The Writing Retreat: A New York Times bestseller

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Suffice to say, it wasn't my "glass of drugged wine" or even water The two stars are mine for finishing this absurd book. I liked how the author built the tension. I was suspicious of everyone. There were so many different occurrences that quite literally got under my skin, however, over time I began to fall out of love with all that was happening here. The Plot meets Please Join Us in this psychological suspense debut about a young author at an exclusive writer’s retreat that descends into a nightmare. Competition is central to the plot and the cause of so many of the events that unfold. In what ways do the young women allow competition to rule their lives at the retreat, and where do you see them rebelling against toxic comparisons? This book is being marketed as a combination of The Plot and U Please Join Us, --this description is accurate. However, this is all you need to know about the plot going in. Avoid the blurb--it didn’t spoil the twist for me, but it helped me to figure it out early on, which slightly ruined my reading experience.

Stomach-clenchingly thrilling from beginning to end... Highly recommended for fans of authors like Ruth Ware and Riley Sager." - Booklist (starred review) The first-person narrative is shared from Alex’s PoV with excerpts from her book interspersed throughout the novel. With its atmospheric setting and Gothic vibes, complicated characters, consistent pacing and intricate plot, Julia Bartz’s The Writing Retreat is a dark and suspenseful psychological thriller with bold feminist overtones. Though not completely unpredictable, there are enough surprises along the way to keep you hooked. If you can suspend disbelief and don’t mind OTT , this will prove to be an entertaining read! This is the kind of book that you would want to finish in one sitting! Overall, The Writing Retreat is an impressive debut and I look forward to reading more from this talented new author in the future. At the start of the novel, Alex sees a pair of high school friends on the subway. Viewing them makes her feel the loss of her friendship with Wren like “a penknife in the ribs,” and she feels sad at seeing the high schoolers’ “shared world. Their undeniable certainty that they were a team” (3). How do Alex’s feelings of loss influence much of the resulting action in the novel? The premise of this thriller is both familiar and unique. A famous author, Roza Vallo, holds a writing contest. If selected, writers will win one of FOUR spots at a retreat located at her isolated old mansion. When a snowstorm ensues, everyone is trapped with no way out. One of the writers soon goes missing, and everyone becomes suspicious. What are Roza’s true intentions? It is up to Alex, Wren, Taylor, Kiera, and Poppy to figure out the true game they are playing before it is too late. Will they publish or will they perish? When all five attendees arrive at their host’s gothic estate, Roza announces that this retreat will not be a relaxed, write-whenever-you-feel-like-it affair. Instead, they must compete to win a seven-figure publishing deal by writing a new novel.

There is a book within the book, and while the storyline is interesting and mirrors the plot of the retreat, I couldn’t help but focus on the anachronisms. This might have been a purposeful plot device, but these sections of the book had me rolling my eyes.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria, and Julia Bartz for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! Now available as of 2.21!** This is the definition of "retreat" referenced in the title of this book, and looking at the cover, this definition makes sense (despite the ominous Overlook hotel-esque overtones provided). We later learn the true extent of what caused their friendship to implode on itself, but that has to wait until Part II and III of the novel. Ursula, a mutual friend of the two, ends up landing both Wren and Alex at an elite writing retreat read by Roza, a popular author who they both admire. Roza became famous as a writer when she was old nineteen years old, as she wrote a novel as her best friend, supposedly dying of stomach cancer, was withering away. Roza’s retreat is an exclusive one, as she only selected four, now five, people to come to her mansion in upstate New York for a month-long retreat that might end in a publishing contract. Um why in the heavens would you invent a story of a Jewish woman falling in love with a n*zi during WWII. It really wasn’t integral to the story whatsoever.

The pace is off balance, the characters are all full of angst, and the author tries to blend other genres into the story. It is a salad with ingredients that don't belong. The excerpts of a book within a book that truly bored me. The descriptions of breasts, nipples and other graphic sex scenes/dreams were awkward and cringeworthy. In the last scene from The Great Commission, Daphne chooses a new name, Elizabeth. “She was leaving her old self behind” (299). Consider who at the writing retreat is trying to leave their old selves behind and why. Does anyone do so successfully? If so, at what cost? The beer gurgled in my stomach. I turned and raced towards the bathroom, making it to a stall just in time. Yellow liquid frothed in the bowl. I sat on my knees and wiped my mouth. I was still clutching the books.