The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
The Writing Retreat
by Julia Bartz
Thriller | Mystery | Horror | Fiction
313 Pages
Released March 2023
Rating: ★★★
Goodreads
Content Warnings
This debut novel started off so promising! Then, a little past the half way mark, things started venturing into the weird and (almost laughably) absurd and everything unravelled from there.
The story follows Alex who has recently had a horrible falling out with her best friend, Wren - for reasons that are not immediately clear. They initially bonded over writing and books - in particular works by the famed author, Roza Vallo.
By chance, Alex is invited to Roza’s exclusive, month-long Writing Retreat at Rosa’s Blackbriar Estate but with one catch - Wren is going as well. The Retreat is intense and demanding and Alex soon learns that the stakes are much higher than she originally anticipated.
First I should note that even though I didn’t love the direction this book ended up going in, I did enjoy Bartz’s writing and ended up flying through the book. This book immediately grabbed my attention and held on the whole way through. The beginning was great - I loved the pacing and the wintery atmosphere and I found the characters to all be intriguing. But then we start to see themes of exploring sexuality slowly be introduced (which I am fine with, but it felt almost out of place in this book). This theme appears more frequently as the book progresses and I found it to be distracting instead of complimenting the story. Towards the end the book felt more like a campy thriller/horror, and it’s left me feeling as confused about this book as Alex was about her sexuality.
Ultimately this book felt first and foremost an exploration of coming to terms with sexual identity and second a thriller.