Title: The Villa
Author: Ruth Kelly
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
First published: June 22nd 2023
Publisher: Pan
Finished reading: May 21st 2023
Pages: 430

“It was then, within the stillness, before the vast Mediterranean seascape, that I first felt it. A current of unease that was so fierce it made my hairs stand on end.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Pan in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

REVIEW

WARNING: looks like the unpopular opinion train made yet another unscheduled stop!!

Let’s just say that I definitely didn’t expect this reaction when I first heard about The Villa. I admit that I’m not a fan of reality TV at all, but even though I would never watch on of those shows, reading about them is somehow strangely entertaining. Especially with the promise of someone ending up dead and providing us with what seemed like a locked room mystery vibe… I fully expected to have a great time reading this story, but somehow it ended up being just as fun as a trip to the dentist.

Before I continue, I have to say that I did love the premise of The Villa, and the plot itself has a lot of potential. The new style of reality show, the secret location, the contestants all having something to hide, the fact that you know one of them is going to be dead by the end of the week… All of them ingredients of what could have been a highly engaging psychological thriller. I know that I’m in the minority, but sadly the execution just didn’t work at all for me. Part of this had to do with the writing style and structure of the plot. There was just something about the tone and writing that was a bit off for me, and the chapter headers with ‘the producer, the reporter, the contestant and the viewers‘ felt mostly lazy and somehow highly irritating instead of adding suspense. Especially the ‘viewers‘ chapters interrupted the pace of the plot considerably, and I wish they wouldn’t have been included at all.

One of the biggest issues I had was with the main characters though. It’s actually kind of impressive just how unlikeable and one-dimensional they all feel, and I honestly couldn’t care less what happened to any of them. The reporter Laura was both despicable and highly frustrating, with her low self esteem, her sleeping around with her married boss and her behavior in general. Like I said, I couldn’t make myself care about what happened to her, and I absolutely hated having to spend time inside her head. The producer’s POV was slightly more interesting, but it was ruined by her behavior, the lack of background development and her sense of entitlement. The other contestants… The less I say about that shallow and disastrous bunch, the better. The only ones who slightly redeemed themselves were Angela and Charles, but this was only when comparing them with the extremely low standards of the rest of the group.

There was so much negativity in The Villa, and the constant bitching, gaslighting and egging each other on got old very fast. To make things worse, there is a lot of focus on both cheating and the dreaded love triangle; two major pet peeves of mine. The contestants also seem drunk all of the time, which was highly annoying to be honest. Sure, there were some twists I didn’t see coming, but since I was already struggling with the writing, plot and horrible characters, I never fully appreciated them. Especially since most of them weren’t exactly credible in the first place…

I guess it won’t come as a surprise when I say that I unfortunately didn’t enjoy my time with The Villa at all, and I kind of wish I had just DNFed it instead. The ending wasn’t exactly worthwhile in the first place… That said, I seem to be in the minority, because most reviews have been glowing so far. Who knows, it might just be my (apparently extremely) fickle reading mood acting up again…

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