Debra's Reviews > The Girls in the Garden

Well, I am going to be in the minority here. I had heard a lot of good things about this book. I anxiously awaited my copy to be available at the library. I waited and waited and waited. Then finally it was ready.

Yay! I was so excited to start it. Then it began with a fizzle. It was slow as in sloooooooooow. I hung in there. I found that this book took some time, but eventually it became more interesting. It is a mystery whodunit. At the end I found it to be good - not great. I wanted to know what the hell really happened but was still left feeling like, like well, that this book could have been more. I think this is a book one either loves or just finds to be okay. For me although the story did pick up, it still did not grab me, not entirely. I waned to see where it ended and I had heard so much hype that I kept going.

For starters, we know from the first couple of pages that something terrible has happened.

Clare and her 2 daughters move into a new home that shares a communal "garden" with other families. Things seem fine at first as they always do, but then things turn out to not be as fine as they seem. There are cliques, family secrets, jealousy, relationships changing upon the arrival of the new family, and a 15 year old murder mystery of another teenage girl.

Good not great. For me the highlight was pip and her letters to her father.