I love early spring reading! We’ve had so many grey, rainy days in a row, so I have been burning through books. Some friends and I also created a Book Club, so it’s been very fun having “reading buddies” for my early spring reading!
Early Spring Reading
Girls in the Garden
I JUST finished Girls in the Garden — it was classic Lisa Jewell. I’ve always found her writing to be a bit “immature”, but her main characters are always young teenage girls. There’s also almost always a house fire and a sexual assault. Girls in the Garden had all the Lisa Jewell hallmarks 😉 but that didn’t take away from my enjoyment; I gave this 4 stars on Goodreads! I actually texted my neighbor and said this might have been my favorite Jewell novel!!
Girls in the Garden begins with Pip (the main character) discovering her older sister’s unconscious body, in the middle of a garden in a communal park, during a big party. Then we went back in time, to the day the sisters moved in. It was fun knowing what was going to happen, and then piecing it all together. Also! There was quite a twist, so I wouldn’t say the ending was spoiled at all — but I wasn’t expecting it!
Once the story picked up, I could barely put this one down! After the timeline catches up to the “crime”, we get into the police investigation, and there were SO many possible suspects — a near perfect “who done it” mystery!
Everything boiled down at the end — and, without spoiling things, the “case” was dropped. All the clues led the reader to the answer… but then the book just ended. I wasn’t thrilled with the ending (but when am I ever?😅)
The Club
Ugh, guys, I was SO excited about The Club. It was actually my pick for our book club, but I ended up giving it 2 stars!!
The Club was a short book, only taking me 2ish days to finish. The first pages had me hooked. Like the Lisa Jewell book above, The Club started with a disaster, and then jumped a few days before t start the story. It was INTENSE….but unfortunately, the next 150 pages were sooooo slow. Imagine reading molasses. That.
About 2/3 of the way through, the action picked up, but it still wasn’t really exciting enough to keep me wanting to turn pages. I finished it because book club demanded it.
The gist is this exclusive home group (think: Soho House) opens an Island Home on a small island, with a “road” only available at low tide or by helicopter. They invite an elite celebrity group for the big kickoff weekend. Everything is great… until it isn’t. Everything comes unraveled, and soon there’s a bodycount. The story goes back and forth between a few characters’ perspectives, and you learn as you read that they all have secrets.
The epilogue did give quite a bit of closure to the story, though, which I liked. And I will say the whole “locked door” aspect was exciting… but unless you’re into slow burning mysteries, I wouldn’t put The Club on my early spring reading list!
The Perfect Escape
The Perfect Escape is about a girls trip gone wrong. 3 newish friends stop for gas on a road trip, when their key mysteriously vanishes. Thankfully, one of the girls found a rental home super close and oh look, it’s available tonight. How lucky!
The 3 friends head to a bar to unwind, and then everything starts to implode. One girl hooks up with her ex-husband, another is locking lips with a stranger at the bar, and other mysteriously vanishes. We quickly learn each woman was harboring major secrets, some of which may prove deadly 😉
Admittedly, I called this book from the beginning. But!!! That did not stop me from enjoying the ride! I loved seeing everyone’s lies catch up to them, all their dirty laundry being aired. The story was told through alternating views, so you could piece the story together – like breadcrumbs.
I highly recommend The Perfect Escape for your early spring reading list — it was a quick and engaging read.
The Paris Apartment
I think I read the majority of The Paris Apartment while sitting in car lines to pick the girls up from school!
The Paris Apartment got 4.3 stars from me — I thought it was an enjoyable read! Ben is leaving his sister Jess a voicemail. She’s hit rock bottom, and is coming to stay with her brother in Paris. His message is eerily interrupted, and Jess can hear a possible struggle. When se gets to Ben’s apartment in Paris, he is nowhere to be seen.
The story follows Jess as she tries to solve the mystery. The other residents in the building are an interesting lot of characters, and I love how Lucy Foley kept bouncing between their perspectives. Some are helpful, some are awful, and not a single one of them is who they claim to be.
The ending was pretty wild, too! I really enjoyed The Paris Apartment, so definitely put it on your early spring reading list!
You can find my other most recent book review post here, for more recommendations! And if you’re on Goodreads, you can follow me here!!
xo -j
