Review--That Weekend by Kara Thomas

 

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.

Three went up the mountain, but only one came back.

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.

That weekend changes everything.

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.

 

Kara Thomas writes a head-spinner of a mystery with That Weekend! This is a read that will keep you guessing until the very end! While I was hoping for a little more mystery, a little more danger, and edge, it was still a read that had me hooked and eager for answers.

It was supposed to just be a fun weekend camping with her best friends, but it turned into a nightmare...one she can't even remember. When Claire breaks up with her cheating boyfriend just before prom, her best friends Kat and Jesse invite her with them for a camping trip they had planned. Even though they are dating, Claire only gets the third wheel feeling every once awhile. She's been friends with them for years and after her heartbreak, she was ready for some fun with her friends.

But that's not where our story begins, it begins with Claire waking up in the middle of the pathway with no memory as to how she got there. She has no memory of the last day, an entire day gone from her memory. Worse, her friends are missing; vanished without a trace and everyone is looking to Claire for answers.

As Claire struggles to remember what happened to her that day, she finds herself spiraling. There is a lot of chaos as search teams comb the forest and mountainside looking for her missing friends. Claire is trying to deal with losing her memory, losing her friends, and having everyone from her classmates to social media thinking she had something to do with their disappearance.

I will admit, that for awhile the pacing to this one is just a little slow. I get that Claire has lost her memory, so I expected that struggle to remember, a desire to help find her friends with no real lead. A bit of a slow pace is expected in this situation. But I was also hoping just for something a little more to be happening throughout all this, but alas, there wasn't. 

It's not until almost halfway through the book that Claire starts her own "investigation." I mean, she doesn't think of herself as a detective or anything, but she follows a few bizarre clues, moments that led her to this or that and that's when things started to get more interesting! But I was completely unprepared for the twist that was about to occur in this book! That took me utterly by surprise!

In some ways, this book did feel a little too ordinary with just a hint of mystery going on. I was hoping for more danger, more chills, much like Thomas' previous books! I wanted a mystery that gripped me in and was dying to find out whodunit. I didn't really get that feeling here. Part of it was because Claire had no memory, but I guess I thought she'd get to the mystery solving a little bit sooner on her own.

That Weekend was a decent read, it just wasn't the chilling mystery that I was hoping for. It was more of a sedate kind of mystery read. One that didn't really have me as eager to get to the ending that I would've liked. True, I needed to find out all the who, what, where, when, why, and how of everything and there was some shocking details that came about in that realm. Although, they soon felt like they came out of left field and were simply there as added shock effect for the tale end. 

While this wasn't my favorite read from Thomas, it was still an interesting mystery with a few chills and thrills thrown in here and there. The ending was where things really ramped up in that respect. I just wish things could've been a little more mysterious in the middle chunk. If you're a fan of regular kind of mystery reads, I would highly recommend this one! There's still enough mystery and edge to this one in the tail end that made it a more shocking read than I could have anticipated. 

Overall Rating 3/5 stars