In The Resort, two young women--a dive instructor and a travel influencer--work together to investigate the suspicious deaths of two resort guests on a remote Thai island resort.

The book starts out strong by bringing in an interesting, varied cast of characters. The Permanents are expats from all over the world, bringing with them unique and storied histories that they attempt to keep hidden as they reinvent themselves on the island. The guests come from equally varied locales, and they bring their own fair share of life history and personal agendas. As the story unfolds, we get to see the ways in which the characters' histories impact their actions and affect the grand orchestra that is this story.

What will stick with me from this book is the plot. It's slow to start, which is good; it gives you a chance to really get to know the characters so that you can keep track of them when they all collide in the final third of the book. When the twists start coming, they don't stop--yet somehow, when the dust settles, the story stands as a glorious, genius, resolved whole. I wish I could gush further about this story, but to go much further would risk snatching from you the experience of living through these experiences with the characters.

Another little thing that I found interesting was the role of social media in the story. Many of the story's big reveals have to do with finding something on Instagram. As one of our intrepid heroines makes her living as a minor influencer, this makes some sense. I think a young reader who's into such platforms would enjoy experiencing the way social media skills determine matters of life and death in this story. Taken together with the themes of self-discovery and finding purpose, this book almost feels best-suited for a young adult audience, as long as they're prepared to handle a very emotional (but non-explicit) retelling of a character's past rape.

While the story and characters drove the book forward, it could have gone farther if the characters were developed more fully. The characterization often felt over-the-top, sometimes pushing the characters' intriguing backgrounds into one-sided caricatures. Then, when new information is revealed to the reader about a certain character, it's like flipping a light switch--the newly revealed person feels discontinuous from their previous self. Even within a scene, a character might act in ways inconsistent with themselves: take one example in which a POV character describes something as "only a few meters away", only to describe something else as "mere feet away" a minute later, switching between metric and imperial in a way no real person would.

Since I listened to the audiobook, a brief aside regarding the narration: It wasn't great. Although separate narrators were hired for each point of view, the two main narrators sounded too similar to one another to differentiate them easily. On top of that, neither narrator made any effort to replicate the accents of the book's diverse cast of characters. It was interesting to hear that a certain character spoke with a charming Scottish brogue, but it would have been even nicer to hear that feature replicated in the narration. Add to these issues the faulty pronunciation of a handful of words, and it comes out overall as a rather unpolished experience. The book earned its 4 stars on its own, but the narration falls between 2 and 3 stars for me.

All in all, it was a wonderful ride. If you're looking for a memorable story that will keep you on the edge of your seat, you won't be disappointed.

Disclaimer: I received free access to an advance copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Content Warnings