If you have been following my blog for a while, you know by now that I need a palate cleanser every now and then. After a lot of fantasy and bigger books, this was the case again in March. I was scrolling through my audiobook TBR on Storytel and stumbled upon The Forgotten Garden by Sharon Gosling. I then found out this service decreased the maximum speed to 2.0 and I was not amused. Oh well. I actually forgot about this book, because most books on this TBR are saved for later and don’t get prioritized. However, I still gave it a chance. Was this the book I needed at this exact same moment or was it not really my cup of tea after all?

About the book

The Forgotten Garden by Sharon Gosling
Published by Simon & Schuster on April 27, 2023
Pages: 432
ISBN: 9781398519176
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, General fiction

Budding landscape architect Luisa MacGregor is stuck in a rut – she hates her boss, she lives with her sister, and she is still mourning the loss of her husband many years ago. So when she is given the opportunity to take on a parcel of land in a deprived area, she sees the chance to build a garden that can make the area bloom.
 Arriving in the rundown seaside town of Collaton on the north-west coast of Cumbria, she realises that her work is going to be cut out for her. But, along with Cas, a local PE teacher, and Harper, a teen whose life has taken a wrong turn, she is determined to get the garden up and running.
 So when the community comes together and the garden starts to grow, she feels her luck might have changed. Can she grow good things on this rocky ground? And might love blossom along the way…?

My review

Expectations

As this book was saved with the intention to listen to it sometime later and therefore was not prioritized at all, I didn’t have many expectations before reading. In the Netherlands we have a separate genre for this kind of stories, feelgood. Some of its trademarks are the, of course, feelgood vibe and also the predictability of the plot. I expected the same for this book. I was hoping for lot of character growth but was wondering whether this would be fair to expect this or not. I was just expecting this book to serve as a palate cleanser after all the other books I’ve read before and that’s it.

Characters

This novel is told through three POVs as we have three important characters. Firstly, landscape architect Louisa who has a livelong dream of building a community garden for people who need it. When she gets the opportunity to buy a piece of land, she has her doubts as the reason why she never chased this dream is pretty sad. She comes off as pretty insecure and kind of afraid of living life. We slowly find out why and although this is very emotional, I didn’t feel any emotions towards her story. Throughout this book she shows growth, but it’s quite a predictable one. Secondly, there’s Harper, a troubled teen who has faced a lot of setbacks in life and still is fighting every single day. She is rebellious and misbehaves a lot, but she sees no way out due to her living circumstances. Finally, we have sports teacher Cas, who is kind of the pillar of the village. He strongly believes in creating a community and provides the youth a place to learn and play sports. To be honest, those characters are written fine for this story, but not for my own preferences. When we look further into character growth, this is most visible for Harper. However, none of them left any impression on me. I even had to look up Cas’ name, because I literally forgot it.

Writing

This novel has been written fine. It’s an easy and accessible writing style, which fits the aim of being a palate cleanser perfectly. The multiple POV narration works well here, so do the relatively short chapters. Still, I wasn’t fully sucked in and that’s probably because the writing style is kind of average when you compare it to other books. It’s not good, not bad, but just fine.

Plot

As stated before, in the Netherlands this type of book is classified as feelgood. I totally understand this, because it gives off feelgood vibes. The story is predictable, and the ending is okay. There are no loose threads anymore and there are several full circle moments here. The predictability of this book is what bugged me most whilst listening, I was never fully intrigued or excited. I just listened to it because it’s a good palate cleanser. However, I totally forgot most of it already and the plot didn’t leave any impression on me. This is unfortunate, because the villagers deal with such heavy themes every single day. Unemployment, poverty, criminal records and addictions are a few of them.

Final thoughts

The Forgotten Garden by Sharon Gosling did what it was supposed to do, it was a nice breath of fresh air. However, this novel is very mediocre and never left any impression. It contains a lot of feelgood vibes and has a high level of predictability. I knew this beforehand, so I was fine with it. Are you looking for books that have way more surprises in store? This is definitely not for you then. For me neither, I won’t be reading any other books by this author.