The Return by Rachel Harrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Elise, Julie, Mae and Molly have been best friends since college. But as with many such relationships, as time goes by and circumstances change, friends can sometimes see each other less and less.
For this fabulous foursome, that is definitely the case. They all live pretty far apart geographically and it can be tough to stay close over such distances.
Two years ago, the unimaginable happened. Julie disappeared while on a solo hike in Acadia National Park, a 47,000-acre belt of wilderness on the rustic coast of Maine.
Understandably, the women are devastated to have lost one of the their own. Although they have a funeral after a significant amount of time has passed with no sign of Julie, Elise genuinely doesn’t believe she is gone.
Lo and behold, it seems Elise was right, at some point after the funeral, Julie reemerges. She just shows up at home one day with no memory of where she has been or what has happened to her.
Everyone is stunned. How can this be?
After Julie has had some time to acclimate to being home, the women decide to gather for a reunion weekend at an up-and-coming boutique hotel in upstate New York.
All traveling separately, Elise, the narrator of our tale, is the first to arrive. She immediately feels disturbed by the eccentric hotel. The whole atmosphere is just so bizarre.
Once all the women have arrived, they joke and laugh and try to make the best of their surroundings.
Luckily for them, they are the type of friends that no matter how much time has passed, they can pick right up like they were never apart.
The more time that goes by however, the more they begin to notice that Julie is different.
There’s something very wrong with her. It seems she is falling apart minute by minute. Her odd behavior and appearance; let’s not even get into the smell, but who’s going to talk to her about it?
They’re scared, even though mostly, they won’t admit it.
Well, I’ll tell you, they weren’t the only ones that were scared. This book had moments that legit creeped me out. I’m talking contemplated putting it in the freezer.
There was so much to enjoy about this. I loved, loved, loved the setting. Reminiscent of a locked room mystery as it was slowly revealed to the reader what was going on with Julie.
I also enjoyed the dynamic among the women. I found it to be very relatable as far as relationships go post-college.
The horror element was unique to me. I have never read anything that went in the direction this ultimately went in.
It did give me heavy Jennifer’s Body vibes and I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out this author had watched that movie more than once.
Although I can see where some people may be let down by the ending, for me it worked. That is how I would have wanted it to end.
At it’s heart, this is really a lovely examination of friendship, if you can believe that from a horror novel, but those friendship aspects tugged at my heartstrings.
I have no aspirations to ever write a novel, but if I did, it would pretty much be this book. Take from that what you will.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley Publishing, for providing me a copy of this to read and review. It was a fantastic time!
I am really looking forward to reading more from Rachel Harrison.