Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Yeahhhhhh. No. This wasn’t it for me. This wasn’t even in the same zip code as it. I’m disappointed, not gonna lie. You see the rating. I legit celebrated when it was over. We all know, that’s never a good sign.
When Hannah’s often over-the-top brother, Mako, rents an isolated luxury cabin for their friend group for a weekend, she and her husband Bruce, begrudgingly agree to go. Sometimes it is just easier to give Mako what he wants than to fight against him.
Hannah and Bruce have a baby daughter and it will be their first time really leaving her behind. Hannah struggles with the choice a lot, but her mother-in-law is more than capable of babysitting while they’re away.
Thus, they go. Prepared to unplug with Mako, his wife, Liza, Hannah’s best friend, Cricket and her new beau, who none of them have met before.
Arriving at the cabin, they’re impressed. It’s gorgeous, but with Mako, they would really expect nothing less. The tech mogul does tend to go all out.
As the Reader, you follow the interactions of the family and friends as they settle into the cabin. The first night is full of food, drink and fun. An isolated atmosphere is created as they have trouble with wifi connectivity and a storm is coming in. They’ve been warned they could lose power, or worse, get stuck there.
That’s nice. I like the idea of that, but it’s only one part.
There’s also Henry, who we start following as a child in a completely different time and place. Also, it’s not clear how his life is connected to the rest of the story.
And by not clear, I mean not at all. At first when he came in, it was so jarring, I thought I had accidentally opened the wrong book on my kindle.
But wait, yeah, I’m not done yet. You also get the perspective of the owner of the house Mako rented. That was the oddest of them all to me, like, why?!
And lest you believe that we only get the group scenes from Hannah’s perspective, let me assure you, we do not. We get those scenes from multiple perspectives as well.
To me, this story really suffered from trying to do too much. I didn’t feel like the multiple perspectives, or alternating storylines, meshed well together at all.
Additionally, I felt like the thread tying it all together was ridiculous. The antagonist was so unbelievable. I was actually surprised when my eyeballs didn’t roll out of my head during any dialogue involving that character.
I’m gonna leave it there. I have plenty more thoughts, but nobody has time to read through them all and honestly, I’ve burned enough time and energy on this. I’m so ready to move along.
However, with all of this being said, I can see how some Readers may be entertained by this. Just because it didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. If you think it sounds interesting, give it a shot. You seriously could end up loving it.
Thank you to the publisher, Park Row Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. They can’t all knock our socks off.