That Weekend by Kara Thomas #BookReview

THREE BEST FRIENDS, A LAKE HOUSE, A SECRET TRIP — WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

It was supposed to be the perfect prom weekend getaway. But it’s clear something terrible happened when Claire wakes up alone and bloodied on a hiking trail with no memory of the past forty-eight hours.

Now everyone wants answers–most of all, Claire. She remembers Friday night, but after that . . . nothing. And now Kat and Jesse–her best friends–are missing.

What happened on the mountain? And where are Kat and Jesse? Claire knows the answers are buried somewhere in her memory. But as she’s learning, everyone has secrets–even her best friends. And she’s pretty sure she’s not going to like what she remembers.

I enjoyed The Cheerleaders last year (here’s my review) so the next one on my wishlist of hers was That Weekend, a novel with an intriguing mystery.

I was all excited for this but I’m not sure what to say about this novel so it’s going to be a short review for once I guess. It was overall an okay story but there were no exhilarating discoveries for me, although I do think it might be a different experience for some readers. The red herrings didn’t work on me this time though, I wasn’t fooled.

My main issue with this novel is that That Weekend didn’t show a lot of progress throughout because Claire doesn’t remember anything. That’s been done a lot before and my opinion often varies how I enjoy this tactic. In this case I felt it didn’t create more mystery or tension but stalled the evolution of the novel a bit too much.

I had actually guessed where the story would go but I’m convinced that the majority of readers will be blindsided by it. I can’t explain why my mind had worked this out other than that I always keep every option in mind and this was one of them. I enjoyed hearing why this had all happened to the three of them but I wish the characters could have had more depth to them from the start of the novel instead of learning about them and finding out their history until I reached the last part.

Unlike The Cheerleaders where there were a lot of different storylines, this one was far on the simpler side. As I’ve come to know this author there is also a darker theme involved which I normally enjoy but it couldn’t give me the happy feeling I was looking for in the end. I am going to give this author another try because I’ve seen her brilliance and I hope the next one will be a whole other story 🙂

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.