I took great pleasure in reading Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose. I was entertained and vested in the characters. The characters were all interesting and different. I liked how Disha Bose wrote the timeline, each character giving you their perspective on each day. It gave you a chance to see what the characters thought about or reacted to the same situation or event. The only character that changed depending on who she was with was Ciara. All the others stayed true to themselves, I felt. Well that isn't true because Mishti's husband Parth acted one way when he was around his wife and very different when around everyone else. I wanted to understand the character Lauren better, why she was treated badly and snubbed by the other women. Did one confrontational meeting between Ciara and Lauren really set the tone for their relationship? Isn't it crazy but true how we judge each other even when one person might be having a really bad day and we hold on to that first meeting, never giving the other person a chance to explain or show their true colors.
I half guessed the ending but was surprised by all the events that occurred at the end of the book. I liked how all the characters got a chance to say what they thought. I think this would make a great movie or series for television. A second book about the children of all these adults would be good too! I want to Thank NetGalley for sending me a free ARC of Dirty Laundry for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for this book., “Dirty Laundry” is a domestic suspense that includes a circle of friends who choose who they want to surround themselves with.
How well do we really know our friends, and does anyone really have a perfect life?
What would you do to be included? A web of deception is definitely weaved in this debut novel. The question is who will win? Or are they all losers in this web.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! The twists in this novel are surprising and fun. The influencer protagonist is as awful as one would expect an influencer to be; she's vain, manipulative, and selfish. The women in her orbit are flawed and relatable; the men are flawed and less forgivable.

The ending is shocking but satisfying.

Oh, man...Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, oh, what a relief it is!
This was going so great until that ending...WTH?
The town whore is back ...but really, doesn't she have better things to do?
Every man, woman, and child for themselves is what we have while everyone finds a way to stroke their own ego's for selfish ways.
Everyone is in each other's lives so much so it's impossible to know who is enjoying it more.
However, it is what it is...Isn't that what all guys say ONCE CAUGHT!
There's no real winner or loser because for me nobody gives one red cent about the other in marriage, in outside relationships, with their children or hell with their own pets.
This is a debut by Disha Bose and it was going great but that ending just left me wanting more. The characters are the kind you love to hate and then despise.
Ciara winds up murdered but heck can you blame anyone after the facts have been exposed!
I'm really left with a void here on this one.
Thank you to Disha Bose, Random House, and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I am kind of conflicted about this book. It centers on a group of moms living in a small Irish town, and is told from the alternating points of view of Mishti, Ciara, and Lauren. Ciara is the town's queen bee who has taken Mishti under her wing, but has essentially outcast Lauren from the rest of the town for reasons that seemed petty as far as I could tell. You know from the synopsis that Ciara gets killed; the book tells you this in the beginning and then goes back a few weeks to the events leading up to it.

As others have said, there was no likable character in this book and I thought most of them were just pathetic. Mishti was the only one that seemed like a decent person, and I specifically loved the relationship she had with her daughter. However, her actions at the end of the book seemed so far out of character that I then questioned my initial assessment of her.

The ending of the book is abrupt and actually just left me feeling sad. Horrible people who get what they deserve doesn't really give me any heartburn, but I was left with the thought that it didn't have to be like that if there was just ONE decent human being of the bunch. I don't know if the intent was to make the reader sad, but that's how I felt.

Overall, it was an engaging read that kept me interested the whole time, but I can't really say I loved it based on the characters and the overall sentiment I walked away with. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An impressive debut by Disha Bose! But before getting to the book itself, I have issues with the publisher’s description * Possible spoiler alert * For me, the opening sentence is very misleading. Labeling Dirty Laundry as domestic suspense is questionable – I did not find the story thrilling or suspenseful except somewhat in the last chapter or so. More importantly, the “murder” couldn’t possibly cause “chaos” or “shatter” the clique of mothers. Even though the body is discovered early on in the story, the death doesn’t actually occur until the last few pages. Then the ending is so abrupt that whatever impact or fall out there may have been - it wasn’t even included in the story.

As to the book itself… it had an interesting and twisty character-driven story line. A slow burn, it focused on the interactions of a number of the most unlikeable characters I can remember meeting all in the same book. Just when I thought all had been revealed about their personalities, Bose ripped off another layer. Most had fairly compelling and believable back stories but one in particular stood out – Mishti. As much as I was drawn to her, I was left with questions – her relationship with her family back in India, the brief encounter with her first boyfriend – a bit unsatisfying. Overall, the characters were both well-developed and well-written albeit unsympathetic … a lot of dirty laundry indeed. The cast made up for the places where I found the plot a bit confusing and drawn out as well as the abrupt ending.

Bose is a promising author and I look forward to her next book. Perhaps flaws such as loose ends and uneven pacing will work themselves out next time around.

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

A twisty tale of murders and love gone wrong. Loaded with bone chilling revelations.
She was the perfect wife with the perfect life. You would kill too v have it.

This was an interesting mystery. How the neighbors’ lives twined into each other. Lots of lies.. Many characters. I wasn’t; crazy about the abrupt ending.

Thanks to Net Galley for sending me an advanced reader’s copy for review.

Dirty Laundry is a novel by Disha Bose, a new author I found on Goodreads and NetGalley. Listed as a recommendation for mystery lovers in 2023, I eagerly received an early copy and added it to my January queue. I very much enjoyed the book but I will say, all of the characters except for Mishti were truly horrible people. And I'm not entirely sure if that was meant to be the case. Several couples (parents with toddler children) in a small country village where social media is all the rage. They basically spar with each other over how to raise children, each trying to up the other with curating a social media presence that's not an accurate depiction of their lives. It all started with a very rude encounter between two women and went further south quickly. I must say, they were both in need of a good therapist, and they should've had their kids taken away from them. While they might be semi-decent mothers, they were teaching such poor values, those kids will be monsters in the future. Okay, rant done... all that to say is it's pretty powerful when an author can create this type of emotion in a reader. So... the story follows the women through a few years and culminates in the death of one of them. By the time you figure out the relationships between all the couples, it becomes an intriguing puzzle to solve, but it's really not a mystery in the typical sense. It's a drama about the lengths people go to prove they are happy when in reality, they are desperately in need of a dose of the truth about themselves. Even Mishti has her troubles and does a few not-so-nice things, but mostly, I felt a lot of sympathy for her throughout the story and understand why she took the steps she did at certain points in time. Great book, can't wait to see what else the author dreams up.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC.

Oooh this was good! Twists and suspense galore, everyone has their secrets, the atmosphere was perfect, the writing was wonderful. I really enjoyed this.

LOVED LOVED LOVED. A twisty, suspenseful domestic thriller full of people and their many secrets. Set in Ireland, a neighborhood of people who all secretly hate each other. But also constantly seek out the validation from one person in particular. No spoilers from me! You’ll have to read it!

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ballantine Books and the author for the advanced copy of this book on exchange for an honest review. This book originally interested me for the desperate housewives vibes. As I begun reading, I started to wonder who would want to kill Ciara Dunphy? Then I continued and realized literally anybody and everybody. She is one of the most unlikeable characters without a single redeeming quality. The problem for me was so we’re the rest of the characters. I rooted for no one in this book. Even if I thought for moment I liked other characters they were proven to be silly and immature. The whole cast of characters were so immature and deplorable I didn’t care what happened. Unfortunately the pacing of this book was so off for me. The middle of the book was most interesting and fast paced but it was bookended by the beginning which detailed the boring lives of these deplorables and then the end which was a rushed nightmare full of assumptions and rapid tying of lose ends. I wanted to like this one but unfortunately I can’t really say I enjoyed it.

I’m conflicted about this book! Usually, I feel pretty strongly one way or another, but this book is a bit different. The first 75-80% is about three women in a small Irish town:

Ciara is the perfect Instagram mom, posting skincare tips and parenting advice. Her husband, Gerry, is completely uninterested in her (and seemingly his own children).

Lauren has always been a bit of a loner, and she definitely feels like an outcast, even in adulthood. She’s in somewhat of a common-law marriage with Sean, who seems to think they are in an open relationship (although Lauren never agreed to those terms). They have three children together, and while life together used to be good, their relationship has now flatlined.

Mishti is a woman from India, living in an arranged marriage with Parth, but pining for another man from hometown of Calcutta. Her husband treats her like property, and she’s made very few friends since being in Ireland. Her daughter is about the only thing keeping her going, as she really doesn’t have much else in her life.

These characters are written well, and were all entertaining in their own ways. The part that threw me until the end was why we were learning everything about these women and what it would lead to. They all had decent stories that intertwined nicely, but it took a long time to get to the big twists and the action.

I wouldn’t call this a page-turner, but it was good, and short enough that I still finished it in one sitting. I liked disliking the characters, and the ending was done quite well. I’m giving this 3.5 stars, rounded up for being a debut novel. These women all had dirty laundry, indeed!

(Thank you to Random House - Ballantine, Disha Bose, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on April 4, 2023.)

It's been awhile since I read a book, in print or on a device. I have been so used to listening to audiobooks, off late. I was amazed at how fast I read this book.

I really enjoyed the book. The characters were setup nicely. I would give this book 3.5 starts. Although, it was not hard to guess what could have happened, it was still a nice read.

I found Dirty Laundry entertaining, but at times predictable. It does have a Desperate Housewife vibe to it, but Disha Bose does a good job of keeping you interested..

I will be posting this review on Goodreads as of Feb 2, 2023

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose was not a great read for me. None of the characters were likeable and some of them even improbable. The opening was good, but the story meandered a lot, with infidelity, unhappy marriages, disillusionment, jealously and more, you would think the plot would be more interesting, but I couldn't really get into it. Thanks to Netgalley for the free book.

Great story that keeps you entertained the whole way through. I loved the main characters in this one. They were all so well written.

I just want to start by saying how much I enjoyed this book! The murderous mystery is draws in the reader and I was thoroughly pleased with its clever ending. But what I most enjoyed was the truthful, sometimes funny. sometimes brutal expose on modern motherhood and family life. While the characters may be drawn as exaggerations of a type, who hasn't had some wicked thoughts as a wife and mother.

This was a surprisingly good debut. Alot of character development. I liked each of the perspectives, and of course it's my favorite kind of neighborhood troupe! Well done. Thanks for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really had a hard time with this one; it was one of those books where virtually every character is unlikable. I really like books where I have someone to root for so this one was not for me. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book I exchange for my honest review.

I had high hopes for Dirty Laundry but it was just OK. It is a twisty ride that plays through the lives of 3 women. Between their lives, kids and husbands - it is a juicy book that reminded me of Mean Girls. It is very well written I just found myself having to reread parts of it because my mind would trail off. Overall, 3 stars.