The Long Weekend by Gilly Macmillan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
What I wanted was an easy-reading page-turner for a flight. What I got was not easy reading and, at times, not very page-turning.
I found the book difficult to read not because it was from multiple points of view, but because those points of view shifted to quickly, unapologetically and needlessly. In a book of short sections and no chapters, this was tough going. I could be seeing the world through Ruth’s eyes one paragraph and Emily’s the next, only to find myself bumped into Jayne’s head the following paragraph. Maybe I was reading it wrong, but I was constantly struggling to find whose eyes I was looking through.
As a crime novel, I expected a certain degree of characters who are messed up and situations that tested my suspension of disbelief. But in this novel, not a single character seemed anchored in anything other than a horrid world, and the situations span out of control. And the bad guy was all the worse for preying on a teenage girl in a way that was somehow far more chilling than anything in Lolita.
This book could have been a hilarious comedy. As a crime novel, I closed it with a sense of relief.