Member Reviews

Okay, any parent of teens know what silent treatment is. That is the premise of this incredible psychological thriller by Victoria Jenkins.

Olivia, 15-years-old, came home from a party late one night. She knew she was going to be in big trouble, but she really didn't care. However, her actions led to a major rift with her mother and they then got into a huge argument. Olivia leaves the room furiously, determined not to speak to her mother any time soon. Ever, in fact.

Her mother, Hannah, has a hard time trying to figure out why Olivia is so different from her younger sister, Rosie. Olivia is headstrong, argumentative and difficult. Conversely, Rosie is sweet and gentle. The girls get along just fine. However, Olivia does not get along well with their parents.

Hannah thinks things will blow over in a few days and then get back to normal. After a week or so passes, she becomes very unsure. Her husband is always working away from home, leaving Hannah with the bulk of care when it comes to their home and daughters.

A family drama? Is that what this book is? Notice the genre, a psychological thriller. Why is that? Things begin the become revealed in this story. Shocking, jaw-dropping things. I do not want leave a single spoiler in this review. Suffice it to say that the author has floored me with this story. It took a sharp turn at some point. So sharp in fact that it took my breath away. I nearly dropped my device because I was so thrown off. So, kudos to Ms. Jenkins for cutting me off at the knees with this fantastic book. I cannot wait to see what she has to offer next to us greedy readers.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.

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The Argument is a tense family drama centred around the lives of what appears to be a normal family of four. Teenager Olivia sneaks out to a party and has a row with her mother Hannah when she returns. She then vows to never speak to her mother again.

This all seemed to be completely normal. An overprotective mother and angst-ridden fifteen-year-old locking horns just like families everywhere.

I was torn between feeling sorry for Olivia, who’s mother clearly didn’t understand her and sympathising with Hannah’s difficult role as the mother of a teenage daughter.

I found Hannah quite chilling, she was cold, distant and almost robotic as she went about her household chores and seemed old beyond her years. Olivia on the other hand just seemed in need of a sympathetic ear and a huge hug.

I was a little underwhelmed with the first part of the book, but oh boy did the second half make up for it! Talk about shifting up a gear! Just as you think this is a family drama like so many others the plot shifts rapidly and the book becomes compelling, dark and totally absorbing.

It reminded me of a series of books I read almost forty years ago which prompted my love of psychological thrillers and has stayed with me ever since.

A shocking, unexpected, multi-dimensional read.

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The Argument by Victoria Jenkins was a really good psychological thriller that kept me guessing till the end of this book. I was hooked within the first few pages and really became hooked.
Hannah and Michael are married and have two daughters Olivia is fifteen and Rosie who is a lot younger and is the dream daughter.
Hannah is a stay at home mum to her daughters, Whilst Michael goes out to work. They are very strict parents, and they come across over protective towards they daughters.
Being a teenager, Olivia is fed up and tired of all her parents rules, she wants to have her own space. Olivia is also not popular at school and is trying so hard to fit in. Olivia is invited to a party at the weekend and when she asks her mother she knows the answer will be No! But Olivia wants to go and nothing is going to stop her going. Olivia does sneak out and goes to the forbidden party, Hannah is worried as Olivia is not back yet, especially as Michael is away on work business. It is getting very late. When Olivia finally comes home they start to argue...........
Every parent dreads these words from their child.

‘I hate you. You’ve ruined my life. And I’m never speaking to you again.’

Olivia runs to her bedroom and is standing by her promise. The next day Olivia is not talking to her parents. After two days of silence.
Then, a week then passes.......Olivia is still not talking to her parents...........Is this a start of a loving family tearing its self apart?

Did anything happen at this Party Olivia went to?

Why are her parents so protective over their daughters and Olivia feels she is treated different to Rosie?

I did feel sorry for Hannah at the beginning of The Argument, she came across a perfect parent that only wants the best for her daughters However, as we read more of this brilliant book there are more to Hannah, she has a darker side and lots of secrets.
Micheal is hiding secrets as well and they are not what they seem to be in the outside world. Their family home is not full of love! and its not a happy home!

This book is full of twists and turns and full of secrets that will have you shocked at the end of this book.

I highly recommend The Argument By Victoria Jenkins. I loved it.

Only thing I will say is I'm Not quite sure about the title of Victoria Jenkins new book

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Well I did not see that twist coming! A really good domestic noir thriller!

"There was once a girl who lived in an ordinary house, on an ordinary street. Her world looked normal, much like anyone else, but normal can be deceiving and can wear a misleading comstume"

This is a story about a normal family. A mother and father who cares for their children. A difficult 15 year old daughter who is socially awkward; but then she is at that difficult age; and a younger daughter who is clearly the favourite........but is this family as ordinary as they seem or are there darker things lurking behind this ordinary facade......

In the end I loved this book! It felt a bit slow in the beginning and I was starting to wonder if it will get going at some point but in hindsight that was needed to create the wow moments in the end.
I can highly recommend this book!

Thank you to #bookouture and #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

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More of 3.5 stars to be honest.
It's my second book by the author and although i enjoyed the writing and the story overall, there are many things that i couldn't get over while reading it.
Like any teenagers, Olivia is having a hard time to speak her mind to her family especially her mother and decides to stop talking with them at all. Things escalate pretty soon as expected and the story is more about how a family can through and over these moments. The support and understanding from her mother fail in my opinion and i think it's a common occurrence nowadays unfortunately and maybe that's what the author tried to show us with this story.

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When Hannah's 15-year-old daughter Olivia defies her parents and sneaks out to a party, I thought, ok, not great behavior, but how many teenagers have done the same thing. Olivia's response when caught isn't odd either, she tells her mother she hates her and will never speak to her again. Then some strange events start happening to Hannah, and she is sure she knows who is to blame. Not her younger daughter and certainly not her husband, which means Olivia must have an agenda and Hannah does like it, not one bit.
The Argument wasn't at all the book I thought it would be. Distraught parents, a rebellious teenager, and the perfect younger sister are all present and accounted for, but an unreliable narrator makes the things that occur appear obvious until the author turns everything upside down. All I can say without entering spoiler territory is nothing is as it seems. This was a quick read at just over 200 pages, and when I reached the end, I looked back and could see how skillfully the author had fooled me. My first book by Victoria Jenkins and not my last.

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It starts off with daughter Olivia being told by mom Hannah that she cannot attend a party. Being 15 years old, she's doing what most teenagers do .... sneak out of the house and attend the party anyway. After all... what can happen ... right?

Hannah waits up, worrying about her daughter, especially since her husband is out of town working. When Olivia finally gets home, she's slightly tipsy, and the argument begins.

What parent has never heard ... I hate you ... I'm never going to speak to you again ... at least once?

Olivia is determined, if nothing else. She doesn't speak for a day ... she doesn't speak for a week... Hannah is almost enjoying the peace and quiet. But then ... she doesn't know what the future holds .... and a nightmare begins.

What starts out as a family drama, it soon turns into something much more deadly. There are twists and turns that rival a roller coaster ride. Surprise after surprise kept me riveted to the pages. And the ending was utterly unpredictable.

Many thanks to the author / Bookouture / Netgalley for the digital copy of this unputdownable psychological thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

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I enjoyed the book until I got to the end. Disappointed in the ending. It was too unbelievable to me..
Thought it should have had a better ending.
#NetGalley
#The Argument

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The Argument by Victoria Jenkins ...... Publish date December 10...... In the beginning you think this is a typical family with a stay at home mom....a hard working dad....2 children ...... the 15 year old teenager being the typical teenager trying to test the boundaries of her parents..... you think she is being a brat and disrespectful..... until she isn’t.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy!!!!

This was a very quick read and at first thought where is this going. There was drama but really not enough to be this huge psychological thriller.....then BOOM! And I mean SHOCK and BOOM!! Definitely the best part of the book was the last 40% and then I couldn’t put it down. 🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 stars because I was totally blindsided by this twist!!

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This is a great psychological thriller that took me by surprise.
The book is about an argument between Olivia and her mum but there is so much more to it than that. After the argument Olivia refuses to speak to her parents and things spiral out of control from there.
I can’t say much more about the story as I really don’t want to spoil it for you.
I didn’t feel empathy for either Hannah or her daughter at first, and I think this was intentional.
This is a great story that has a shocking twist in store.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

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I feel that I wasted my time reading this book. The synopsis made it sound a lot better than it was. It was slow and I could not connect to any of the characters. There were a few clues about the twist but I felt that the twist and the ending did not really gel with the rest of the book.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

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First, I want to thank Victoria Jenkins, Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with this book so I may bring you this review.

The Argument by Victoria Jenkins is one of the best reads of 2019! I don’t know how Victoria came up with this story but keep writing like this. You are an incredible asset to this genre! Victoria Jenkins brings you a book that started out relatable but then oh watch out it got seriously messed up and very twisted. To the point where I have never wanted to smack a character in the book all for not realizing what situation she was really in!

This book tops my list of most twisted darkest psychological books Bookouture has put out-and I LOVED it!! The more I read this genre the more I love it! Victoria Jenkins you are one of the queens of this genre since writing this book! I wont beable to get that middle to ending of the book out of my head!

No joke Victoria had me hooked at Dear Diary! Just that first page was incredibly and totally intense about how a daughter felt about her Mom. I was hooked since then.

What was very relatable in the book were the fights between Mother and Daughter. The teenage rebellion and wanting to fit in like the others. I totally got that aspect of the story. I was once her to an extent.

The raw deep bottled up emotions in this book, the secrets kept for many years, the exploding shocking twists that I never saw coming, the similarities between the characters that were revealed, WOW what a story!

She also did an amazing job dragging out that storyline til BAM the story really exploded! Hold on to your seats because she is going to take you to no where any author has ever been before.

When all that is said and done my heart truly went out to Olivia in this.

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If you are looking for a story where the reader is put on a wrong footing, you should try this one!

When you start reading, you are convinced that the author is going to take you from A to B, eventually with slight a detour via C but in fact she takes you from A to B via Z!

In the beginning you think it's quite clear who is behind everything, but there was always a little feeling that I had that somehting did not really add up. 

I was hoping that I was right on one of the secrets that I thought I had unravelled. On the one hand it filled me with disgust. On the other hand it would certainly be a brilliant move by the author. I was happy and sad at the same time that I was right.

It was so hideous, but perfect for a story in this genre.

She invented a totally disturbed baddie which leads to an amazing book. 5 stars

Thank you, Victoria Jenkins and Bookouture

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In this psychological/domestic thriller we find a mother, Hannah at odds with her 15yo daughter Olivia. Told from the alternating POV's of these two it appears this is the typical "my parents are ruining my life" teenage angst family drama. What it evolves into is this but so much more. A well told, quick and easy read, I found my allegiances flip-flopping with each new twist and revelation. Is Hannah just trying to protect her daughter's? Is Olivia just trying to shield her younger sister? And What does the father gave to do with it all? There came a time when I thought I had it all figured out only to have a wrench thrown in to throw me off. Although there is nothing ground breaking or new here, I did enjoy the twisted journey into the depths of what a family will go to, to keep it all together. If you like family driven psychological thrillers I'm sure you'll enjoy this one.

Thank you Bookouture, NetGalley and the author for granting me an ARC to read, review and enjoy.

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15-year-old Olivia goes off to a party, against her parents’ wishes and this causes an argument between her and her mother, Hannah, upon her return home. During this argument, she tells her mother that she hates her and refuses to talk to her. Hannah thinks this is just another teenage burst of emotion, but when Olivia is still not talking days later Hannah begins to worry that there is something else going on…

Told from both Hannah and Olivia’s points of view, this story takes you on a rollercoaster of a ride through the actions of a teenage girl and a mother seemingly taking the full brunt of her moods. As the story is told from both characters, you get to know them pretty well separately, and as usual with books of this type, you just know that one of them is going to be more trustworthy than the other! It was just a case of working out which one. I didn’t particularly like Hannah’s character, although I did empathise with her, as those of us with teenage children all know how frustrating they can be. She seemed a very strict mother, far more than was probably necessary, and I got the impression that she favoured her younger daughter more. Olivia was the more likeable character out of the two, but pushing the boundaries set by her parents didn’t always make her easier to like!

The story went a completely different way to what I expected! It began steady with the expected “argument”, but as it moved on and strange events began to happen in the household it took on a more sinister storyline. Just when you thought it was all about teenage rebellion and a mother who couldn’t cope with it, it twisted and turned into a much more complex plot. The last quarter of the book answered so many questions that cropped up through the rest of the book and suddenly…everything about Hannah and Olivia made sense!!

This wasn’t a fast paced, shoved right in your face psychological thriller. What it had though was a slow and steady build up, laying down the path for when the story all of a sudden turns up the action and deals you that sucker punch with its ending!! Full of drama, mistrust and lies, the story takes you on a fraught emotional journey with a climax you don’t see coming!! Would definitely recommend.

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This was a cracker of a book.

You start of with a family, mum, dad, younger daughter and teenage daughter with teenage angst. So far so normal.

Teenager Olivia is causing her mum and dad lots of issues and getting into trouble at school, her mum thinks she knows why Olivia acts up, but can't tell her.

Then, just when you think you've worked it out... Bam, plot twist!

Thanks to Net galley for the opportunity to review this book, this is my honest opinion.

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A Mother and A daughter. Secrets, lies.

Add in a father and a sister.

One messed up family. Or so one thinks.

Hannah the mom is not likeable but she plays off well against the daughters Olivia and Rose.

The story slowly reels you in. I found myself thinking I am missing something here but what?

Then comes the big twist, I never saw coming.

Great read, makes you think about this very dysfunctional family.

THanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for a great read.

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This was good!!! It does start off slow........but once you see where it's going, that will seem like the right pace. This is about an argument between a mother and daughter who wants to go to a party. Until it's not. The twist is greatness!! I like the diary entries and not being sure whose they were. I was not crazy about Hannah, as she was not a very likeable person, but that is what the story needed. Overall, a very good read!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Victoria Jenkins and Bookouture for this ARC!!

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This is a seriously twisted domestic drama that starts out slowly and shatters with a deviation that I really didn't expect. Sure, mothers and teenaged daughters don't always see eye to eye...

Whenever I see the words, psychological thriller, I get a bit blasé. I've read hundreds of them and pride myself on spotting those important clues that give away the direction long before the denouement. Since this novel is narrated by both mother and daughter, I figured one of them had to be unreliable. Is it Hannah, the overprotective mother who just wants to keep her daughters safe or is it 15-year-old Olivia who is doing everything she can to try the patience and love of her parents? Then there's Michael, the doting husband, who's given Hannah everything she ever dreamed of having after a pretty bad childhood. And, Rosie, the younger sister who just follows the rules and appears to be the daughter they love more. There's a lot going on and I'll say no more so that you can appreciate this disturbing tale WITHOUT SPOILERS.

I've decided to rate this 4 stars because of the ending. I did read this in a single sitting over a couple of hours because I just had to know before I slept. Some of it seemed very slow but that was what ended up making the startling climax and conclusions so "in your face." It sure brought out all the feels. I can't wait to read more reviews!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend.

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Whoa!! What a book!! It is twisted in darkness, wrapped in delusion, and shaded in hypnotism. A brainwashing of sorts. Victoria Jenkins best book to date.

Mother and daughter can have a rocky relationship. This pair did too. Olivia sneaked out for a party, mom was angry. Mobile phone was taken as the punishment. Olivia stopped talking to mom. For many days. Then one day she did. And secrets popped up, crawling slithering worms which left devastation.

Having read most of her books, I expected a suspenseful thriller from the author. But what I got was a story which explored the dark warped minds. You have to read it to believe it. The story laid down the right foundation till 60%. 8 loved how it lulled me deeper into their relationship giving me both their POV. I knew I had to read carefully as a sense of danger pinged my senses.

And WHAM!! I was hit by a revelation so powerful that it changed all that I knew. I could see everything with different eyes. The author skilfully had laid rose tinted glasses on my kindle, and when that was removed with a snap, I was sent reeling into the stratosphere.

Holly Fuck!! That was quite unexpected. Plop on my arse I went!! And I stayed there for the rest of the time long after the book was done!! Whoa! What a ride.

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