This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Susan Lobban
Clare, Grace and Pip have had their share of drama so when they find a new home nestled in amongst friendly neighbours and a communal garden it is a breath of fresh air. It doesn’t take long for the two sisters to be fully ensconced into the rag tag gang of kids that have free rein once they step outside their front doors. Sounds good in theory, but then when tragedy strikes it makes all the parents come to the realisation that perhaps they don’t know their children as well as they thought.
So who are The Girls? Well, take your pick. There are the three homeschooled sisters, Catkin, Fern and Willow, who use the communal gardens as their escape from their studies. Grace and Pip are new to the area and are stretching their mother’s apron strings to the max. Then there is Tyler who, as an only child of a disinterested single mother, has the least parental guidance of all. Everything seems rosy until Grace is found unconscious and dishevelled at the end of the annual garden fun day, which promptly bursts any bubble the parents thought surrounded their children.
What happened to Grace? In order to find out we follow each of the children as they weave in and out of one another’s houses – seemingly without a care in the world. However. as each door is slammed shut it leaves behind parents far too wrapped up in their own worries and secrets to really pay attention to what is going on in their children’s lives. In amongst all this, someone must know something about that fateful night. To make matters worse the discovery of Grace is eerily similar to an incident long ago – a young girl was found in almost exactly the same spot, but she tragically died. Some of the people who were around then are still around so surely it can’t be a coincidence? Instantly, they become chief suspects – in the locals’ minds at least.
Whilst both parents and children are oblivious to what is going on in each others’ lives I, as the fly-on-the-wall reader, was privy to exactly what was happening. I was not really enamoured with any of the characters, as everyone seemed very self-absorbed; however, this added rather than detracted from the storyline in that it made it very plausible that literally anyone could have been to blame for the state Grace ended up in, even Grace herself!There is a fine line between giving your child freedom and letting them run wild. In this book. a parent’s worse case scenario (one of many) comes true. What appears at first to be a bright idyll is gradually immersed in the murky mists of intrigue. The Girls is a fictional tale steeped in scary realism.
8/10