I have a habit of not studying a book’s plot before I start actually to read it because I want to be surprised by the subject. So when I’ve read this book’s title and seen its cover, I couldn’t think of any things other than happiness and relaxation. Also after I started reading it and discovered that the book is about a resort named “Serendipity” on an unnamed island, I was still under the impression that this will be a “zen book.” The word itself “Serendipity” means the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happily or beneficially way. But you know what? There aren’t any happy coincidences in this novel.
Even though the book is about a very big group of tourists, it has a few characters, which are easy to follow:
– Adrian, the resort leader;
– Magda, Santman, Dave and Bernard, the resort staff;
– Chris, Alice, Ruby, and Tom, some of the guests;
– Maria and Dani, the village people.
As I entered in the middle of the action, I understood that Jessica Norrie had some kind of black British humor when naming the resort in this way. Nothing in this book has anything to do with happiness. It’s about the disappearance of Adrian, and how the other characters manage this situation.
The book is written in a quiet manner, nothing is sweating anything other than calm, but it has something about it that made me want to read more and more, so I can say that I enjoyed reading it very much. My favorite scene was when Chris entered the pool. The reason I am mentioning this is because the novel is so well written, that even though there is nothing supernatural going on in the book, Jessica managed to give me the feeling of an almost evil ritual, like the pool is going to swallow the life out of the character.
So if you want to read something different, with a mysterious, almost hypnotic feeling, I recommend you to read this book.
2 comments
Thank you so much for that lovely review and the video is a brilliant match. I spent ages looking for images of infinity pools when I was writing the book – it was partly inspired by areal one in the South of France – but I wish I’d seen this as there’s a scene where I describe them building it and it would have helped me a lot.
[…] a comedy. However, it has some small flaws, but all in all, it is relaxing book about an exotic island that you should consider taking with you to the beach (if you have planned your holiday after 31 of […]