The Resort
By M.J. Hardy
I thought my Reading Reinvention was going well. I exceeded my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal and was on target for the first two months of 2021. I had plenty of good books on my TBR pile. Actually, I had too many books on my TBR pile. I had overcommitted on reviewing books and had no room to read the books I had bought for myself. I was reading excellent books, but they were bogging me down with high page counts and heavy content. I had lost my Reading Mojo and needed a Reinvention.
The creator of my Goodreads Group posted some ideas. The first three didn’t appeal to me, and the fourth wasn’t a book I typically read. For some reason, I wanted to read an excerpt. I was only halfway through the excerpt when I decided to buy it. The next day, I finished reading it.
That was it. I needed a Book-cation. I needed to get myself out of a rut by reading a shorter, lighter book. It made me feel better. I feel rejuvenated and ready to go back to my TBR pile. I’m also going to set up a Book-cation shelf in Goodreads so I could find similar gems that are hiding in my TBR pile.
If you’re looking for a quick escape to a paradise that takes you far away from your chair, then you might want to give The Resort a try. But if you want more substance, witty dialogue, and well-formed characters, then look elsewhere.
A breath-taking resort is opening in one week. For a dry run, three Facebook contest winners are invited for a 5-star all-inclusive week of pampering. Two of the couples are evaluating their relationships, and the third winner is a single woman eager to get away from her failing business. They’re joined by one of the owner’s business partners and his wife. Each chapter, the narrative shifts between the four women. Were they brought together by coincidence, or was there a reason these people were there?
Welcome to the stereotypes. Kim desperately wants to have a baby and wishes her husband wasn’t moody and unfaithful. Evelyn is a bored trophy wife who wants to do something substantial in her life. Emma wants Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet and take her away from her failing bakery to live in luxury. Perhaps the resort owner will give Emma what she wants.
The men are also two-dimensional. Charles is the businessman obsessed with image who controls every aspect of Evelyn’s life. He makes the money, so he dictates every detail of their lives. Jack is an unfaithful husband who has explosive mood swings that Kim endures because she loves him anyway. John is Chloe’s partner who has given her everything but a wedding ring. He doesn’t have much more to him – he’s mostly scene filler. There’s also an older guy in a few scenes who has little interaction with the other guests but oozes creepiness any time he’s near.
There’s little character development, with characters whisked away from the resort when no longer needed. There’s an epilogue attempting to tie up loose ends and throwing together a scene that does not fit at all based on where the previous part of the story had ended.
The Resort is not great literature. It provides an escape, a way to relax and stop thinking for a couple of hours. It’s the kind of book you can read while waiting for a meeting or event to start – it keeps you occupied, but you can easily put it down when you have other things to do.
The Resort provides an escape, a way to relax and stop thinking for a couple of hours. Share on X
