The Girls in the Garden

Book: The Girls in the Garden
Author: Lisa Jewell

Imagine that 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 neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?

On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?

Dark secrets, a devastating mystery, and the games both children and adults play all swirl together in this gripping novel, packed with utterly believable characters and page-turning suspense.-Goodreads
Review: Like a Liane Moriarty book, this starts off with a tragic event: Grace, 13 years old, is found unconscious in the communal garden that is surrounded by condos, apartments and single family homes. The book then jumps forward a few months leading up to the event. 

After a truly awful event involving their father, Grace, Pip and their mother move to a new flat in London, ready to start a new life. The girls soon meet the other kids who all share the central garden. Three home schooled sisters with seemingly perfect parents, a girl whose mother works with foster children but ignores her own daughter with a few boys sprinkled into the mix. This book is well written and really explores different types of parenting styles and asks the question "How well do we really know our children?" This was a solid 4* read for me until the end, which I felt had no real consequences.  

Grade: 3/5