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My Review of The Girls by Lisa Jewell

I am a big fan of Lisa Jewell and I always get really excited when she has a new book coming out. Her last book, The Third Wife was a firm favourite of mine last year and has haunted me ever since, so I was over the moon when I got accepted to read this on Netgalley.

What They Say:

You live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses.

You’ve known your neighbours for years and you trust them. Implicitly.

You think your children are safe.

But are they really?

Midsummer night: a thirteen-year-old girl is found unconscious in a dark corner of the garden square. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?

What I Say:

Wow! That was my first reaction when I turned the last page of this book. I mean, just, wow! That was intense!

Ok, so this book is set in an idyllic communal garden community. The kind of place I imagine most British children wished they grew up in (and the kind of place a lot of Canadian kids did grow up in) with kids running free and all the parents taking equal responsibility for them. Doors were open and everyone was family.

So, what happens when the unthinkable happens to one of the children? Who do you blame? And how do you get the truth out of a tightknit group of people, I mean someone must know the truth...

Clare, Grace and Pip are a lovely family trying to escape a troubled past. All they want is somewhere quiet to heal and learn to trust again after a troubled past. The girls, are traumatized and are desperate to make friends and fit in. Clare is less so, she wants to keep to herself and protect her girls from the outside world. But as almost-teenagers, Grace and Pip want their freedom.

Adele and Leo and their gang of wild children are a lovely (if somewhat bizarre) family. I like their lifestyle and agree with their parenting style, personally. But they seem almost too nice. I wanted them to have a fatal flaw, something dark...

I guess the thing I'd say stood out most about The Girls is the character development. Lisa is a master at this. Every single character is so real and complete. They come alive on the page and you can almost hear the dialogue being spoken in your head. That's what makes it so horrible when something bad happens.

I loved how the story began with the tragic event and then we go back to the beginning, trying to figure out Whodunnit. I spent the whole book looking for clues. I was totally wrong, by the way!

Another amazingly woven story from an author who never seems to get it wrong, in my opinion. 10/10

Thanks to Netgalley for my e-copy in exchange for my honest review.

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