Nadz@Totally Addicted to Reading
Written on Apr 25, 2023
The Birthday Reunion tells the story of four (4) friends, Jodie, Hannah, Vicky and Simone. These four ladies friendship forged over adverse circumstances and they remained close until Jodie betrayed them. Since then they have had no contact with her. Fast forward twenty (20) years later Hannah, Vicky and Simone received an unexpected invitation to Jodie's 'fortieth birthday celebration' on the island of Ibiza.
Now the ladies made a promise to never speak to Jodie again which had them questioning if they should accept the invitation. After much deliberation the decided to go. However, upon reaching their destination they learnt Jodie did not send them an invitation. So the question on everyone's mind was, who sent the invitation and why?
Now with a premise such as this one would expect a fast paced and thrilling tale. Well the story moved at a painfully slow pace and it did not offer up a thrilling ride. It wasn't until around the eighty percent mark that things started to get interesting.
The characters failed to wow me. None of them were likeable and I cared not one iota about any of them.
The story moved between the past and the present. Now usually I don't have issues with this, but it didn't work for this story. The switch between timelines was not seamless which led to some confusing moments.
Although classified as a thriller, The Birthday Reunion failed to offer up an thrills. No unexpected twists occur, neither did the story deliver up any nail biting moments. In other words the story bored me. I must admit the reason I kept reading lay in my desire to know who extended the invitation and the motivation behind it. Unfortunately the revelation proved quite underwhelming.
This was my first experience with the author's work and it quite likely may be my lastThis review was originally posted on Totally Addicted to Reading