Reviews with content warning for Grief - The Girls in the Garden

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

5 reviews

violentte's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

For starters these kids are bad af, however this book does do a great job at depicting how fast kids are in the UK.

As readers we are baited into thinking something more sinister has happened but,

no a death didn’t happen. I thought this maybe a murder mystery but it wasn’t - so you can imagine how disappointed I was.

Below are some spoilers.
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Taylor is the classic UK mean girl. She becomes territorial over the men in her life (Leo and Dylan), and lashes out on the girls around her. Because her own mother is just like her (and encourages this bad/dangerous behavior) there’s no one to fix how she is. The fact that she didn’t get caught annoyed me the most

The only good character in this is Pip, she acts her age and is one of the most harmless kids in this story. I read this for her and I loved the innocence she brought into the book.

Grace is rude, too rude at that, but to give her a fair chance in this review, she is peer pressured into growing up too fast by the group of kids she hangs around. The fact that she covered for the girls that attacked her was insane, but like Pip said, it allows them to continue to do this to others.

Claire is a bad mother, and not a well developed character. I think all of these parents are neglectful in a way, and have a very hands off approach to raising their kids once they are pass the age of 9. She keeps their father away from them which makes sense as to why BUT this isn’t developed enough. There is a lot of things (for all characters) that happens off the pages and we are readers are just supposed to be fine with that. It weakens the characters and the plot. The only smart thing she did was move her family out of that area because all those girls were a danger to her children.

Now that I’m at the end of the book I don’t think Leo is as much as of a threat that Pip makes him to be. I think he is a bit touchy feeling (in the way of someone that hugs almost everyone) but I do not think he’s after any of the girls. That being said, Pip is just really well aware of how fast all those other children are which is why she’s so on edge.

Dylan seems like a nice kid, he cut of Taylor and I think it’s partly because he knows she is CRAZY. But the closer of him and Grace still being together really wasn’t enough.

Overall, I wish the characters were more developed. The parents allowing their children to get away with putting another child in A COMA is crazy. Adele allowing Taylor to move in after all that is stomach turning.

Content Warnings

bookthief's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I really enjoyed this book however it was not as thrilling as I expected a thriller book to be.
The first half of the book was getting to know the characters and what life was like living in the garden. In the second half of the book was were the action began with Grace being found unconscious. I thought the book could have been shorter since both parts of the story dragged on for a bit to long.
I thought the Howees were a weird but nice family and I did initially have concerns about Leo, as did Pip, but it turns out he was an all right dude. I thought Pips family scenario was sad and rare with her dad having schizophrenia causing him to go mad but I was glad they were all reunited at the end. Dylan gave mixed signals but he was a good lad in the end. Tyler was quite a questionable character from the beginning with her aunt’s history and her mum neglecting her and her jealousy issues with Grace and Dylan.
Overall I thought the actual plot of Grace being unconscious and everyone trying to figure out what happened and who did it was quite anticlimactic since it was obvious Tyler had something against Grace and the investigation was pretty slow.

Content Warnings