Story of three women and the perils of social media in a tight night community. Are they really who they appear to be? Interesting characters, predictable outcome ? Maybe

Really enjoyed reading this

This book has the feel of Desperate Housewives..cliques of wives, secrets, lies, affairs and young mums following their top hen on instagram. I don’t think you are meant to like any of the main characters, the women are vain, intelligent but emotionally stupid and their husbands are pathetic in so many ways. It’s an easy read and ticks along nicely with a couple of surprises on the way. A solid 4 stars from me.

Thank you to Netgalley the author and publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I read about this book on Penguin's Bookmarks site and I was desperate to read it. It seemed to have all the ingredients I like in a book: suspense, a mystery, characters who snipe at each other. From the description I thought I was getting something along the lines of Little, Big Lies.

The story is focalised through three women, Ciara, Lauren and Mishti. They live not far from Cork and are neighbours as well as knowing each other from their children's school. All are married, none of them happily.
Ciara is queen bee, she posts everything on Instagram and has so many followers she manages to make a living from being an influencer. Lauren is an outcast., unpopular with the other women since childhood, she doesn't make the cut when it comes to the cliques. She has a particular reason to dislike Ciara. Mishti is an immigrant, married with one child and yearning for a lost love. She is perhaps the most sympathetic character. The story opens with a death and then flashes back to what led up to it.

What I liked about the book. I love books which explore relationships and this does look at how these three women get on with each other. I liked the fact that we had a central character from another culture and I enjoyed the scenes set in India. I thought the bullying culture round the school playground was well done.

What I disliked: None of the characters are particularly likeable or sympathetic. Apart from the three main characters and their partners we don't really get a sense of other people in the book. It perhaps lacked a subplot or two to fill it out.

Overall I was a little disappointed in Dirty Laundry. There wasn't enough of a hook to keep me interested throughout and at times I felt it was a bit of a slog. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC>

The Suburban Dream?…
Dirty laundry is meant to be aired, right? Right - but perhaps not in public. Amidst a suburbia of pristine green lawns, picket fences and pretty homes surely everything is as it seems? Maybe not. For three women living the suburban dream, secrets lie in droves and things are about to get mutinous. Compelling, immersive domestic noir with a plot populated with well crafted characters, a subtle twist of dark humour and a thoroughly entertaining narrative.

This is a great page turner and would make a brilliant holiday read. The way that the author builds the story transitioning in time and building towards the crescendo that the reader knows is coming is handled effortlessly with characters who are for the most part identifiable. Some of the story lines are slightly questionable and the way in which certain characters behave a little overly dramatic but it makes for a lighthearted and enjoyable read.

Wow, I really, really loved this book! And check out that BEAUTIFUL cover (although I am so disappointed Canva cut out the top of the cover 🙄)!

The structure of this book is very different from what I usually read. We follow the lives of three very different women (stay-at-home mums) over the space of (I think it was) a month and a half?

This book piqued my interest straight away by telling us the major plot twist at the start, before going back and recounting all the events that have led to this moment.

This book was so, so good. It definitely aired the dirty laundry of all three of these women, I'm pretty sure at one point I hated them all. This is definitely not a typical 'mums gossip' book, this book had so many twists and turns it was hard to keep up sometimes and you were really pulled into the lives of these women. The women grabbed your sympathy, and then immediately threw that back in your face when you learned about some of their actions. This book honestly never stopped.

The only reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars is because of the ending - for such a massive build up to the end, the book ended suddenly and I would have loved to find out what happened next. Apart from this, I loved every single second reading.

I would really recommend this book, I loved it and I can't wait to read more from Disha!

Thank you again NetGalley, Disha Bose and Penguin General UK for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review also posted on Goodreads.

We know early on that one of the main characters is murdered and the story then goes back in time to describe the lead-up to the murder. Plentiful red herrings are strewn throughout and there's great potential for a gripping read but sadly it never really took off as I failed to get absorbed in the characters' dull, unhappy lives. Marital disharmony, school-mum rivalry and various insecurities mean that all the ingredients are there but despite this I found it an underwhelming read. None of the characters are likeable which just added to my lack of engagement.

This book was much better than I’d expected. I thought I was going to read about clique-y women and basically nothing else but a death changed everything.

Ciara Dunphy looks like she has it all, social media presence, adoring hanger-ons but the reality was very different.

It played an important message that despite how happy and wonderful everything seems on social media, behind the scenes might be quite the opposite.

Not what I’d normally choose to read but hey! I read 100 books!

Didn't take me very long to read and did draw me in from the start, not a bad storyline, but to be honest the cast of charecters weren't very likable, but all in all did keep me enthralled till the end

What a fabulous book! Disha Bose is a wonderful new voice in contemporary fiction.
This book is strangely relatable, engaging, dark and unique. I loved every page and I am gutted that I’ve finished it.
One of my favourites this year and I can’t wait to read more from this exciting new author.

I enjoyed this book although it wasn't quite what I was expecting it to be. Essentially the story of three women and their intertwined lives within a village setting, it has an element of a whodunnit, a bit of desperate housewives and a touch of instagram's reality versus social media veneer . I read it quickly and it's really well written but I felt a slight disconnect to the main characters. Having said that it's a page turner with a satisfying but rushed conclusion.

This books gives a depiction of the difference between real life and what we see on Instagram and the difficulties of parenthood. It explores the delicacy and hierarchy of mum friend groups and how isolating it can be to feel outside of the clique. The main character, Ciara, gets less likeable throughout the book
I liked the who-dunnit theme running throughout.

A completely absorbing and relatable portrayal of female life and friendships. I loved all three lead female characters and found each of their stories incredibly gripping and well developed. I loved the way the secrets slowly unravelled as the story went on and the pace was perfect. I particularly loved the ending, tragic for all three characters but powerful. Bose is a great new voice that I can't wait to see more of.

I think I'm being generous with the three stars here. Read as 2.5. Despite really wanting to like this novel, I found a bit disappointing. Now, I know it's a real achievement to write a novel at all, so there's that, and the premise is a good one, and, but the narrative style is just not compelling enough to carry it. There's no real hook, and there needs to be in a novel like this. The characters aren't believable either. Look, there is so much potential here that has been missed, which would otherwise have made this a real corker of a read, but on top of that, the pace of the narrative is incredibly slow at first, speeding up to a break-neck pace near the end. I dislike giving negative reviews, but I was kindly given this early copy by the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest one.

Flew through this book - I loved the characterisation, the light-hearted, almost comical style of writing in parts. Fans of Liane Moriarty will love this one. I felt the ending wasn't has climatic as I hoped but it was still satisfying and I'm very much looking forward to whatever Bose writes next.

A good read overall, well written with interesting characters although it wasn't my usual genre I did enjoy it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin General UK which I would recommend.

I really enjoyed this read, it was a quick and easy read with a writing style that I liked, a story that gripped me the whole way through and characters that were well developed and just kept developing as I was reading. The characters were all reltable and believeable as they all had flaws/issues - and lets be real who of us doesn't. I couldn't put it down and I wanted to read more of this authors writing as soon as this one finsihed. I can't wait to see what comes next.

I don’t think this would be as good as it was! I really enjoyed the book and the story. Ciara, Lauren and Mishti are friends all with secrets! It literally is like airing dirty laundry.

Really enjoyed this book. The dynamics are well laid out between the different characters and Bose gives space to let the relationships grow, adding in more and more detail to form a picture that keeps you guessing constantly. All the characters are flawed but they are also well developed and you fully buy into their motivations. I think this will be huge for fans for Liane Moriarty where a claustrophobic suburban setting causes deadly actions. A brill debut.

Dirty laundry by Disha Bose

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book … oh why do I pick books sometimes that are just impossible to rate. At some times I was 3 starring and some points it was almost a five but I’ve settle on 4.
Why the battle you may ask, well … on one hand none of the characters were likeable but equally I could not put this book down

This book revolves around a street, a street where everyone has insecurities and yet are all completely self obsessed, some more than others.
At the Center of this story is Ciara and that’s exactly how she would like it

I don’t even know what genre I’d put this into but if I had to sum it up it’s Desperate housewives in an Instagram world. Things aren’t what they seem should have been the tag line for this book.

Now yes, I must admit it is a slow burn and I must confess I was not satisfied with the ending but something about this book makes it impossible to put down, normally your rooting for a narrating hero or heroine but in this book your looking to see whoes world falls apart first and if anyone will be walking away from the plot unscathed whilst almost hoping none of them will.

I love the writing style and love the way it’s been constructed with the ending at the beginning .

Overall I would recommend this book and can’t wait to see how it divides opinion.
Thank you to netgalley, the publishers and the author for this arc in exchange for my honest review