This was a really interesting take on Hamlet. I didn't agree with every interpretation, but I thought the book did a good job justifying the character and story decisions.

This book was neither a good mystery/thriller nor a good romance, which left it feeling identity-less and shallow, especially given the strong moral messaging it tried to have. Maybe I need to vet my books more before I read them. Maybe books should be better written! Who's to say, really.

I hated this. It made me genuinely angry, to a point where I'm finding it difficult to write this review. Nothing happens, the mysterious murder is nothing, the writing is atrocious, and the biggest victim of the book is never acknowledged.

While this book and concept had a lot of promise, the execution killed its momentum before it really got a chance.

Look, I’m a certified McFadden hater. I thought the one book of hers that I read was unbelievably bad and wasn’t interested in picking up anything else because I don’t trust her output speed. But I love a gimmick, and I could not help myself from getting her latest book, The Dinner Party, a “Pick Your Poison” adventure.

I really enjoyed this book at the start. The writing — taking place in 1960s California — felt atmospheric and retro in a way I was really into. And the plot is fascinating, because this is an angle that's pretty unique. Around the halfway mark, it was clear that this was leaning more literary mystery than mystery thriller (the latter being the intended genre), and things got so much worse from there. It was slow, unclear, repetitive, and ultimately unimaginative.

This book wasn't good. Had I not won it in a Goodreads giveaway, I probably would've stopped reading it.