Finished ✔️ Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

3.5 ⭐️’s
Publish Day: April 4th, 2023
Kindle Unlimited: No

A twisty tale of murder and live gone wrong.
It was decent and kind of enjoyable.
Yes, I’d recommend

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I usually need at least one character that I can support in a story to enjoy it. But there really wasn't anyone in this book - - I mean NOT A SINGLE ONE. The only ones that seemed to be at all innocent were the children and honestly I feel guilty saying it but they were often annoying. Seriously though, the adults in this book were all behaving badly and had zero redeeming qualities. Even the ones you thought were somewhat neutral end up having some sneaky and devious tendencies.

All that said, I was glued to this bad boy. I needed to see how everything played out because there was a lot going on plot wise and too many potential guilty parties. The title was definitely appropriate - - Dirty Laundry - - everyone's dirty laundry was on display in this book. And if it wasn't on display, then you could wait a minute and it soon would be.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

This was a great fast-paced novel that was easy to binge! I really liked the multiple POVs as the month leading up to Ciara's death is chronicled. I liked the way the end circles back to the beginning, but the book ended so abruptly that I felt like I was just left hanging.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴛʜɪs ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ:
🧺 love a domestic thriller in a small village setting
🧺 relate to attempting to balance it all as a perfect mom
🧺 enjoy a cliffhanger

Dirty Laundry, by Disha Bose

Short Take: Some interesting elements that don’t quite gel.


Duckies, I have been away from the computer most of the day, so this review will be a bit short. That said, I spent the day hanging out with one of my oldest & dearest friends, and I regret nothing.

Lunch, shopping, real talk about serious personal stuff, and the kind of giggles you only get with someone who’s been in your life for three-quarters of it, well… you get the idea. I’m a big believer in Chosen Families, and I know that my life is definitely richer for mine.

That said, the women of Dirty Laundry clearly never got that memo.

Three very different mothers live in one small Irish village: Ciara is the glamorous trophy wife and social media influencer. Mishti is the immigrant from India, with an unhappy arranged marriage. And Lauren is the outcast weirdo, whose children are always loud and frequently nude.

Ms. Bose has crafted a sort of Mean Girls: The Later Years, and although she has a brilliant grasp of how fraught and full of undercurrents relationships between women can be, I just couldn’t fully get into this book, mostly because I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters. My biggest issue was Ciara - a bottomless pit of need, a perfectly textbook narcissist, caring only for her own needs and wants, she requires constant attention and validation.

And therein lies the problem - she’s TOO textbook, too hollow. Her various relationships and flirtations don’t always make a whole lot of sense, her motivations are generally murky.

Lauren and Mishti are a little easier to understand, although still not very relatable. Mishti’s doormat lifestyle was frustrating, and Lauren’s history of [spoiler] was just weird and snuffed out any sympathy I had for her. And maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I’d like to think that most of us outgrow our various high school petty grudges and cattiness and fear of being ourselves once we pass thirty.

But if you can look past those elements (or even enjoy them?), the story itself is engaging, and the setting is marvelous. And I will toss the author an extra neuron for an ending that wasn’t what I expected.

The Nerd’s Rating: FOUR HAPPY NEURONS (and a nice cup of tea).

Thank you Disha Bose,Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC e-book. A clan of mothers who are neighbors is what others would look and envy but when one of them ends up dead... murdered to be exact their carefully curated world comes splitting open. This domestic thriller plays on the idea that nothing is as it seems. The carefully picked story lines and background for each character makes can make you feel like you know these people in real life. A great book that was full of twists and kept me wondering how it was going to end. I couldn't put it down

Right from the first page, this book has a Liane Moriarty feel to it. The characters are so real, you would recognize them on the street. Their interactions are typical of any community you know. It's almost a twisted Mayberry feel. The synopsis is good, read it and you'll HAVE to meet these women and see what the excitement could be. Disha Bose shows some serious skills when bouncing back and forth between characters and timelines. She didn't lose me at any time......it was easy to see the surprised looks on the faces when Ciara is killed and her dirty laundry is NOT the dirtiest revealed.

For a debut novel, Bose has set her bar pretty high. Can she top it.....we'll have to wait and see.

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose is a domestic suspense story with characters you are not sure to love or hate but that will intrigue you from start to finish. By all accounts Ciara Dunphy has the perfect life. A loving husband, her kids, friends and a successful following. She should be at the top of the world, right? But you never know what is truly happening behind closed doors. On the other hand, her neighbor Lauren’s life seems to be a mess. No control over her kids, partner and no friends. Mishti is so happy Ciara pulled her under her wing and is her friend. But is everything is real as it seems?

As we learn about all three women, their husbands and lives, we realize nothing is as it should be. Ciara is not happy and does not love her husband. Lauren loves her husband but knows he is never truly hers. Misti does not feel for her husband as she should, but wants to build a good family, but at what cost? As their lives come crashing together and one of them is found dead, who will be left standing? I was intrigued by the characters and their stories and am looking forward to reading more from this author.

Happy reading!

Dirty Laundry is a novel of small towns and the pitfalls of social media,

Ciara Dunphy is the acknowledged leader of her small village. She is the original mean girl and rules with an iron fist, who would ever imagine someone would want to kill her? The story covers the lives of three couples and their power struggles for relevancy. Ciara is a very unlikeable social media influencer who treats her family and friends horribly. Then there is Lauren the unmarried local with an older deadbeat parrtner and three children, Finally is Mishti a transplant from India in a loveless arranged marriage. Lauren has attracted the ire of Ciara who goes out of her way to make the rest of the village shun her. Mishti is the gullible (or so Ciara thinks) sycophant that Ciara needs to make her life complete, Then there are the husbands. Gerry who allows himself to be bullied by Ciara, Sean the unfaithful layabout married to Lauren, and Parth the arrogant, distant husband of Mishti. All have a reason to dislike Ciara, but which one has the motive to kill her?

This book was an interesting look into small town village life and the fakeness of social media. While the story was interesting none of the characters were very likeable so I was unable to fully enjoy the story. I hope to see more from the author as the writing was excellent.

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House Ballantine and the author for the chance to read and review this book

"Ciara sometimes thought about that day now. Liz knew she was handing over the reins that had steered her son his whole life. She didn't want to give that kind of power to a woman who knew exactly what she was doing."

They say never judge a book by its cover, but more than anything the cover of this book it what enticed me to request it on NetGalley. In fact, the cover was so alluring that I never even read the description, which is why I was so shocked when this book turned out to be a domestic thriller set in Ireland. Furthermore, I was even more shocked to finish the book and realize I had no idea how the title connected to the plot, or what the cover art was meant to represent beyond the main character’s house. This confusion was pretty representative of my whole reading experience, and left me feeling underwhelmed at the conclusion.

Synopsis:
Ciara Dunphy runs her small Irish town. A gorgeous mother of two, Ciara has set the standard for not just the other moms in her neighborhood, but the world through her mommy-blog Instagram account. As an influencer, her life is perfect: a loving husband, a beautiful home, and well-behaved, adorable children. She’s the go-to for advice, and everyone craves her approval. But when the camera is off, Ciara’s a different story. She resents her children, has been cheating on her husband, and spends thousands on clothes she’ll never wear using money her husband doesn’t know about.

Mishti Guha on the hand is as far out of the limelight as she can be, despite being Ciara’s best friend. An immigrant from India married to man chosen by her parents, Mishti was saved from exclusion when Ciara welcomed her into the mommy and me group with open arms. Now Mishti raises her daughter in a country that’s too cold, too rainy, too white, with a husband who’s never home, and a best friend who seems almost too good to be true. All Mishti wants is what Ciara has––the confidence, the love, the attention––but as her friend continues to slip up, Mishti realizes that there may be more to Ciara underneath the surface.

Then there’s Lauren Doyle, a native to their Irish village and an outcast from day one. Lauren’s as earthy as they come, with long flowing hair, handmade clothes, and three children who run naked in the yard. She may not have the perfect life of her next-door neighbor Ciara, but she has a loving partner, amazing children, and a roof over their heads. Sure, she’d love to be included in the mommy group Ciara has excluded her from, and sure she’d love for her children to have friends at school, and yes, of course she would love for her partner to agree to get married finally, but she’s mostly happy, and that’s enough, right?

But when Ciara is found murdered in her home, the persona she has worked so hard to create for herself crumbles, with secrets, affairs, and dark thoughts escaping through the crack in her skull. Suddenly the entire village seems to have something to gain from her death, including Mishti and Lauren, as well as the three woman’s partners. Will the killer come forward to claim Ciara’s crown, or will the revealed secrets destroy any semblance of normalcy the village once had?

Thoughts:
I went into this book with no expectations, and that may have been my downfall. Although I normally love psychological thrillers, this one fell short for me. Not only did I hate Ciara, but I hated all the characters, even the ones I was supposed to feel sympathy for. There were a lot of scenes I found either unnecessary or unnecessarily graphic, and I couldn’t make myself care about what happened to anyone, regardless of their backstory. A certain points I felt the dialogue was cringy, and none of the twists or reveals wowed me enough to rank higher than three stars. In fact, with each revealed secret I just felt more and more disturbed, and not in the way I usually am with domestic thrillers. By the end I just felt uncomfortable.
However, my biggest complaint would be the title. I understand from the official summary that ‘Dirty Laundry’ is referring to the characters airing each other’s dirty laundry, but there wasn’t a moment in the book where that clicked. There are hundreds of other titles that would have made sense for this story, and could have been pulled from the text to give readers an ah-ha! moment, but dirty laundry was not one of them.

Overall:
In the end, Dirty Laundry was an underwhelming, average story. Despite my numerous complaints, I didn’t hate the plot, and I did enjoy some of the twists and turns in the last few chapters. However, I could have gone without reading this book and been fine. For fans of Sally Hepworth or Geneva Rose, Disha Bose’s domestic thriller is a debut that falls in line with The Perfect Marriage and The Golden Couple.

You would think that when you graduate from high school that cliquish behavior amongst women would go away. I mean can they not grow up? Apparently at least some of the characters in this book have never grown up. This is a book that centers around three very different women who are neighbors with very different lifestyles. Each chapter is told from a different point of view from each character and goes from past to present.

Ciara has a seemingly perfect life. She has the perfect husband, perfect children and plenty of money. She is a social media influencer, and she only shows her followers everything that is pristine and perfect in her life. After a few chapters, you realize that her life is not as perfect as she is portraying it to be. I really did not like the character of Ciara. She had her nose so high in the air that if it rained she would drown. She needed to be brought down a few notches. To put it quite simply, she is a bully as you will very quickly see.

Mishti was probably my favorite character. She is a good soul. She is stuck in a loveless arranged marriage. She did not marry for love. She married for duty. Her husband is rarely ever home, and when he is home, she is treated like the hired help. She is a long way from her home and her family. I felt so sorry for Mishti. She struggled daily to be the kind of wife and mother that she thought she needed to be, and to fit into her community.

Then you have Lauren. Lauren has always been the black sheep of her community - no matter where she resided. No matter how hard she tries, she still feels second best. Ciara does not help this viewpoint as she is constantly putting Lauren down. Ciara takes great joy in bullying Lauren and making her feel like she is a bad mother and wife.

When Ciara's dead body is found in her home, you know the suspects are many. This was a mystery of sorts, but it also covered the gamut of all emotions from fear, jealousy, betrayal, love and hate. Dirty Laundry was aptly titled as each character and her family's dirty laundry is aired for public consumption.

This was a slow burn, but the short chapters made it easy to read.

Thank you to Random House-Ballatine Books for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I love a title that works on many levels and this one fits the bill. I loved the small town setting and always gravitate to a book about neighborhood drama. Ultimately, it came off too juvenile for me. I couldn’t understand why grown women were acting like preteens towards each other when they had bigger fish to fry. The stubbornness of Lauren and Ciara was just too much for me in the end so I checked out early and stopped caring. This is definitely a character driven plot so if you’re into those this may work for you!

This was not for me. I’m okay with unlikable characters, but these were insufferable at times. I also thought the pacing of the story was weird. The middle was slow and had a lot of filler. The ending could’ve been fleshed out a bit more. It’s not for me, but I’m sure lots will enjoy it with it being the GMA bookclub pick.

Happy Pub Day!!! Great entertaining thriller that was easy to read in one sitting! I love the multiple point of views and felt like we understood the story from different sides. Great thriller!

Dirty laundry is like mean girls meets desperate housewives . I loved the small Irish village setting and all the different people who lived there . This would make an excellent book club pick as it touches on all different aspects of the mean moms on the playgrounds. Definitely a great story line with mostly bot likable characters in a good way

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose is a story about three dysfunctional married couples who live on the same street. Some are a little crazier than others. There is no discernible plot, jus the day to day whining and inner thoughts of these people, many of whom think the solution is to have sex with someone who isn’t their partner. Frankly, it left me cold.

I was invited to read a free e-ARC of Dirty Laundry by Random House Publishing-Ballantine, through Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. #Netgalley #RandomHousePublishingBallantine #DishaBose #DirtyLaundry

The book was about three couples and their unhappy marriages. The first 40% of the book told the story of each couple and how they got together. About mid way through the book we finally start to see the connection between the couple. There was several twists regarding the final ending. I think that it took way too long to get to the point of the story. It wasn’t a bad read but nothing special. I do see potential in this debut author and would give their next book a chance.
****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****

This one was definitely not for me. From the description, I assumed this would be a murder mystery but instead it is a slow moving neighborhood drama of jealousy, promiscuity, and parenthood. I couldn't get into any of the characters. They were all so flawed that I didn't really care what happened to any of them. Not for me.

An impressive debut!

A fast paced mystery full of unlikeable characters, which is a trend I've really been loving in domestic thriller's lately!

Think mean girls mixed with desperate housewives mixed with murder and instagram influencers and you'll get this page turner that left me with a new author to watch!

Ciara Dunphy had it all. Beautiful children, a handsome hardworking husband, the perfect house, and a loyal base of social media followers that worshipped her. She seemed to have the perfect life. Online anyway.

But then her mangled dead body is found in her home. And you have to wonder, maybe Ciara’s life wasn’t quite a perfect as she led people to believe.

This book had me interested from the beginning. It starts with the finding of Ciara’s body and I HAD to know what happened. I read it in a day.

Women can be mean. I don’t understand the need to put up a front and make everyone think your life is something that it isn’t. Everyone struggles and none of us are perfect. And maybe if we were more open and honest about that, we would realize we all have a lot in common and can support each other through it.

Out of all the characters in the book, I relayed most to Lauren. She is the outsider, never feeling that she fits in. But no matter how many times she is shunned, she doesn’t give up. She is still kind and determined and just wants to do right by her kids.

There were definitely some little twists toward the end that I didn’t see coming, but I can’t say I was completely taken by surprise overall. Even still, I loved this book and found it very entertaining! I would still recommend this to my friends!

This novel is about a woman who seems to have everything…nice house, great husband, perfect children.
She lives in a cliquish neighborhood. Friends are not easy to cultivate or keep. Enemies are quick to attack vulnerability.
She is killed and there is no shortage of suspects.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me this ARC.