A review by tessa_talks_books
The Weekend Trip by Joanna Bolouri

emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

 

What's it about (in a nutshell):

The Weekend Trip by Joanna Bolouri is an uplifting tale of 5 college besties who grew apart after college but rekindled their friendship ten years later during a weekend get-together.

My Reading Experience:

I loved the friendship themes that ran throughout the story. So many of us lose contact with our college friends as we travel our individual paths after graduation. It was heart-warming to watch this group of friends slowly regain their original connection and feel comfortable enough to open up about their struggles. It reaffirms those friendships' genuineness and ability to withstand the test of time.

I also loved the humorous moments, the scandalousness of some storylines, and just the overall fun times of the reunion. Those moments offset the seriousness of what's going on in these friends' lives without compromising the gravity of what the individual people are dealing with.

The story hits so many relatable moments. The characters, their challenges, their successes - they could be anyone's group of friends from college or even high school. It's this relatableness that gives the story its uplifting message. If these five people can come back together and become the lifelong friends they were always meant to be, then we all can have that same experience with just a little effort.

Characters:

Five friends - Erin, Alex, Beth, Tara, and Becky - were close friends and roommates in college. They agreed to stay in touch, sealing that promise on the beach at Loughview House before heading out on their individual journeys. Ten years later, the friends are entirely out of touch, so Erin decides to have a reunion before she sells Loughview House. 

Erin inherited Loughview House as college was ending. She becomes a successful actress and marries Scott Flynn, a successful businessman (film and TV catering business). But after the death of her husband, she wants to get away from all the memories the house holds.

Alex is a successful novelist who has been very unlucky in love. She meets the man of her dreams as she is headed to Erin's reunion weekend. But will anything become of it?

Beth married her college sweetheart Paul. Her life was thrown off track when she got an MS diagnosis, but she doesn't want her college friends to know about it.

Tara followed her dream to go to New York, but the only thing that came out of that was drug addiction. She returned to the UK and entered rehab. She arrives for the weekend reunion with her casual date, Adrian.

Becky is a free spirit who follows her dreams wherever they take her. She is a masseuse, currently, and arrives at the reunion weekend with her girlfriend, Christine.

Narration & Pacing:

The Weekend Trip reads at a consistently fast pace. It switches points of view between the five friends but stays in third-person narration as it changes focus. This is the only area that I struggled with. I love the fast pace, but switching POVs between five people sometimes needs clarification. I struggled with remembering who was who and their individual stories.

Setting:

An estate called Loughview House on the coast of Ireland is the setting for this story. It provided a meaningful backdrop for all five friends.

Read if you're in the mood for:

• An emotional, funny, and inspiring contemporary friendship story
• A fast-paced tale full of lovably flawed characters
• A novel that resembles such TV shows as Friends or How I Met Your Mother