"Friends in Napa"

Friends in Napa by Sheila Yasmin Marikar

Amazon First Reads

Pages: 225 Genre: thriller (technically)

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Kindle Highlights

Power couple Raj and Rachel Ranjani have recently purchased a winery in Napa Valley and have decided to bring their old college group out to celebrate. Nobody's really kept in touch over the years, but who would pass up an all-expense paid trip full of wine and luxury. Once everyone relaxes, it's almost just like they're college kids again. Except now they're grown up with their own secrets and agendas. We know someone ends up dead, but with all the bitter feelings, everyone's a suspect.

I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot, although I see why not everyone would. If you go into it thinking you're going to get a thriller/mystery, you're going to be disappointed. This book is much more of a character study than an action-packed, suspense-filled story. The tension instead came from tempers rising and secrets (emotional and financial, mostly) coming to light. You're reading to see why someone is killed, not how or by whom. Still good, but definitely not as-advertised.

The buildup of the book was done really well. As people got angrier and loyalties started shifting, I was really excited to reach the climax. However, it sort of just fell flat. It was about the ending I expected, which was disappointing after 80% of the book was full of interesting reveals.

I found the characters to be disastrously entertaining. All of them were horrible people who were vapid at best and cruel at worst, but I adored reading their thoughts. Part of it was the writing (Marikar nails character voice in a way that not many authors do), but I also love to hate a character. It's the same sort of feeling you get when you're watching reality TV — "these people clearly live a very different life than I do, and their problems being entirely unrelatable (and usually their own fault) just makes it funny." Some of them developed in an interesting way, but I would argue things mostly just start working out for them, which makes them complain less. I'm not sure if the distain I felt for these characters was intentional, but it worked in the books favor.

That being said, the messaging was weird. I'm not saying every book needs to come with a soapbox for the author, but a little bit of awareness would be great. So much of the book seems to be about the evils of money, but no one ever seems to change in that regard. They just get more judgmental of others. No spoilers, but that's where some of the lack of development came through to me. Other than the Main Bad Guy, no one was really forced to reckon with their ideologies in any way.

(This is also why I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to dislike the characters as much as I did — if they were intentionally awful, then it's fun, but if we're meant to agree with some of them, then it's rough.)

This book also had a tendency to read a little bit too millennial, as if it were working hard to be seen as relatable to young people (which is funny, considering the whole thing is dealing with issues exclusive to the 1%). There were meme references and a distinct "longing to be seen as cool" vibe that didn't actually add anything. This would sometimes leak into the dialogue too, which would truly kill whatever dramatic tension had been built. Particularly at the end, where everything just felt a little too unserious.

Overall, this was a quick read that I enjoyed. It's probably not one that will stay with me in any meaningful way, but I liked the experience that it gave me.