Book Review: The Resort by Sara Ochs
Atmospheric and completely different in style from any book I’ve ever read, check out my full review for The Resort by Sara Ochs below!
Book Information
Cass is just trying to leave her past behind. So starting a new life on a secluded island in Thailand sounds like a good idea. There, she finds a new family, gets engaged, and everything feels perfect for once in her life. Until people start dying and Cass can’t stop the sneaking suspicions that someone on the island is lying, and it’s not just her.
Brooke is a travel influencer who came to this tiny island in Thailand and is garnering plenty of likes for her picturesque posts. But she soon realizes that there are more sinister things on this island at play, and it’s all a little too close for comfort.
Together, Brooke and Cass try to catch the killer before time runs out or one of them ends up as just another body on a cursed island.
Review | Heidi Dischler
I’m honestly not sure what I expected from this novel. This book really had a ton of twists and turns and maybe I thought I was getting into something a little more supernatural, butt his wasn’t it. It’s more murder mystery than anything with creepy vibes that remind me of the island parities where people end up starving and dead.
There were a lot of things at play here and honestly, the whodunit wasn’t predictable at all. I was worried that it was going to be predictable, but it kind of came from left field, and I think that may have bothered me more than it wowed me. When things happen without warning in a novel, I kind of get turned off because… like… where did that even come from? It feels like those scenes are just written for shock factor without any evidence to back them up. That’s how I felt about the ending of this book, but I’ve read a lot of reviews from people who thought it was well executed soooo take from that what you will.
In terms of characters, you get a LOT of depth. Each of them felt layered (at least the main ones you follow around), and their backstories are so intricate that you wonder how long it took the author to come up with them. Also some backstories were less feasible than others, but I won’t get into that.
I think the main thing that bothered me with this book is the plot and the pacing. You are literally thrown around this novel without a care in the world and it makes you feel like you just stepped off of a carnival ride that made you lose your lunch. I never knew where the book was trying to lead me and I honestly never felt any urgency to get there. The pace itself was written like it was supposed to be fast, but came off more like it was just pretending to be in a race to the finish line when it was really stuck at a standstill.
Overall this really wasn’t a horrible book, but it wasn’t a good one either. The characters were very layered and interesting, but I was lost with the lack of direction and the pace that made me feel anything but thrilled. 2.5 out of 5 stars round to three for social platforms.
Source: Book of the Month
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
