Claire hasn't lived there for years. When she graduated from high school she took herself off to see the world through the lens of her camera. Always more comfortable behind the lens, than any other way. Mysterious, life-threatening injuries to a teenage girl cause previously close-knit neighborhood families to examine each other with concern and suspicion. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. A major issue in this book is that of growing up. What growth do you see in Pip from the beginning to the end of The Girls in the Garden? Compare and contrast Pip’s development with the ways in which Grace matures. There is an undercurrent of hesitation, a feeling just below the surface that seems dangerous somehow.

I give Lisa Jewell a lot of credit, right from the start I felt totally immersed within the garden community. The setting descriptions are beautiful and almost at times unsettling in their real-ness. I found myself feeling like I could totally picture the places these characters were walking. It's a real sense of adventure to be able to immerse yourself in a book like that. I so loved this book for the young people - who really drive the book. Even the adult mums are mostly motivated by what is happening with the children. And the children are the best characters. I think that may be why I am coming to love YAs and stories of teen friendship so much. Stories about 13 year olds seem so much more interesting and at least as mature as those about "adult" characters. And that seems just as true in real life as well. Most to the grown ups in today's world act mostly like 13 year olds. And real 13 year olds make so much better a job of being 13 than those in their mid-years or older who are running our world. Or trying to. Appropriately the most odious character here, Gordon the father-in-law of Adele, is the most elderly. He seems to have the maturity of a 3 year old and as the story has him returning to Africa, I hope he gets ebola. This is a character-driven novel at it’s best. Odd, eccentric, maybe even a little strange, the characters in this book kept me in the dark until the end. I had a hard time deciphering who was legit and who was shady.

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Adele has a very lenient, alternative parenting style, homeschooling and preferring to let her children make their own choices, whatever they are. She repeatedly suggests that she feels judged by others for her lifestyle. How did you feel about how she is raising her children? Were there points in the book you felt supportive or critical of her maternal choices? This is a perfect novel for those of us who like to people watch. In fact, some of the characters love to people watch too and it is Mabel who is uses her "sixth sense" to interpret the unhappy situation that June finds herself in at the beginning of the novel.

Jewell begins her story with a scene in which 12-year-old Pip Wild finds her sister, Grace, bleeding and unconscious in Virginia Park, a communal park behind their house. Despite the odd presentation and the strange way these characters developed, leaving me unsure of how I felt about them, I enjoyed the book, and found it weirdly absorbing, and kind of unique, which is a good thing! What drives Catkin and Fern to follow Tyler’s lead? What do you think were their motivations for taking the actions they took?Sam...Leonard - George - Freddie - Gloria -Rita: 1977: soup kitchen community - the Vietnam war after affects. The other day I mentioned in another book review that I was tired of seeing a new common style of writing where different characters take turns narrating the story. Well, it 'works' in this novel... REALLY WORKS.

The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Jewell, Lisa. The Girls in the Garden. Atria Books, 2016. As she nears the shape, she can see it is a foot. She holds her breath deep inside her body and rounds the corner timorously. While the storyline had some issues for me-I had a good idea how this was going to play out relatively early on-it was Jewell's descriptive writing style and character development that really drew me in. This is a well written family drama with a good dose of mystery/suspense to keep everyone on their toes.It wants to act like a standalone, and I will give Wittman her props that you don’t need to read her other books to understand what is going on, but it’s impossible for your interest to not be piqued. More important, Roland quietly observed one evening, is that June has Luke to anchor her. Mabel disagreed. Anchors weigh, she reminded him.

It is hard to write a lengthy review on a book where the plot is secondary to the prose so all I will say is that this is a read that demands attention, time and appreciation. It will force you to slow down and allow you to consider, reflect and enjoy Wallace's insight, observations and description. Otherwise, The story was good. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and looked forward to seeing how the relationships would develop. Aside from the format, the writing was very good. I felt that there was exactly the right amount of descriptive detail, enough for you to form a picture in your head, but not so much that it was overdone. I was able to get a sense of who the characters were and the a feel for the area in which they lived.Then she cries out and clutches at her chest when a figure appears at her side. it is Max, the football mad loner of the community. He's only nine, three years younger than her. She can't believe he's still out here, wandering alone at this time of night. As ever, he is holding his beloved football, squeezing it tight against his stomach. he looks at Pip, his eyes wide and appalled. He looks as though he's about to say something, but no words come. He turns then and runs, down the hill, toward the lights. before meeting Oldman his life hadn't had much rhyme or reason to it and that he'd felt for a long time that he was at its mercy, which hadn't been very merciful." Do you think Adele does the right thing by keeping quiet after she discovers what happened to Grace? What would you have done in her position? One of People’s, Glamour’s, and BuzzFeed’s Best Reads of Summer, from the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone