Review | The Retreat by Sherri Smith

Katie Manning was a famous child star until her career ended after a terrible attack. Now, her life is a mess of constant drinking and risky behaviour. When her brother’s fiancee invites her to a wellness retreat, Katie and her two best friends decide to go, each with their own reasons. As they adjust to the strict rules of the retreat and their hosts’ strange behaviour, things starts to spiral. For Katie, the retreat soon becomes less like a refuge and more like the most dangerous place she could be.

Tip back a cup of cure-all tea, hallucinate, let your life play out like a film before your dilated pupils, check off exactly those places where things went wrong, and bang, you have all the answers for what to do next.

I was excited after hearing the premise of The Retreat. Secrets at a wellness retreat! Suspicious characters! Former child star! Female friendships! But while the setup is intriguing, the execution fell short.

The strongest element for me was the friendship. It’s clear how close Katie is with her best friends, Ariel and Carmen, even years after they first became friends. But it’s also clear that even best friends can hide things from each other and grow apart. Katie is an intriguing main character. She’s not immediately personable – she’s unreliable, brash and has a long history of questionable decisions. But the more her past is revealed, the more I started to care about her. Her relationship with her brother’s fiancee is fraught and made for some tense scenes.

The book doesn’t shy away from showing the downside of the wellness industry. Its portrayal of so-called wellness experts exploiting vulnerable people into believing (and buying) everything they say is spot-on. Who hasn’t met people who claim drinking some herbal tea can solve every single problem they have? Oh, and by the way, the tea costs hundreds of dollars!

What I didn’t like was that the villain is obvious from the get-go and I’m not sure if it’s meant to be that way. I wasn’t surprised by the reveal of the who, nor the why. I’m not a fan of the writing which I feel could be tightened up. The clumsy metaphors and strange descriptions of mundane things had me laughing at the wrong places. I also thought there were loose ends at the end, specifically referring to the people at the retreat who we have spent so much time with.

There is plenty of sex and drug scenes, sexual abuse and an animal death so readers should take note. Overall, I’m glad the book ventures into something different than the usual female-driven thrillers but I couldn’t help wanting more.

I received a review copy from the publisher. The Retreat is out on 13/8!

About the author: Sherri Smith

Photo by Jared Rice