The Party by Robyn Harding: A Review

Kim and Jeff Sanders are throwing a party for Hannah, their daughter, on her sixteenth birthday.  Kim and Jeff are very hands on parents and Kim immediately lets the five girls know that the party will only consist of a sleepover, pizza and a movie and not any drugs, alcohol or boys.  Jeff thinks it might be time to let his little girl have a little bit of fun and gives the girls a bottle of champagne.  The girls have a different idea and don't think that is enough.  Each girl sneaks in their own alcohol and drugs and things quickly spiral out of control.  One of the girls gets so intoxicated that she falls into a glass table and ends up cutting her face and eye.  Life is about to change drastically for the girls and their families.

This is an amazing ride of a story!  There are tons of twists and turns and it was so exciting to read it.  There were elements in this book that I didn't expect.  There were also very important elements, as well, such as the lessons about a parent's responsibilities and the realities of over-parenting or under-parenting teenagers.  While the characters were really interesting, they didn't have drastically different voices.  This can all be forgiven, though, because of the complexity of the characters.  Hannah's character is amazingly honest.  At one point, Hannah thinks to herself how much she dislikes some of the things that the so-called popular kids in school do but she would still give up anything to be apart of their group.  Lauren is crazy scary (I don't want to reveal any spoilers- you'll just have to read it to know what I am talking about)!  This book moves incredibly quickly and I felt like I couldn't put it down.  I was hooked from the very first paragraph.  The ending was a true shocker; I didn't see it coming!  I really loved this book and I think it is one of the better books of this year.  Because it can be considered a thriller, a mystery, literary fiction or maybe even young adult fiction, I would recommend this book to any reader.

My rating:
★★★★★

Robyn Harding talks about her book in this video:

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This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads. 

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