I gave this story a three because -- while it had some awesome potential, and the writing is great -- the stakes turned out to be really low. Don't get me wrong, I like family drama, but the "reveals" turned out to be extremely anticlimactic. In many ways, the mom is a major drama queen. I took off two stars because of how many times I rolled my eyes. But it's a good beach read for those who clutch their pearls a little more than I do.

The Party has a fairly generic plot of the fallout of an issue happening at a 16 year olds birthday party and the effect of the accident on all involved. Many of the characters are flat, not well fleshed out, and unfortunately, very shallow in their attitudes and actions. While these behaviors would be unsurprising to see in most 16 year olds who are so overly concerned with their social status at school, being "cool", and pretending to be grown up when they clearly are not, it's very disturbing to see in their 40 something parents.
I'm not sure how I feel about the book as a whole. It would be problematic to be in a situation where you are being sued for an absurd amount of money due to the incident happening at your house. That said (Spoilers ahead), the ultimate reason cited for not going to trial is that the defendant seems more concerned about what might come out about her and her family, rather than fighting back by having their lawyer find the necessary dirt on the alleged victim. It is implied that there is some information out there which would swing the case. The further implication that this could and should have all been avoided had the parents of the girl hosting the party just offered up front to help with the injured girl's medical issues is ludicrous. Finally, the ending of the story gives the implication that the girl hosting the party has more information on what happened that she's let anyone know and she is taking matters into her own hands to restore her own popularity, thus proving she's as sociopathic as anyone in the book. I don't buy that ending because it involves secrets among too many people and as we all know, the only way more than 2 people can keep a secret is if all but one are dead.

These are my Happily Ever After Novel Thoughts...

This story has secrets within secrets. No one is who or what they seem.

There are a few twists and turns and the further you get into the story, the more things start to make sense and unravelling.

One good lesson to take from this story is that underneath a perfect façade lies a very imperfect person.

I know this review is short and vague but I don't want to give anything away. Grab a copy for yourself, see what everyone is hiding, and if it will lead to a happily ever after.

The Party was a much lighter mystery than I was expecting, I would even hesitate to label it a thriller as it’s lacking a true mystery or intensity that I believe would qualify it as such. It actually reminded me of Truly Madly Guilty in the sense that it was about a shocking event that has huge ramifications for a group of people. You do find out what happens pretty early on, so there wasn’t the annoying wait for the big reveal. I appreciated this as waiting for information that ends up being lackluster is a huge pet peeve of mine.

This is told from the perspectives of four people; Kim and Jeff who are the parents that threw the infamous party, their daughter Hannah and Lisa the mother of one of Hannah’s friends that attended the party. I’m a fan of this structure and it worked well enough here, but every single one of the characters was very unlikable. Sometimes selfish, insipid characters don’t bother me, but this time it didn’t work out so well for me. I had a hard time feeling sympathetic towards any of them which in turn meant I struggled to form a connection with any of them and left me not really caring what happened to them one way or another.

I do want to be clear and say that with the right reader, I think this could be an enjoyable read, unfortunately I just don’t think I was the target audience. I expected more tension and instead it was mostly law suits and high school politics. The ending really missed the mark for me but I don’t want to get into it to much for fear of spoilers, I’ll just say that I had hoped maybe some of the characters would have had more growth and maturity by the end. If you’re looking for a mindless summer read and don’t mind a lack of mystery in a book classified as such, The Party may be for you.

A NetGalley e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Hannah Sanders is turning 16! She is about to have a sleepover party full of food, games, and unbeknownst to her parents, booze, drugs, and boys. It’s all fun and games until someone loses their eye.

Jeff and Kim can’t believe that their oldest child is 16 already. Their perfect little girl is growing up. Kim is the perfect parent and works hard to maintain her perfect reputation within the community. So when she wakes up in the middle of the night from a wine and Ambien sleep with her daughter at the end of the bed with her hands covered in blood she is just a little shocked.

As the nights event unravel the truth is exposed about the Sander’s and all those involved in that horrific night. Are the Sander’s at fault for not babysitting the party? Are the kids at fault for sneaking in the booze and drugs? Or did the train wreck start before Hannah and her friends were even born?

This book not only exposes a family’s secrets but the horror and pressure that teenagers face to fit in and be cool. How one child can be the driving force of a chaos that will lead to a lifetime of disfigurement and regrets.

I liked the basic plot of this story. The party, the accident and the follow up could happen to any family. The struggle with the teenage relationships, the trying to fit in and be cool of children and parents alike is relatable. The internal struggle that Hannah feels over wanting to be liked an popular and the horrible bullying that her one time friend faces felt natural. Yes, you wanted to punch and kick and scream at the characters. How can they not see how stupid they are. Well, humans are emotional and messy creatures. We do the best with what we know at the time we are faced with the decision. I think the author did a good job with showing that.

The Sanders are the perfect family: Jeff has a successful career, Kim is the loving mother who takes care of the home and the two children Hannah and Aiden who have the best marks in school and sophisticated hobbies where they also excel. For Hannah’s sixteenth birthday, the parents allow her to party in the basement – yet, with strict rules: no alcohol, no drugs, no boys. But Hannah wants to be part of the IT-crown and then her party turns into a complete disaster: her friend Ronni falls into a glass table after having consumed ecstasy and alcohol. When Hannah looks at her, there is something really wrong. Ronni has seriously hurt her eye and might not recover. Ronni’s mother is furious and knows exactly whom to blame: the wealthy Sander will pay for what they have done.

Robyn Harding’s novel unmistakably shows how your perfect life can turn into a nightmare from one minute to the other. First, I was just expecting some kind of teenage drama where finally all is sugar and spice and everything’s nice. But the author does not offer the easy ending, she goes down to the wire and exhibits all the mean and ugly sides of human beings.

The strongest aspects are definitely the characters and their emotions. E.g. Kim, she does not only pretend to be perfect, she really wants her life to be perfect. When the facade cracks, she is ready to fight even though this means that some people will have to be disappointed and even suffer. She has to readjust her point of view. Hannah, on the other hand, is the typical sixteen-year-old teenager who is caught between wanting to please and to be popular in school and her good heart which tells her to act differently. But sometimes she has to decide for one or the other and she seriously struggles with it. Jeff as a role model and father is really weak, but this is fruitful for the character since he shows an authentic behaviour where people make mistakes and are sometimes lead by emotions rather than by common sense. Lauren is the mean teenager who does not care about anybody. She is definitely interesting for the story, but a bit too stereotypical and one-sided for my linking. It would have appreciated a more complex story about her, yet, she is rather a minor character, so this is acceptable.

The plot was meticulously constructed what I found quite fascinating after having finished to novel. The next strike always comes, not completely unexpected, but sometimes the direction is a surprise. That such an incident, or rather an accident, has an influence on all areas of life and does not leave any of the family members unaffected is quite natural and that’s what Robyn Harding makes use of. Their lives are devastated to the full extent, not omitting a single aspect. So, no sugar and spice and everything’s nice but the blunt reality.

Good premise! Every parent can relate in someway-will appeal to many patrons!

I read this book in one day. I kept turning the pages quickly because I was invested in this story. It is the type of situation that could happen to anyone. The drama was intense. The relationships of the parents and children were realistic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This had an interesting way of telling the story. You read a part from an adult's viewpoint and then a teen's point of view. It was like reading an adult novel and a YA novel at the same time. I liked that.

It was a great story until the last chapter. I was so annoyed with the ending that I had to knock it down a crown.

I've seen this recommended to fans of <i>Big Little Lies</i> a few times. I still haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but if it's anything like <i>The Party</i>, I think I'll enjoy it.

<i>The Party</i> sucked me in from the very beginning. It's a compulsively readable book and hard to put down. It was exactly what I needed to pull myself from the reading slump I was in.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book until the very end. I had questions throughout the novel regarding whether or not we were dealing with an unreliable narrator or if we were getting the whole story. The ending doesn't answer that and left me feeling a bit disappointed.

<spoiler>Which account of that night's events are real? I'd like to believe that Hannah is telling the truth when she texted Sarah the end of the book, but I don't believe she is. The fact that she seems to be doing it solely to become popular again (and take down Lauren) was a bit disappointing. I really would have liked it to be more of a case of unreliable narrator where Lauren did push Ronni and the ending was expanded to accommodate that.</spoiler>

The Party is one of those books that when I finished, I exhaled and thought “What the heck did I just read”. I thought it showed perfectly how relationships can be destroyed when pressure is put on them….more so if they are already fracturing. It was an intense read and I did just sit there and think about the book for a while after I read it. It got that under my skin. As a mother of an 11-year-old girl, I often wonder how high school is going to be for her and if she is going to feel like she is going to have to be something she’s not to fit in. I will tell you this, I will not be like Kim or Lisa. Too extreme on either end. One wants to control her daughter and the other letting her daughter having too much freedom.

I am going to admit that Kim bugged the crap out of me the entire book. She was self-righteous. Everything that she did had to be better than everyone else, she was extremely condescending to her husband and kids and she basically thought that she was above everyone. She rubbed me the wrong way. Even when I was supposed to feel bad for her, I didn’t. I almost felt that she brought this on herself by being the stuck up snob that she was. But then again, greed was a reason in the lawsuit too.

Lisa, however, I did feel bad for, at first. Her daughter was disfigured and hospitalized. But her greed started showing very early in the book and by the time they went to court, I felt disgust for her. She had convinced herself that her daughter wouldn’t be able to do anything in life because of her injury and she refused to listen to Ronni when Ronni begged her to drop the lawsuit. At that point, Lisa was out to ruin Kim and Jeff, professionally and publicly, because they didn’t offer to pay for Ronni’s hospital bills right away (which they should have done right off the bat, to be honest). Even her boyfriend got clued in when she declined a settlement….because she wanted the full amount in the lawsuit.

Honestly, in my eyes, Ronni was the only one who lost in this book. She was mercilessly bullied by people she had once considered friends and didn’t have any friends, she lost her eye and her mother had turned into someone who she didn’t even know. So when certain events happened in the book about her, I truly wasn’t surprised. I actually figured that what happened would happen and expected it to happen earlier.

I am really not going to get into the storylines because they all crisscross with each other, but I will say that I found them all very compelling. Actually, the storyline with Lauren and Jeff creeped me out….a lot. But I did think that he did the right thing in the end.

The end of the book wasn’t a happy ending. While some storylines were resolved, other’s weren’t and that is what made the ending good. I was taken by surprise by the slight twist at the end. I actually wished that there was an epilogue or something because I wanted to see what happened.

Now my questions for the book:

Why were certain events about that night not revealed until almost until the end of the book? I mean, it makes sense with what happened but I wish that the author made those characters make their scenes sooner

Why the total 180 with Lisa? I mean, I kinda liked her as the laid back, pot smoking mom. But when she morphed into Ms. Greedypants, I just lost interest and empathy for her.

Why didn’t Hannah try harder with Ronni? She went to the same school and she had to of seen her. If she missed her that much, she should have tried harder. But, then again, she is a teenager and we all know how they are.

How many stars will I give The Party: 4

Why: I really liked the story and the messages that it got across. Even with my dislike of Kim and Lisa, the story was beautifully written with compelling storylines and hot topics. I couldn’t put the book down.

Will I reread: Yes

Will I recommend to family and friends: Yes

Age range: Adult

Why: Language, violence. Also, triggers for bullying

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

I’ve been a fan of author Robyn Harding for many, many years starting with her very first book! I was super excited to read her latest, The Party and was not disappointed. Wow! What a page turner.

Robyn weaves together a compelling story here and one that you don’t want to miss. A single event, several people, multiple points of view and a cascade of after-effects that change everyone’s lives through the course of the story.

Here’s the synopsis:

Sweet sixteen. It’s an exciting coming of age, a milestone, and a rite of passage. Jeff and Kim Sanders plan on throwing a party for their daughter, Hannah—a sweet girl with good grades and nice friends. Rather than an extravagant, indulgent affair, they invite four girls over for pizza, cake, movies, and a sleepover. What could possibly go wrong?

But things do go wrong, horrifically so. After a tragic accident occurs, Jeff and Kim’s flawless life in a wealthy San Francisco suburb suddenly begins to come apart. In the ugly aftermath, friends become enemies, dark secrets are revealed in the Sanders’ marriage, and the truth about their perfect daughter, Hannah, is exposed.

I’m always critical of the way an author wraps up a story and I like how Robyn ended this one!

When Jeff Sanders decides to buy champagne for his daughter's 16th birthday sleepover party you know things will go south. When wife Kim decides to pop sleeping pills that night so that the girls' party won't keep her awake your certainty grows. Dad wants the girls to think he's cool. Mom does her part along those lines by buying their daughter Hannah a tennis bracelet for her birthday. Both believe the girls are sufficiently mature to handle these things, but are they? After all, these girls are simply modeling their parents' behavior.. They've come prepared with their own drugs and liquor and plans to sneak in boyfriends.
But when disaster strikes the young ones aren't the only ones who worry about 'what the cool kids think', and they all learn a new meaning for 'mean',

Really enjoyed this book. For readers of Liane Moriarity. A dramatic look at today's "mean girls" and how they can destroy one another

It's all fun and games until someone loses an . . .

This book showed the ugly side of everyone when a horrible tragedy happens at a sixteenth birthday party. The party starts innocent enough when Hannah's mother Kim starts it with the rules. No alcohol, no drugs and no boys. Then the party is on. The rules, a total waste of Kim's breath. A fact Kim discovers when she is awoken from her two glasses of wine and half an ambien idled sleep several hours later by her blood covered daughter, Hannah. Kim and her family's life goes downhill after that.

It was amazing how people's personalities and opinions changed after this party. Just like the high schoolers, the parent's became selfish, greedy, and childish. The author did a great job with the characters and they became and were real people in my mind. There were so many times I wanted to jump up out of my chair and just beat the crap out of some of these people. Seriously, how ridiculous can one be and still call themselves an adult?

A story that looked at teenagers and adults when a life changing crisis and small, insignificant at the time, mistakes can change their lives.

Thanks to Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This was an interesting story of deceit on a few levels. After a girl is maimed at a party, we see the pettiness that sparks from the incident: between teenagers at school, between adults passing the blame along, and between children and their parents. There were a few too many subplots going on, some more relevant than others. I also thought the twist at the end was rushed and didn't quite ring true with the characterization within the rest of the novel. Having said that, it was a breezy, readable drama with momentum.

I wasn’t at all sure what to expect when I started reading Robyn Harding’s The Party. I was looking for what I liked to call a guilty pleasure or indulgent read, and when I saw this book advertised as something fans of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies would enjoy, I knew The Party was the book I was looking for.

And wow, what a ride it took me on! It actually surprised me how much I enjoyed it because, truth be told, none of the characters are especially likeable and they all made such bad choices throughout the story that I found myself literally wanting to scream at them. But still, there was just something almost intoxicating about watching this domestic drama play out.

The story begins on a simple note when Kim and Jeff Sanders, a wealthy couple who have what appears to be a picture perfect life in an affluent community in San Francisco, decide they want to throw their daughter, Hannah, a Sweet Sixteen party. Their version of a Sweet Sixteen party, however, is Hannah being allowed to invite a few of her best girl friends from school over for pizza and a sleepover. Sounds innocent enough, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Well, Hannah’s parents have no idea that she is desperately trying to climb her way up the social ladder at school and wants to be a part of the “Mean Girls” crowd. Hannah knows that if she’s going to be accepted by the coolest girls in school, she is going to have to step up her party game. Pizza and a slumber party just isn’t going to cut it. Once the girls arrive and Kim lays down her list of rules – no alcohol, no drugs, no boys, etc., the girls are left to their own devices, which includes breaking pretty much every house rule that was laid out for them. The next thing Kim and Jeff know, it’s the middle of the night and Hannah is standing in their bedroom, crying and covered in blood. There has been a terrible accident…

The rest of the novel follows the Sanders family as their lives are laid bare in the wake of this accident, which has left a girl, Ronni, permanently disfigured. Ronni’s mother goes on the attack, determined to make Kim and Jeff pay for what has happened to her daughter, and their friends take sides as some think they are culpable for what happened regardless of having laid down the house rules prior to leaving the girls unattended. In the wake of an impending lawsuit, family secrets and mistakes from the past resurface to haunt them, and as the layers are peeled away from the façade of the Sanders’ lives, it appears that Kim and Jeff’s perfect life isn’t nearly as perfect as it seemed on the surface. It also appears that many in the community are taking great pleasure in watching them, especially Kim, fall.

Ironically though, even though everyone is basically ganging up on them, it’s still nearly impossible to feel any sympathy for the Sanders because as if the party itself wasn’t a bad enough situation, they continue to make horrible decisions from that point forward. Kim walks around acting self-righteous and denying that they are in anyway responsible. Some of the things she says about Ronni and especially her mother are just completely out of line, considering the circumstance. And Jeff is no better. He spends his time trying to hide the fact that after Kim laid down the house rules the night of the party, he snuck back to the party and gave the girls a bottle of champagne so they could properly celebrate Hannah’s milestone birthday. He begs all of the girls involved not to rat him out and somehow accidently leads one of them on so that she starts sending him inappropriate texts, etc., all of which would make him look awful if it were to ever come out because of the lawsuit. Every time he responded to her, I just wanted to yell at him to stop being such an idiot.

I almost got to the point where I thought they deserved whatever happened to them because they were both such annoying characters. On the flip side though, although I felt sympathy for the girl who was disfigured, I was only semi-sympathetic to the way her mother went on the attack, determined not just to do what she could to take care of her daughter, but also hell bent on doing whatever she could to actually ruin the Sanders in every way possible.



LIKES

Okay, so if I didn’t like any of the characters, what did I like about The Party? As I said, I was looking for a guilty pleasure read when I selected this book and I got exactly what I wanted. The story reads like a mashup of Big Little Lies, Mean Girls, with a side of Desperate Housewives thrown in for added flavor. It’s a truly fascinating look at just how ugly and mean people can be.

And even though I didn’t like any of the characters, I still liked the way they were written. They were all flawed and therefore utterly human. I also found everything that happened to be pretty relatable and realistic in the sense that all of the things that went wrong – the party, the accident, and all of the ensuing drama and meanness, etc. -- could easily play out in any community, as could the bullying that took place at Hannah's school once Ronni was deemed not pretty enough to hang around with the "cool" kids anymore.

I loved the pacing of the story too. There was never a dull moment because there was constant drama unfolding from all sides as I waited to see if the Sanders would ultimately be held legally responsible for what happened at the party and regardless, how they would begin to put their lives back together after the character assassination they faced from the victim’s mother and her attorneys.

I also liked that the story was told from multiple points of view, including Hannah, Jeff, Kim, as well as others in the community. Seeing what was driving each character really fleshed out the story and made the drama that much juicier.



DISLIKES

The only real dislike I had was the ending. I can’t say much about it without giving it away, but it was not a satisfying ending for me. I wanted lessons to be learned from what had happened, and while I think some of the characters did learn and grow, the one I wanted to learn and grow the most apparently learned nothing. The ending was shocking and unexpected so in that sense was highly entertaining, but I was still a little disappointed.



FINAL THOUGHTS

If you’re a fan of domestic dramas like Big Little Lies or Desperate Housewives and don’t mind characters who aren’t especially likeable, I’d say The Party is well worth a read.



RATING: 4 STARS

A girl tries to impress members of the “in crowd” by inviting them to a party. When a horrific accident occurs, the girl and her family will have to face intense scrutiny from the community and other students at school as they navigate the moral and legal issues surrounding the event. Author Robyn Harding tells with authority a story about today’s teens in a book that lacks some of that authority in the actual writing in The Party.

Hannah Sanders finds herself in an enviable position at San Francisco’s Hillcrest Academy. Ever since Noah, one of the hottest guys in school, turned his attention on her, Hannah’s social quotient has risen dramatically. She’s on the cusp of the “in crowd,” led by her elementary school BFF, Ronni Monroe, and the other “it” girl, Lauren Ross. Now Hannah just needs to prove to Ronni and Lauren how cool she can be, and she’ll be in the group for sure.

The perfect opportunity comes in the form of her sixteenth birthday. Hannah tells her parents she wants a low-key sleepover instead of a huge bash and lists Ronni and Lauren as her top two guests, with friends Marta and Caitlin rounding out the list. Marta and Caitlin aren’t a part of the clique, but Hannah needs them to maintain appearances so her parents won’t suspect what she really has planned. Kim, Hannah’s ever vigilant mother, couldn’t be happier with Hannah’s choice of party and guests, and father Jeff also voices his approval. After all, what could possibly go wrong when five girls get together for movies, pizza, and cake?

Plenty. With drugs and alcohol thrown into the mix, things get out of hand. One of the girls suffers a horrible accident and is rushed to the hospital. The others go home, and Hannah can’t believe her bad luck. How could something so awful happen at her party? How will she survive high school now?

The situation becomes much more grave for Kim and Jeff. Other parents begin shunning Kim at various school functions. Jeff starts to feel the pressure of supporting his family through the financial strain that could come with the fallout from the party. Their marriage wasn’t in the best place even before Hannah’s party; with a possible lawsuit and shades of infidelity starting to bleed into their relationship, their marriage becomes even more fragile. The entire family will need to find a way to survive the consequences of the accident as well as the possibility that the entire community will find out their most personal issues.

Author Robyn Harding nails the language and mannerisms of a cross section of today’s youth. Parents of teens will want to read this book so they can better prepare themselves for the ever-increasing possibilities of just how hard and how far some young people will go to climb the high school social ladder. Harding doesn’t hold back. She tells the story from various points of view, including Hannah’s, and she doesn’t hesitate to allow Hannah to be her worst when the story demands it.

Less convincing are some of the characterizations of the other point of view characters. Kim insists to everyone she meets that the police cleared her and Jeff of any wrongdoing at the party. Jeff spends a lot of time grinding his teeth about the hold Kim has over him due to a past indiscretion. Ronni’s mother, Lisa, can’t seem to let go of her own past issues long enough to face the reality of the present. In actuality, Hannah is the most grounded of all, despite being the youngest of those narrating the story.

It’s only fitting, then, that Hannah has the last say in the book, and those readers who stick with the story long enough will find her final words haunting and sad all at the same time. Harding shows readers that even a major break in the cycle doesn’t necessarily end it. Only someone with a magnanimous amount of courage can accomplish that.

Some readers might find Kim, Jeff, and Lisa’s personal issues grating. For that reason, not everyone may get through the entire novel. I recommend readers Borrow The Party.

Teenagers always seem to get themselves into things they have no idea how to get out of. That being said I thought the plot of this book was very realistic and I could totally see this happening. For decades teenagers have been sneaking booze into parties, boys and getting into situations that could be potentially dangerous.

The relationship between the teenagers and the drive to be part of the "in" crowd was never my thing or my kids thing so its hard for me to relate to it but I have seen it and seen how intimidating it can be for kids who strive to "fit in". So while these relationships seemed superficial and mean I also found them to be realistic.

I hated Kim, her controlling, greedy and superficial holier than thou attitude reminded me of so many of the women in my area. This need to be perfect and appear to have the perfect life makes me sick. Her judgement of everyone around her and her inability to see her daughter growing up and need to be treated differently made her shallow and aggravating to me. Jeff just seemed like a beaten puppy desperate to be liked. His wife is overly controlling and the "incident" that ruined her trust in him was not ideal but it wasn't like she caught him in an affair. I felt she really dragged out the disappointment in him to extremes and it was really based on a whole lot more than just the "incident".

Lisa the mother of one of the girls at the party is another character that was hard to like. She started out as likable and quickly deteriorated into greed and pettiness. It was another example of taking things to the extreme with no acknowledgement that her daughters behavior contributed to what happened.

Overall this book is worth reading and was well written.

Author Robyn Harding tells a suspenseful tale that will have readers anxiously turning pages to see what happens next. What should have been a joyous time turns rapidly disastrous when a sixteenth birthday party ends up anything but sweet. THE PARTY delves into what happens when a teenage party gets out of hand. Readers will get a stark look at the hidden lives of teenagers including: underage drinking; drug use; cyber bullying; attempted suicide; and navigating the popularity hierarchy of high school. Plus, readers will also get a gripping look into the lives of parents as they deal with their own emotional baggage that is unearthed during the tragedy surrounding their children. Definitely a must read.