ellievirginia 's review for:

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

2.0

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I am disappointed. The ending that is written leaves you with plot holes and the motives of one character forces the reader to suspend logic and reality in order to accept these motives and actions. Maybe I’m supposed to read in between the lines and fill in these holes by myself. Which, I guess I did, because I thought of a different ending that made more sense than what I got (but more on that later). The dual POVs held my attention well enough, although the 70s timeline did feel a bit trite with characters and events more 2 dimensional than not. I do have to say that the idea of a feminist-horror book written in the 70s called Lilith Rising doesn’t exist in real life. That sounds like it would be right up my straight! I do have to admit that the excerpts of Lilith Rising didn’t actually sound good to me… but the idea of it! I wish it was real!

The modern day timeline was a bit slow going at times, but I thought it was building to a big, dramatic reveal! It did lead to a dramatic reveal I guess, but one that felt unsatisfying. 
FOLLOWING IS SPOILER CITY, CAUTION!!

[SPOILER: ] Sure Chess did sleep with Matt, but her explanation and reasons for carrying on this relationship was such a load of garbage that I thought for sure she was manipulating Emily! And Matt’s energy just being the cause for her sickness? What?? This is a joke, right??

I thought Chess was having an affair with Matt and wanted to have a life with him. So, in order to do this, Chess told Matt to start poisoning Emily a little bit to make her sick. Once she was sick, Matt could leave her with that as an excuse rather than admitting his relationship with Chess. It was Chess’s idea to try to get money for the Petal books because she grew up with a financially unstable mother as well as knowing her self-help books were at a dead end. When Emily put up a fight I court, Chess had the idea to take her on a vacation and convince her subtly into giving Matt what he wanted. But then, as soon as Chess learned Emily was writing a new book, another idea hit! Chess would try to leech off of this new book that would revitalize her career! Still wanting to be with Matt, Chess told him that they could still be together if he got a legal separation from Emily, saying the court and financial part of the divorce could wait. Wanting Emily to still be done with Matt and thinking of telling her that it was his toxic energy that made her sick, she put a little poison or something to make her sick in the margarita she made so lovingly after the phone call Emily had with Matt. When Emily found out, I thought Chess made up a story to make herself look good, but still wanting Emily’s book, she hatched a plan with Matt to come to the villa to finish Emily off. Things would escalate and someone would die. And maybe it’s misogynistic of me to think a female friendship would be ruined by a man, but with how the narrative was going and these two women’s actions towards each other, I thought that’s how it would be. 

Anyways, none of that happened and we were supposed to swallow the stupidest explanation from Chess. So for that reason, I don’t like this book very much. Whatever enjoyment I had, vanished as soon as it was over.