The protagonist was hands down not for me. It took me ages to get through this book because of the main character. However, the conclusion truly makes this book. I have to commend the author for such a compelling read. This book was wonderfully crafted and full of surprises; it possessed a phenomenal flow. Where the hell did that ending come from?

I couldn’t stand this one. The writing was terrible, Linda seemed a few cards short of a deck. How is a 43 year old woman so clueless? The things she did to her husband made me cringe, that’s not how a spouse should be treated. The whole thing left me cringing actually. Just not for me I guess.

I think the main character, Linda, was supposed to be quirky and that maybe we were supposed to give her latitude and consider she might be on the spectrum. I couldn't get there. Instead, she felt clueless and/or mentally impaired, not quirky. So the result for me was a sad read. I didn't want to read about this woman who was the butt of everyone's jokes, showing up for a dinner party to find that her "friend" only wanted her there to clean, succumbing to the allure of a department store credit card, etc. And the ending didn't make sense or feel reasonable. It felt like it was from a completely different story. Was this a case of an unreliable narrator? A big surprising twist? For all the mundane dragged out detail through the story, the ending felt rushed and half-worked. If you are going to have such a big change, it needs to be more fleshed out for the reader to accept. Ultimately this book let me down.

While I loved the prose and Linda's inner monologue, this was a DNF for me. I got about 25% through the book, and it took too long for the plot to develop.

When the story begins I admit to thinking the narrator is in a bit of trouble and perhaps slightly mentally challenged. She is very detail oriented to the point of being tedious. She likes to do crossword puzzles because they make you think how things fit together. She isn’t going to use a pen and fill in the first answer she thinks of because you have to consider all the contiguous squares and possibilities. She is an observer, she is a plodder, she plans ahead, she takes her time, she is somewhat off kilter, not exactly offensive, just different. You know the type, the one who is a little too loud, tries too hard, has a vivid imagination, misinterprets friendliness for friendship. Pay attention now.

Joanna Carson is a clever writer. Nothing is ever what you expect or are led to believe. But that only came to me in hindsight. Actually it came to me the day after I finished the book while I was taking a shower. Also, I am giving myself a big pat on the back that “I got it” at least I think I did, just not as I was reading nor even when I finished. It is the reason the word “epiphany” exists. Summed up by Linda Hammett, the main character: “there are always two ways to interpret everything in life. All you need to do is pick the version that suits you better.” Oh so clever.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner / Simon & Schuster for a copy

2.5

You can call me a jerk, but I’ve about had it with quirk.

Maybe at another time, I would have appreciated this story. It’s told first person by a housewife named Linda who lives a simple life, works part-time in a thrift store, and dreams of leading a more glamorous existence. She is weird (i.e., quirky—oh god, I’m starting to hate that word!). She has a distant husband and no real friends. She develops a weird relationship with an odd couple. She’s out there. Serial killings are happening in the background and people in the small town are gossiping.

So we’re in Linda’s head the whole time. She has funny thoughts, and they are entertaining—some of the time. The problem is, I got claustrophobic as hell. Let me out of this strange, passive woman’s head, please! I need a breather. I need someone else’s perspective, I need interaction, I need dialogue, a change of scenery.

The reason I was so impatient is that I read two other books this year that were about a quirky, loner woman—The Maid and One’s Company—and I didn’t like either of them. Both of those stories were told in first person, too. First person and quirk used to be my friends, but we’ve definitely broken up.

Joy Jar

-The observations about life are clever and entertaining, and I did some highlighting.

Here are a few fun sentences:

“You can’t take a pair of scissors to one thing and leave the rest undamaged.”

“Nothing dilutes your own unhappiness like feeding on the unhappiness of others.”

“Mother was the kind of person who had far more coasters than people she knew.”

“The sound of nothing ends up being the most distracting thing of all.”

“…there are times when you don’t even realize a thought is sitting inside your head until your mouth discovers it and it’s given somewhere to go.”

Complaint Board

-Enough with the settees already. I really do like the sound of the British use of “settee’ instead of “couch” (it’s much prettier and flow-y on the tongue), but after a while, I’m telling you, settee can get old. The book and I got off on the wrong foot almost immediately, when two identical phrases are used within pages of each other—“perched on the arm of a settee.” And there was a similar phrase, “stretched my legs out on the settee,” nearby. Oh, and not much later, we hear about “people lounging around on armchairs” (At least there was some variety; we switched from the settee to a chair!) Apparently, we needed to know that people lounged. On settees. A lot. I picture a lot of people sitting around on furniture in relaxed poses—unnecessary visuals, enough is enough. I got so mad, I did a search and found that “settee” was used 28 times! I know, I know, this is a minor offense, but it still bugged me. (And I’m sorry that I had to say the word a million times to get my point across.) There’s a time late in the story where sentences appear twice, verbatim: “…but I spotted it. I spot everything. I wasn’t born yesterday.” Where oh where was the editor? Since this book was an ARC, maybe these crimes were caught before publication. We can hope!

-Get me out of here! I’ve already said, I was so claustrophobic inside Linda’s head! It sort of felt like I was in an MRI machine. Let me out!

-Come on, open your eyes! Linda, like many other main characters with the “quirky” label (probably on the spectrum), has this annoying cluelessness despite the fact she seems astute sometimes. It prevented me from feeling anything for Linda.

-Too too. Too slow, too boring.

-A Maid twin. This story had a lot in common with The Maid. Both main characters were clean freaks who were out of it, and both stories involved crimes. And even stranger, both had mothers who had passed down trite sayings. If you liked The Maid (which I didn’t, as I said earlier), I think you’ll love this one. I liked this one a bit more than The Maid.

-The ending completely sucked! It made no sense; it didn’t seem consistent with the portrayal of Linda. I’m not sure I even understood it. Made me so mad! This secured its spot in 2-star land. (How could I round up if I hated the ending?)

I really wanted this book to be over. We get Linda’s shtick early on, and most of it seemed slow and tedious. I hate to be Negative Nancy, but I can’t help it. Most people loved this book, so be sure to read their reviews. I did appreciate the thoughtful observations—I couldn’t resist showing you a few of the many good lines. It’s totally possible that I would have liked this book more if I hadn’t run into two quirky loners-losers who I didn’t like earlier this year.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Linda lives a fairly predictable and routine life, most of her days looking similarly. She begins to wonder, is this really it? Just housework and cooking?

Not to mention, Linda’s husband…as his schedule begins to change unpredictability at the same time women are going missing, Linda not only has her suspicions…she also just wants him out of the house so she can have time for her crosswords (her husband just goes at them with a pen and no plan!)

Linda also begins to receive some mysterious pieces of mail belonging to what she assumes is the former resident of her home which leads her to wonder about the life of this other woman…

The author’s tone throughout this one feels like a friend calling you up to tell you a story she can’t believe she heard. Which is what Linda feels like the more pages you turn through this one. With relatively short chapters, this one will keep you up and keep you guessing all the way to the end.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for gifting me a digital copy of the latest novel by Joanna Cannon - 5 stars!

Linda lives a quiet life, working at a charity shop, going home to boring husband, Terry. But she wishes for the kind of life she glimpses in the catalogs that arrive in the mail addressed to the former owner, Rebecca. Linda becomes quite obsessed with Rebecca and the life she lives. Meanwhile, Terry starts acting odd - coming home late, being mysterious, right when girls go missing in the neighborhood.

Wow - this book was so good! Told in the first person perspective of Linda, both in the past and in the present when she is in a mental health facility, you will laugh at the dark humor and feel for Linda as she copes with her past and tries to make a better life for herself. Go into this one as blind as possible because it will be worth it!

Linda is a 40-something-year-old living with a husband that doesn't seem to even realize she is there. She cleans her house, goes to her part-time job, visits her mom, and tries to make friends. Until the murders start to happen.

While reading this book, I kept thinking of The Maid by Nina Prose (that I really disliked). In both books, we have a main character that is barely a person and more a caricature of two characteristics (the same two for both books surprisingly enough): how much she likes to clean and how much she struggles with social interactions. That last one makes her a target for ridicule, abuse, and being taken advantage of from other people. The other characters are just or more paper thin as her: they are more props to be used when necessary for the story to move along. And a lot of character interactions don't make sense, how fast some connections are forged, how people trust strangers so easily in a community being plagued by murders. There are so many scenes that just don't make any logical sense but they need to happen for the story to move along.

The big twist is so easy to predict even though in trying to disguise it the author made it extremely far-fetched. It doesn't fit with how the story is told nor does it fit with the characters. And in order to distract the reader, nothing happens until the 80% mark when things start to unravel; most of the book is pure repetition.

I'm clearly in the minority here though. Most people seem to really like it.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

What a twist Joanna Cannon delivers! There is a serial killer in this story, but you don’t need much time to figure out who that is. That person is not the focus here. This is not a story of whodunnit or am I in danger. It’s a story of two women both possibly both having some unaddressed mental issues. You think you get your characters straight, but at the end you will scream what???

Linda ran away from Wales along with her mother. Memories of her past life is bit hurtful. Both women needed fresh start. Now married Linda spends her days cooking, cleaning, working at a charity shop. Her days are carbon copy of each other. One day she gets a magazine delivered for the previous tenant and she makes it her mission to find her, so her life will get bit of color. But will it though?

I especially loved the end of this passage. It’s applicable to many situations in life: “My dad was the only piece of the past Mother didn't bring with us from Wales. She made sure his memory stayed there, and we packed our bags and left without him. He was cut away, leaving nice clean margins. Disappeared. But you can't take a pair of scissors to one thing and leave the rest undamaged. It's impossible.”

A very dry read. I didn’t relate to any of the characters in the book. The main main character no personality. I couldn’t make myself care what the characters felt or did in the book. It’s a miss for me.

With A TIDY ENDING, Joanna Cannon offers her trademark intelligent, thoroughly enjoyable story. The invisible, mundane, and everyday ordinary rub shoulders with high drama when young women are found strangled near neighborhoods and familiar territory of an immense estate comprised of new and long-time inhabitants. The effects of the murders on Linda Hammer, her husband Terry, and her mother break patterns of habits built to protect expectations and long-buried secrets. Told through the point of view of the profoundly eloquent and strange Linda Hammet, obsessed with quiet, solitary, and tidy while longing for love, for friendship, for living the life she reads about in magazines, the story is lyrical, poetic, and horrifyingly real. I could not put this story down. I received an early copy of this novel and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

Psychiatrist Joanna Cannon’s profession shines through again in her latest novel, A Tidy Ending. You will probably find yourself repeatedly thinking, “Just one more chapter.“ However long your reading sessions, do not skim; savor every sentence. The smallest of details may prove important, and after you finish the last page, you may find yourself starting over

Cannon opens with short section titled “Now.” Linda, the first-person narrator is in a psychiatric hospital, thinking about how others might describe her—people in general, her husband Terry, her mother, the press. She notices the holes in the newspapers where any article that might cause discomfort or distress has been cut out, and she wonders what life would be like if we could cut out the pieces we didn’t like. She realizes she, herself, has been “disappeared.” Because the stories have been deleted, others don’t know who she is.

Throughout A Tidy Ending, Cannon alternates “Now” sections in the hospital with one to six numbered chapters that fill in a detailed backstory. With Chapter One, readers learn that a second murder has occurred in town, that of a nineteen-year-old woman. Wondering if this victim is connected with another found not far away just before Christmas, Linda tries to interest Terry, who is preoccupied with cleaning up after work, eating dinner, and watching TV. When a press conference interrupts programming to report on the murder, an unidentified detail catches Linda’s eye in one of the photos from the victim’s life. Just as she is about to ask Terry if he sees it, too, he grabs the remote and changes the channel.

Piece by piece, Linda reveals her backstory. Readers come to know her childhood trauma, her job in the thrift shop, her troubled relationship with Terry and her mother, her obsession with cleaning and with Rebecca Finch, the woman who previously lived in the house to which Linda and Terry recently moved, and her life-long need to be noticed and appreciated. As the body count rises, so does the suspense.

I’m not a huge fan of mysteries, but Joanna Cannon’s A Tidy Ending is a mystery with a difference. Not only does the Hexford Strangler keep everyone guessing, but Linda’s troubled past and an assortment of quirky characters, investigating officers, schemes and secrets, kept me turning pages. It's a wild ride although not not a fast one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the advance reader copy of this engrossing novel by the author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things about Elsie.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon is a delightful novel about murder with plenty of dark humor. The story revolves Linda, a middle-aged woman who no one really notices. She lives a pretty standard life doing everything a normal housewife would do. She doesn't really mind when her husband goes out at odd hours. Then, young women start going missing. Who is murdering these women? Can Linda help the police figure out who the serial killer is?

Here is a captivating excerpt from Chapter 1:

"When people are asked to describe me, they’ll probably say I keep myself to myself.
It’s a silly way of putting it, really, because it makes it sound as if you’ve got something to hide, and I don’t think there’s anything about me that’s interesting enough to be hidden. Not like some. You know what people are like, though, and newspapers always make something out of nothing, even keeping yourself to yourself. It’s what you get for not following the crowd, I suppose. For not joining in. Even if people are pressed a bit harder, they will still find it difficult to dredge up a little anecdote, to pull some distant memory from the back of their minds to single me out...
That would be me. Linda. The one looking down when everyone else is staring straight ahead. The girl you can’t quite remember. The one who kept herself to herself."

Overall, A Tidy Ending is an indescribable book that is sure to be the hit of the summer! It's so hard to compare this book to others because it's so original. If I had to, I would say that the narrator reminds me of the one from Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, while the plot is in the same genre of the Finlay Donovan series. I think this book would appeal to fans of The Woman in the Window as well as the Netflix parody series starring Kristen Bell.

One highlight of this book is the unique narrator. Most thrillers have very plain, forgettable narrators. This one is definitely memorable. There is a ton of dark humor, and I often found myself chuckling. Another highlight of this book is how enjoyable and easy to read it was. It also had an amazing ending that I absolutely wasn't expecting. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of books about murder, you won't regret checking out this book when it comes out in August!

MISDIRECTING THE READER WITH FINESSE

Sometimes narrators are reliable, and the reader depends on them to discover the correct time, place, and characters. Linda Hammett is the unreliable narrator of this psychological mystery.

She is a descriptive narrator until we become confused. She is married to Terry, who works in a factory (or does he?) and they have moved to a house in an English housing estate. Linda wanted to buy this house, she thought her life would be different, but it is the same plodding existence. Her husband lives a definitive, boring schedule with expectations of what Linda should cook for him when he is not absorbed in watching the telly. There are unsolved murders of young women in her area and the author does a good job of introducing us to the police techniques.

Linda, with all her over-bearing conversations, has a strange confidence that people, particularly women, will be her sincere friends. They would get on “like a house on fire.” So sure, is she about friendships, she discovers a catalog addressed to the previous owner, Rebecca Finch. Upon meeting Rebecca and her business partner/boyfriend, Jolyon (very unusual name) she is convinced that they will be friends.

The reader is sent off course, Linda is in a psychiatric ward, and the history of her father’s alleged sexual act and his suicide is the strongest and most viable part of the narrative. It is stunning.

Does Linda really want a nice, normal life or one filled with glamour or one without a routine or a mundane existence. Is Linda’s mother real? She is constantly stating one turpitude after another. It grated on Linda, was that the mother’s strategy or Linda’s?

This is a layered novel, but I found it tedious at times. Cannon displayed Linda as one who misinterpreted the motives of the people around her. I’m not sure this was a revelation or were we purposely sent off course? Through Linda’s point of view, we encounter an amusing trip to the mall with varied saleswomen who could be representative of many revelations. However, the final revelation is a genuine surprise.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Scribner for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.

A Tidy Ending is a book about a bored housewife, Linda, who is tired of being ignored by her husband, Terry. There is a serial killer on the loose and Linda becomes obsessed with becoming friends with the woman who previously lived in her home. Unfortunately, I had trouble connecting with the characters and I found the plot dragging for the first half of the book. It was only towards the end of the novel that I became invested in the storyline. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

There's a big twist- a big twist- in this story of a lonely woman and know that you, like me, might be a bit confused at the end. That said, it's a very good read. Linda has sadness and darkness in her past; she was forced to move, along with her mother. from Wales, as a child. She's unhappily married to Terry, who irritates her more every day and working part time at a charity shop. Then she latches onto the idea of finding Rebecca. the previous tenant in her house. At the same time, the police are hunting for the serial murderer of young women. Whew. Linda is different, perhaps neurodiverse, and she doesn't understand much about how she presents or how to approach others. Rebecca and her friend take advantage of this in a way that amps up the tension for both Linda and the reader. There are some wonderful scenes here (the cosmetic makeover in a department store is a hoot) but this rises and falls on Linda. She might not be for everyone but give this some time and you'll feel differently. It wasn't what I expected and it's difficult to review without spoilers. Terrific writing which puts you square in Linda's psyche. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Looking forward to Cannon's next novel.

It’s Eleanor Oliphant meets murder (or a much more sinister The Maid) in A Tidy Ending where Linda lives a quiet life and yearns for something more glamourous. She becomes transfixed by the former owner of her new house around the same time bodies start appearing around the estate (that's neighborhood in British) and her husband starts acting even more frustrating than usual.
There is a lot to recommend about A Tidy Ending, the writing is sharp - funny, but also poignant, the characters are complex and interesting, and the underlying mystery provides a solid foundation. Unfortunately, the book works so hard to obscure its true narrative in service of a twist ending (that I still mostly saw coming) that it becomes distracting. Ultimately, it felt like a lot of wheel spinning to get to three exciting chapters at the end.

If you are looking for an action-packed, fast read, this isn't the book for you. This is the find a quiet spot, hang on every word, character driven book that you have to pay attention to kind of book. It's not so much what's happening as what's being said by Linda. Linda is a fascinating character. She appears to have trouble reading social cues and misunderstands situations. She is highly leery of the police, given what happened to her as a young girl in Wales and how it changed her family. She lives a quiet, mundane life, until she moves into a new house, right down the street from her old one. Things start to get interesting, and our perception of Linda starts to change.

You might think the first two thirds of the book are slow, and honestly, they are, but stick with it. Pay attention to everything she says about her life as a child, about her mother, about her husband, and wait. What happens in the last few chapters of the book is all worth it. Any confusion you had about why she is where she is in the Now - although you'll have drawn your own conclusions well before the end - goes away. It becomes crystal clear.

The title of the book is as clever as the twists and turns of the book. "Tidy" in Welsh slang means "awesome" or "fantastic" and the ending is just that, but it also refers to the fact that Linda loves to clean and is absolutely compulsive about it. Tuck that fact into the back of your head. Finally, the way everything gets wrapped up perfectly for Linda, is exactly a tidy ending.

This book is for fans of Eleanor Oliphant and The Maid. All three books share a socially awkward female lead character, but Linda is in a league of her own.

Thank you, NetGalley, for a chance to read and review this book. And thank you, Joanna Cannon, for hitting another one out of the park. I still think about Goats and Sheep and I read it years ago.

If I could DNF books I would have swept this one under the carpet and taken a rag to wipe away any traces of the predictability left behind.

Here’s what I’ve figured out-I don’t enjoy books with hugely unreliable narrators that annoy me and try to act as red herrings for 300 pages while you know all along from the beginning how it’s going to end, or at least have guessed 98% of it. I also don’t like publicists who bill it as “delightfully sinister” or a “darkly funny tale full of shocking twists” when that just wasn’t the case.

This felt like The Silent Patient for me; a book that got hyped up but fell short on suspense or surprise. I knew where that one was going too and guess this just isn’t my genre-unless Gillian Flynn writes it. Filled with unlikeable characters and a plot that moves slower than wrung out wet dish towels would dry, don’t bother dropping your spray bottle for this mess that comes out 8/2. It was as suspenseful as vacuuming and just as repetitive.

Thanks NetGalley for the free arc.