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A review by booksaremyjam
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
2.0
So Kate Morton wrote one book about different generations of women in a family having secrets. Then she decided that every book ever was going to circle around this and isn't that just a marvelous idea?!.
No, Kate, no. It is not a marvelous idea.
I was pumped about The Forgotten Garden because I really, really enjoyed The Secret Keeper. I wish someone had stopped me and warned that it'd be the same twists just with different people in a different time period. It would have saved me some time.
Basically Cassandra's grandmother, Nell, dies (Cassandra's mother is out of the picture and is a negligent bitch, but this is never explained/explored), and has left her a house in England. A house in England?! But we live in Australia!!
...
Cassandra has absolutely nothing going on in her life, so she is able to spend a ton of time and $$ to check out the house (Something sad happened to Cassandra that totally shattered her and blahblah predictable issues of a broken woman and holy wow can we just not with the stereotypes?! god!). Where Cassandra is getting all this $$ is never explored, but we shouldn't worry about that because ooohhhh!! Mystery!!!
The book is split between 3 time periods: Nell's family waaayyy back in the early 1900s, Nell herself exploring England in 1976, and Cassandra in "present day" (2005). The early 1900s chapters were entertaining, but I really disliked the other two. This book would have been much better if it had been solely about what happened at Blackhurst Manor in the early 1900s. Unfortunately, Morton is so damn hung up on secrets that she needs to package her "mystery" 3 times over before she's satisfied with it.
It may be because I had already read The Secret Keeper, but everything was obvious from the get-go. Her method of unpacking the elements of her mystery were so damn similar, it's almost like she had a chart on her wall helping her map out the formula. Also, did she JUST learn how to write?? The prose are clunky at best and NO ONE IN REAL LIFE TALKS LIKE THESE CHARACTERS TALK. Everything felt so incredibly stiff - I'm shocked the same person wrote The Secret Keeper; a book I dearly loved.
Contrived, blase, and disappointing, The Forgotten Garden is best left unopened.
Kate Morton and Gillian Flynn should start a club. A "I wrote one really good book but all of my other books really smell up the joint and that good book was just a fluke! Sorry! Kthanxbye!" club - but I guess all that wouldn't fit above the door now would it?
No, Kate, no. It is not a marvelous idea.
I was pumped about The Forgotten Garden because I really, really enjoyed The Secret Keeper. I wish someone had stopped me and warned that it'd be the same twists just with different people in a different time period. It would have saved me some time.
Basically Cassandra's grandmother, Nell, dies (Cassandra's mother is out of the picture and is a negligent bitch, but this is never explained/explored), and has left her a house in England. A house in England?! But we live in Australia!!
...
Cassandra has absolutely nothing going on in her life, so she is able to spend a ton of time and $$ to check out the house (Something sad happened to Cassandra that totally shattered her and blahblah predictable issues of a broken woman and holy wow can we just not with the stereotypes?! god!). Where Cassandra is getting all this $$ is never explored, but we shouldn't worry about that because ooohhhh!! Mystery!!!
The book is split between 3 time periods: Nell's family waaayyy back in the early 1900s, Nell herself exploring England in 1976, and Cassandra in "present day" (2005). The early 1900s chapters were entertaining, but I really disliked the other two. This book would have been much better if it had been solely about what happened at Blackhurst Manor in the early 1900s. Unfortunately, Morton is so damn hung up on secrets that she needs to package her "mystery" 3 times over before she's satisfied with it.
It may be because I had already read The Secret Keeper, but everything was obvious from the get-go. Her method of unpacking the elements of her mystery were so damn similar, it's almost like she had a chart on her wall helping her map out the formula. Also, did she JUST learn how to write?? The prose are clunky at best and NO ONE IN REAL LIFE TALKS LIKE THESE CHARACTERS TALK. Everything felt so incredibly stiff - I'm shocked the same person wrote The Secret Keeper; a book I dearly loved.
Contrived, blase, and disappointing, The Forgotten Garden is best left unopened.
Kate Morton and Gillian Flynn should start a club. A "I wrote one really good book but all of my other books really smell up the joint and that good book was just a fluke! Sorry! Kthanxbye!" club - but I guess all that wouldn't fit above the door now would it?