Book Review - Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

Title: Neverworld Wake
Author: Marisha Pessl
Genre: Young Adult/ Mystery/ Fantasy
Published: 2023
 
Description: Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. The the shocking death of Jim, their creative genius and Beatrice’s boyfriend, changed everything.
 
One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft - the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world – hoping she’ll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim’s death.
 
But as the night plays out in a haze of stilted jokes and unfathomable silence, Beatrice senses she’s never going to know what really happened.
 
The a mysterious man knocks on the door. Blithely, he announces the impossible: tim for hem has become stuck, snagged on a splinter that can only be removed if the former friends make the harshest of decisions.
 
Now Beatrice has one last shot at answers… and at life. And so begins the Neverworld Wake.
 
Review: “Neverworld Wake” is a book that takes you to a world between reality and illusion. I didn’t have any expectations, but the book took me by surprise.
 
Beatrice hasn’t seen her friends in a year. Once they were a close group and very popular in school, until the unexpected death of one of them changed everything. When Beatrice is invited to a private party with the old group, she decides to go, hoping to learn more about her boyfriend Jim’s death. When there, a mysterious man knocks on the door. He tells them they are stuck in time, a problem that can only be solved if they make an impossible decision.
 
I do read Young Adult novels from time to time. This book felt so much more mature though. The story is very original and I love the constant mysterious atmosphere. You have no idea what will happen next and it has some good twists (besides from the ending, I kind of predicted that one). But still, the book didn’t blow me away and there were some moments that dragged.
 
Rating: 3,5/ 5