When a girls’ weekend away turns into a horror story, will Orla be able to clear her name and solve her friend’s disappearance? Check out my review of the Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson.
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Jen’s Quick Take: The Weekend Away
- A domestic suspense book combined with a vacation thriller
- With a little bit of a Friend Thriller
- And an unresolved ending
- Published on April 13, 2021 by Avon Books
- Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance review copy.
Review of The Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson
My feelings for The Weekend Away veered all over the place.
I’m a mom who has been on my share of girls’ weekends and moms’ nights out. They always filled me with anxiety. Would my husband manage to feed the kids and keep life on track? Then there was that one trip when I had to do terrifying stuff in a harness, like tightrope walking and ropes courses. Scary.
Orla’s trip is from London to Portugal to meet her old friend Kate. They’ve drifted apart a little as Orla struggled through infertility and then new motherhood, while Kate went through an acrimonious divorce.
Happily, they are reunited again. Kate books a chic restaurant and then drags Orla to a club where they meet two attractive guys. Orla is too drunk to argue when Kate invites the guys back to their Airbnb. Orla passes out, then wakes up the next morning and discovers that Kate is missing.
As Orla struggles to find Kate in a strange city, she will discover some unpleasant truths about their trip and their friendship.
At first, this book filled me with anxiety.
Then I started to enjoy it – there were a lot of twists and turns. It was one of those books I wanted to keep reading. The Lisbon setting was fun, the pace was quick, and Orla was a sympathetic protagonist.
But then….
I came to the ending. What???? I am just not a fan of this new thriller trend of the (seeming) resolution and then a mini-chapter with an open ending. It reminds me of Friday the 13th where at the very end, the killer rises up out of the lake.
So, yeah. I do recommend The Weekend Away for thriller fans but only if you can handle a slightly unresolved ending.
Curious about the ending? Want to know more about the upcoming Netflix adaptation of the book? Want to read my spoiler review of The Weekend Away? You can find all that in this post!
I haven’t really been reaching for thrillers lately and I’m definitely not a fan of an open ended situation. I think the only open ended movie/book I could easily handle WAS the Friday the 13th movies because you pretty much knew what was going to happen though sometimes the settings were a surprise.
Haha true. And there were like five movies so you knew that the killer had to keep sneaking back somehow….
I never had the opportunity to do the girl’s weekend thing. I always thought that they sounded fun though. Of course, Orla’s trip doesn’t sound exactly fun. I must say that I do like things to be wrapped up with no unresolved issues when I read a thriller.
I agree! What is this trend? I may have to do a post about it…
I have been collecting some thriller novels, so I might add this one to the pile. I’m also not a fan of an open-ended endings. I want resolution, dammit! Lol. Anyway, still sounds good, though. Especially the locations.
The thriller/mystery is ALL about order being restored. None of this shady open ending stuff!
Oh I love stories like this but I appreciate the warning about the ending- those are hit or miss for me when they do that. I do like a real ending and not these open- ended what if’s sometimes lol.
This one would have had me throwing the book across the room. Except I was reading on my kindle. I did enjoy the book up until that very, very last par.