The Club: A Reese's Book Club Pick

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The ambition of Island Home, combined with Ned’s reputation for perfectionism, has led to numerous delays in the club’s opening, and tensions are at an all-time high by the time the three-day launch party arrives. Everything must be perfect, and it requires a whole team of people to ensure that the launch is a success. The most spectacular of all is Island Home—a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious resort, just off the English coast—and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade. So I sat down that same day and started this thing, and well...In my opinion, and as I said above, this book is super underrated. As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list. I first found this book really hard to get into, mostly because of the constant use of the hashtags and these very cringey influencer terms like "blogger mommy". But in that way, I definitely think it was written in a way that was supposed to make you cringe and was supposed to make you feel like this entire life Emmy is living in is so artificial and childish.

The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members’ clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. There’s a change in behavior as tempers get hot, more sinister things start happening, and more bodies pile up. Most Homegroup members start to wish they had never given out their names on the guest list. It’s a rule of this club that you’ll never get out no matter how hard you try if your name appears on the list. In case you don’t know me, here is a gif featuring a cuter version of myself that sums things up in a nutshell . . . . Listened to this one on audio, which had its pros and cons. The narrator, Tamaryn Payne, did an okay job at keeping the story moving and attempting to give each POV character a distinct voice. Her American accents were a bit stilted, but overall not awful. The biggest problem--there are WAY TOO MANY POV CHARACTERS. It's not Payne's fault there are so many and that they are virtually indistinguishable from each other. I couldn't keep the PA separated from the head of housekeeping separated from this or that celebrity, nor could I keep which bad person did what bad thing to whichever other bad person. There was not really one redeemable character in the bunch and I couldn't tell who was really who by the end and I didn't care (see above). The second half is much better than the first and some things you learn pull you up sharply and make you reevaluate what you think you know. There are some excellent, dramatic and almost surreal scenes towards the end and a couple of those are doozies! I like the end-justice served.

The Club

But success comes at a cost and the Home Group, especially its CEO Ned Groom, are dealing with plenty of crises behind the scenes and lots of secrets.

I am a voyeur to the nth degree and absolutely get off on reality trash any time I’m not reading. I will confess that my Peeping Tom status remains pretty stilted when it comes to the intertubes – mainly because I find the majority of users who think they are big shit to be absolutely insufferable with only an unhealthy addiction to social media to show for it, along with some fairly shady behaviors such as like swapping or just being gross humans by following to unfollow. (I do, however, watch those gals put makeup on ALL. THE. TIME. over on the YouTube . . . even though I still don’t know how to do it myself.) I could write an extended social commentary piece about this thing to rival an old college paper, but alas, I will save you all the long-winded pretentiousness and outright boredom and just say this: On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. This story gets pretty dark, even more than I expected. But there’s also a bit of a satire aspect to it; almost like the authors were having a bit of fun torturing many of the ridiculously-behaved people. VerdictI listened to this on audio, with a cast of narrators. Their performances were excellent and definitely enhanced the experience of reading this book. It was pure fun, and I HIGHLY recommend listening to this one! I have always been fascinated with the private club and magnet for the celebrity and creative elite, Soho House (even going so far as to try to scheme a way into joining until I learned of the exorbitant membership fee). Having attended Soho House functions as a guest, I always wondered when happened with the inner workings and admissions of such clubs, so this book was basically written for me. Polly; Emmy's friend who isn't an Insta presence but is an old friend, bridesmaid, supportive person etc was a wonderful character. She had too little space. I really wanted a bit more of Polly. At the end, she was reduced to 'the person who screams at Emmy the bad effects of social media'. I wish she had more purpose. It was the club you’d kill to join; the launch event to which the A-list were dying to be invited. What no one could have anticipated was how tragically things were about to go wrong.