle piece very slow. I was initially really engaged in the book, however it didn’t jump back to the actual mystery aspect until near the end of the book, so it lost my interest in the middle. What I did like was the writing – it felt poetic at times, and I enjoyed the flowery aspect of the writing, despite not loving the storyline. I especially enjoyed the drawings Pip drew for her dad. I thought that was a nice touch, and the drawings were exactly what I’d imagine from a child. Overall, this was definitely not what I was expecting, and wasn’t something I would have otherwise picked up if I had paid more attention and realized it wasn’t a thriller. I couldn’t help myself – the cover was so beautiful I couldn’t help but pick it up! It was just too slow moving for my taste. That said, for fans of slow burning mysteries that focus a lot on relationships and character development, this will be a great choice for you! I did enjoy Lisa Jewell’s writing, so I look forward to seeing what she puts out in the future.

I\’m a new huge Lisa Jewell fan since I read \”Watching You \” great read by the way .Since I enjoyed the book so much I tried another book by this author \”I Found You \” ,also a really good page turning read. So I thought so far so good and went for another read by this author \”The Girls in The Garden. The book was good, it was a page turner. I was so excited to get to the end to final find out \”what the heck happened? \” and the ending was unfinished, unpolished, did not put the book to bed properly or with any satisfaction for me at all. I was so thoroughly bummed out .I won\’t go into the huge list of all the problems that I had with the ending but if I did this review would be triple in length with my moaning of this ending. I will still read this author,hopefully this ending is the only one that was so disappointing.

I kept reading this book, since I paid for it, hoping something would happen to redeem the story. It didn\’t. I\’m not certain of the age group this is aimed at but at 64 I found the story juvenile with the author throwing in events and odd characters to draw a mature audience. Would not recommend to anyone.

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