Review: THE WRITING RETREAT by Julia Bartz

 

The exclusive month-long writingretreat with the great Roza Vallo at her secluded Victorian mansion was aonce-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any aspiring writer and Alex was not goingto pass it up even if she had to be there with her nemesis. Not only would thisbe a chance to get a book deal, but these writers would be staying at ahistorical mansion that people claimed was haunted and cursed. Oooh!

The retreat becomes intense whenit is revealed that the women have a daily word count to meet and have to writea whole novel in a month. The best book in the end will get a $1 million dollarpublishing deal. Whoa, talk about a lot of pressure! For Alex, who’s hadwriter’s block and hasn’t come up with a book idea for the last year, this wasgoing to be very tough. Those that didn’t meet the required deadlines would bedismissed and disqualified.

 

The scenes were so dark anddescriptive, making them enticing. It was totally relatable how all the writerswere under pressure with their stories and feared the cruel criticism of Rozathe Great.

 

This was generally captivating,but I kind of wish it would’ve moved a little faster. All I kept hearing werethe telling of the writers’ stories, the writing activities, and the critiques.When were people going to drop dead or disappear?

 

It seemed that Alex was morefreaked by her own psychedelic thoughts and fantasies. Very dark. Very morbid.Very twisted. These were all good elements, but it wasn’t quite what I wasexpecting.

 

A pretty good read, but NOT what Iexpected.

 

Rating:3 stars