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A review by evarano
The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
2.0
This is hands down my least favourite LJ so far and I’ve read most of them! At the very end of this book there’s a brief interview with the author of a hoarding book in which LJ says that she was deep into writing another story and scratched it, her publisher called needing a book super quickly and she had an experience that led her to this story.
Someone else left a review (I can’t remember who sorry!) that said they thought that the above seemed like exactly what happened with this story and I agree. I think I’ve come to realize that the earlier the LJ story, the less of a mystery/thriller it is and the more of a domestic story and I just don’t enjoy them even close to as much.
This is one of those stories where every person is shitty in their own way. It’s really hard to read a story when you hate every character. Now, I didn’t mind Meg or Vicky, but they still had their shit. Everyone else was a lost cause, so unhealthy mentally, so dysfunctional and toxic towards each other. I understand that this is reflective of real lives, but it was hard to read people doing such horrible things to each other. All the lead ups were either predictable or very anti climatic. I can’t believe how easily some were forgiven and how things were handled, the secrets that were kept, etc. It was just crazy. The story did keep me reading because I did want to find out the secrets but I just felt bad for all these people. I think there were also parts left our, namely, where did all these people get the money for these things? That wasn’t explained enough. Also, I know this book was published in 2014, but I absolutely hated all the comments about characters being fat. I thought that was so unnecessary.
Someone else left a review (I can’t remember who sorry!) that said they thought that the above seemed like exactly what happened with this story and I agree. I think I’ve come to realize that the earlier the LJ story, the less of a mystery/thriller it is and the more of a domestic story and I just don’t enjoy them even close to as much.
This is one of those stories where every person is shitty in their own way. It’s really hard to read a story when you hate every character. Now, I didn’t mind Meg or Vicky, but they still had their shit. Everyone else was a lost cause, so unhealthy mentally, so dysfunctional and toxic towards each other. I understand that this is reflective of real lives, but it was hard to read people doing such horrible things to each other. All the lead ups were either predictable or very anti climatic. I can’t believe how easily some were forgiven and how things were handled, the secrets that were kept, etc. It was just crazy. The story did keep me reading because I did want to find out the secrets but I just felt bad for all these people. I think there were also parts left our, namely, where did all these people get the money for these things? That wasn’t explained enough. Also, I know this book was published in 2014, but I absolutely hated all the comments about characters being fat. I thought that was so unnecessary.