maya leaves Houston to attend a wedding in Sri Lanka. Custom dictates a week long celebration for the new to be married couple. Perfect. This gives Amaya one week to make sure that the wedding does not take place. She is prepared to move mountains to stop Kaavi Fonseka from marrying Matthew Spencer (thereafter referred to as Kaavi and Spencer).

Amaya will stop at nothing, planning sabotage after sabotage. However, one major event has truly stopped the wedding, but what was leading up to it?

This thrilling read was in first person from Amaya’s point of view. While the mystery is slowly unraveling as to Amaya's motives, one thing is for certain. Amaya is a dark person, a dark person with very dark thoughts. In fact, she often thinks to herself the things she wants to do to people, and it is these very thoughts that are woven into the pages of this fast-paced novel.

The twists in this book are shocking, and even though I guessed one plot direction correctly, there was so much more that I didn’t catch, and that only made this book that much better. This is one of those books where nothing is as it seems, and that is precisely what makes this such a compelling read.

Many thanks to and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

* TW - self-harm.

Please enjoy my YouTube video review - https://youtu.be/vWQ_MaV0Uc4

Amaya hasn't spoken to her former best friend, Kaavi, for years so when she gets an email inviting her to her wedding, Amaya decides to go. Hoping for a fresh start, Amaya is shocked to discover that Kaavi is actually marrying Amaya's ex boyfriend, Spencer. Amaya decides she needs to stop the wedding. But then Kaavi goes missing and is presumed dead...

Wow, what did I just read? What a story! I really thought I knew where the book was going and then towards the end, it went a totally different way. The Sri Lankan setting was so intriguing and I loved learning more about the wedding culture there. Highly recommend this one - I loved it!

I found the description of the book appealing because I know nothing about Sri Lanka. I was hooked by the plot and wanted a front row seat.
For most of the reading I kept asking what was Amaya’s deal. What had occurred 5 years earlier. I liked the police interview style.
Arguably, none of the characters are especially likable, but the plot kept me reading faster.
The lies and deceptions are tighter than a fly wrapped in a spider’s web.
Deceive and it shall deliver!

Once again, I enjoyed the perspective that Amanada Jayatissa brings to her novels. We get a wonderful glimpse at Sri Lanken culture and traditions, especially the preparations and intricacies of a Sri Lanken wedding in a privileged family.

But this is not just any wedding. It's a wedding that must be stopped. The only problem is, the one who can stop it has been "uninvited".

Amaya innocently believes she has been invited to her former best friend's wedding to her ex-boyfriend. Is she just jealous, or is something darker going on here? She's determined to stop the wedding of Kaavi and Spencer, and now that she's in Sri Lanka, she has to carefully navigate the world of aunties, gossip, and mortal tutting.

I loved Amaya's little asides, imagining in her head what disaster she would like to see befall someone who has slighted her (imagined or otherwise). I also liked how she compulsively and superstitiously checked time to see if it was a good sign before proceeding (because I think, subconsciously, I do that ;-)

Although it took a while to get to all of the secrets that EVERYONE was hiding I did not guess the ending and I loved the twists and turns the story took to get there.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance reader's copy of another great book from Amanda Jayatissa!

A bit if a slow start, but the complex relationships, questioning of the narrator, and the multi-faceted relationships all kept me on my toes. There are many twists and reveals, and while I'm not really a predictive reader, i never would have guessed many of these twits.

There’s a lot to like with this thriller that also makes it unique. The Sir Lanka setting is glamorous, beachy and full of pomp and circumstance. The elements of Sir Lankan culture added such an interesting context to the story. Reputations are easily destroyed by a single rumor and Sir Lankan women are under pressure to marry before they are “too old” which plays a major role in this book. I loved how the older generation were all about showing their wealth and spreading rumors. It had me questioning everyone and their motives.

I also enjoyed how the list of suspects was endless. The story is told from Amaya’s perspective, with elements of her backstory coming to light throughout the book. Eventually, the bride has a say, but the chapters are intermingled with investigative interview transcripts with wedding guests. It seems like everyone has a chip on their shoulder and I was constantly changing my mind on who I felt was to blame. This led to an ending twist that really did take me by surprise.

The one complaint I have is that there is a lot going on in this book. I mean, a lot. A ton of red herrings that throw you off from the main plotline, some in a good way and others that I felt were unnecessary. I do not want to give specifics so that I do not give any spoilers, but, in my opinion, some elements of Amaya’s backstory could have been left out.

Amaya Bloom has problems. Once a brash young woman ready to take on the world, nowadays she’s content to run a small spice shop in California and quietly stalk her former best friend on social media. Kaavi Fonseka seems to have everything Amaya once thought was within her reach, too: a glamorous life of wealth and influence, documenting her award-winning charitable efforts as well as her skincare routine and fashion tips for her legions of adoring fans worldwide. But most of all, Kaavi has a loving, tight-knit family that Amaya desperately misses, though it’s been five years since Amaya last had contact with any of them:

QUOTE
Things change as you grow. As you understand the world for what it is. That we overcompensate in our memories because we didn’t know any better at the time.

That was how I was expecting things to be with Kaavi and the Fonsekas.

I had hoped that it was all in my head. That I’d put them on some sort of pedestal because I’d missed them so much. That I had been looking at my past through glasses that were so rose-tinted that everything was just fluorescent pink at this point. But with Kaavi, it was the opposite. In our time apart, I’d withered away to less, and she’d blossomed to be more.
END QUOTE

When Kaavi announces that she’s getting married, Amaya is taken aback, then completely flips out after realizing that the groom-to-be is Amaya’s own ex-boyfriend Matthew Spencer. Spencer, as he’s known, and Amaya had a bad break-up five years ago, an event that preceded the rupture in her own friendship with Kaavi. Seeing the two of them together now, loving and beautiful on all of Kaavi’s social media accounts, triggers something in Amaya. When she gets the invitation to Kaavi’s wedding in Colombo, Sri Lanka, she knows she has to do everything in her power to stop the wedding, even if the results could turn deadly.

There is so much I cannot say about this book because I do not want to spoil a single second of the reading experience for you. While several of the earlier plot twists seem telegraphed, Amanda Jayatissa is merely lulling jaded crime readers like myself into a false sense of complacency before delivering a series of knockout blows that had me gasping loudly, unable to put down the book till after I’d turned that last, memorable page.

And more than just being a devastatingly twisty thriller, the trenchant insight into being a modern woman – and even more specifically a modern woman navigating the tensions between the liberties taken for granted by Western culture and the more rigid expectations of a post-colonial Asian society – lent a greater depth and force to the badly behaved goings on of the characters here as they schemed and plotted their ways to their goals. Amaya, for example, hates her privilege but isn’t above using it when needs must:

QUOTE
The panic on the security guard’s face made me feel like a real villain. I knew what I was doing. <i>He</i> knew what I was doing. I was playing my Colombo 07 Privilege Card. The card I hated everyone else in this town for playing. Where I would use my perfect westernized English and the wealth I had the luck of being born into to make someone else feel so small, so insignificant, so afraid of their status in life that they felt that they had no choice but to let me do what I wanted. Rich kids, the children of the politically connected, did it every day. Standing in lines, stopping for traffic cops, following procedure in public administration buildings wasn’t for them. For us.
END QUOTE

As a Malaysian emigre who has firsthand experience with this kind of thing, reading this book made me feel like the living embodiment of the “I’m in this and I don’t (know if I) like it” meme. I was already deeply affected by Ms Jayatissa’s debut novel <a href=”https://www.criminalelement.com/book-review-my-sweet-girl-by-amanda-jayatissa/”>My Sweet Girl</a>. That was a head rush of a thriller, a book that trapped its main character between the racism of her California home and the ghosts of her Sri Lankan upbringing. In her sophomore effort, the author brings her scarily sharp insight to bear on Sri Lankan society itself, skewering the pretentious and downright cruel without ever patronizing the culture or characters (though even as a self-possessed eldest child, I did think Tehani got the short end of the stick. The poor woman is trying her best, okay?!)

Self-aware, suspenseful and scandalously witty, You’re Invited is one of my favorite reads this year so far. It’s the homicidal version of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, and deserves to be just as much of a blockbuster.

This was one of those reads that took me awhile to get into, but once I was settled in, I was super into it! For me the slowish start paid off in the end, so patience may be required but it does get interesting.

The author did a great job with the format, it’s told both in the present and a few months before the wedding and there are interview transcripts interspersed from various wedding guests that reveal so much juicy gossip. I really liked the look inside Sri Lankan culture and traditions and the lavish wedding was so fun. There’s a lot of dark humor here which I enjoy in a thriller and I found it to be smart and sharp in such a wicked way. I think this is one of those thrillers where the readers enjoyment really hinges on the twist. I didn’t have it fully figured out ahead of time so I ended up really liking the direction it took, but if you guess it early I don’t think you’ll be impressed. I say this because I guessed the twist in the authors debut and I was bummed so just wanted to put it out there. But overall I do recommend it and think if you like whodunnits with lots of secrets this was a fun one.

You’re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa



READ THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE: Psychological thrillers, unreliable narrators

This one is a must-read if you enjoy suspense novels that keep you turning the pages and guessing with every chapter! Its fantastic! Buckle up and enjoy the ride of this well-plotted, excellent story that takes place in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

SYNOPSIS:

When Amaya is invited to Kaavi’s over-the-top wedding in Sri Lanka, she is surprised and a little hurt to hear from her former best friend after so many years of radio silence. But when Amaya learns that the groom is her very own ex-boyfriend, she is consumed by a single thought: She must stop the wedding from happening, no matter the cost. But as the week of wedding celebrations begin and rumors about Amaya’s past begin to swirl, she can’t help but feel like she also has a target on her back. When Kaavi goes missing and is presumed dead, all evidence points to Amaya. However, nothing is as it seems as Jayatissa expertly unravels that each wedding guest has their own dark secret and agenda, and Amaya may not be the only one with a plan to keep the bride from getting her happily ever after…

Out on August 9

Reading YOU'RE INVITED is a little like driving the backroads too fast in a strange town at night in a stolen car without a GPS and with only one headlight, in the best possible way. Amanda Jayatissa kept me guessing as she wove twist after twist into a captivating tale where no one and nothing is what it seems.

Crazy Rich Asians meets Gone Girl? Yes, Yes, a THOUSAND TIMES. This hooks you from the moment you start. I couldn't put it down.

Okay, okay, okay, I was SO excited to read YOU'RE INVITED by Amanda Jayatissa. I loved her first book, My Sweet Girl. YOU'RE INVITED did not disappoint.

Set in Sri Lanka, Amanda weaves a tale mostly told by our unreliable narrator, Amaya. She is determined to not let the wedding between her ex-best friend, Kaavi, and her ex-boyfriend, Spencer happen.

The story is told from a couple of points-of-view mixed in with interviews after Kaavi disappears on the day of her wedding.

The plot revolves around marriages and weddings. Particularly those in Sri Lanka. We see Kaavi dealing with the pressure from her family and community to get married before she's deemed "too old." We get glimpses of how arranged marriages work, how extravagant (and costly) weddings are in Sri Lanka.

The STRESS of making all these working parts come together is excruciating for Kaavi. And here Amaya, who has her own secrets and life issues, comes like a wrecking ball ready to destroy the entire event.

I loved how the story would give little hints and breadcrumbs of secrets or twists and in the end everything comes together.

YOU'RE INVITED was a popcorn thriller that made for a great weekend of reading for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me an e-copy of YOU'RE INVITED to review.

I rate YOU'RE INVITED five out of five stars.

I felt a strange connection with the main character, most likely because we are both Virgos (haha). I love the author’s writing style it kept me intrigued the whole time. Towards 60% through the book I feel like the whole story made a strange, but awesome turn.

I loved the added information on Sri Lankan culture, I found it very interesting. The end of chapter transcripts were a great touch, they gave a lot of insight into the characters. I am very excited to read more books by this author.

An unlikeable, unreliable main character, with unlikeable, unreliable other characters, everyone hiding Deep Dark Secrets... I've read this before. Including the narrative interruptions for the investigation into Where's/What Happened To Kaavi? The setting, very rich section of Colombo (Sri Lanka) and the glimpses of culture we get, redeems much of the rote nature of the mystery. Sadly, sometimes that's really heavy handed, but other times it's interestingly woven into the narrative. There were other heavy handed moments, like Amaya's constant looking for signs in the time or other numerical things, like the number of knickknacks on a mantle. I rounded this up from 2.5 to 3 because of the setting.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

Once this book got going (and it took a while) it was full of surprises and in the end I liked how twisty and surprising it was.

Amaya and Kaavi's friendship fell apart five years before after being friends since childhood. That's why Amaya is surprised to receive a heartfelt e-mail with an invitation to Kaavi's wedding in their home country of Sri Lanka. Yet when she discovers that Kaavi is marrying Amaya's ex Spencer, she knows she has to go and stop Kaavi from marrying Spencer.

Nothing in this book is what it seems on the surface. There are hidden motives, dark secrets, and unclear motivations. I must admit that I thought it was going a certain way and I was completely wrong! Like I said, it did take a while, it takes until the book is at about 50% for things to really start being revealed.

This book does suffer from the unfortunate issue of OTTM--One Twist Too Many. I thought that everything was wrapped up really nicely and then surprise, one more twist was thrown in. It didn't wreck the book, but it was totally unnecessary except that it did answer a couple of the unanswered questions/clues from earlier in the narrative. I'll give the book a pass, but authors need to rein themselves in when throwing in twists.

I loved the Sri Lanka setting and culture. It was fascinating and really gave a unique flavor to the story and kept me engaged. Even though there are foreign words and phrases sprinkled throughout, they are all translated so I wasn't lost.

All in all, this is a very surprising suspense tale, if you stick with it past the initial long setup, the payoff is fantastic.

You’re Invited takes place in Sri Lanka and dives into themes of manipulation, power, privilege, and family drama. You’re Invited was one of my most anticipated summer reads! I really enjoyed this one! I loved that the story is fast-paced and told through multiple perspectives. All the characters are unlikable and they don’t seem to be what they seem which makes the twists in here even more fun. This is one of those books that are great to go in knowing little about the plot. However, the author does address heavy subjects in here: self harm, abuse, gaslighting, violence to name a few. Highly recommend picking this one up if you love domestic thrillers/mystery! Also definitely recommend listening to the audiobook as there are three narrators who do a stellar job bringing the story to life!

You’re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa

Published: August 9, 2022
Berkley
Pages: 384
Genre: Psychological Thriller
KKECReads Rating: 5/5
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Amanda Jayatissa runs corporate trainings on Communication Skills Development, and works tirelessly as the Chief Taste Tester at the cookie shop she co-owns when she isn’t recovering from a self-induced book hangover, Amanda. She grew up in Sri Lanka and has lived in the California bay area and British countryside before relocating back to her sunny island, where she lives with her husband and two Tasmanian-devil-reincarnate huskies.

“I guess this is who I am now.”

Amaya has been living half a life in LA, watching her old best friend soar to success back home. When Kaavindi suddenly announces she’s engaged and getting married in three weeks, Amaya is stunned. When Kaavindi announces who she is marrying, Amaya feels sick. When the emailed invitation arrives, Amaya knows it’s a sign that she has to take a trip back home, even if it’s the last flight she ever takes.

The build-up for this novel was extreme. This was very much like a roller coaster. Much of the book explains the past with dips into the present.

The character development in this book was incredible. You genuinely don’t know who to love and who to hate. Everyone is put on display, but it takes a moment of clarity to realize what you’re seeing.

I had no idea who did what until the reveal. When the drop came, I was free-falling through the revaluation, getting whiplash and having my breath sucked from my lungs.

I love when a novel draws me in so intensely and is so well constructed that I can’t figure out the ending. I did figure out part of the twist, but the ultimate reveal was stunning.

This was a beautifully written novel about life as a woman of color in a society where men and reputation dictate everything. I loved the undertones and the power shifts.

The dynamically strong lead characters were so flawed yet strong that you feel connected to them even when you learn their secrets. And oh boy- did everyone have secrets.

It’s true what they say; money can’t buy happiness. But it can buy silence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Books for an eARC of You're Invited by Amanda Jayatissa in exchange for an honest review.

CW: pedophilia, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, suicidal thoughts, mental illness, self harm, gun violence, knife violence, murder, toxic relationships, sexism, misogyny, racism, classism, see full list on StoryGraph.

Amaya has not talked to her best friend, Kaavi, or Kaavi's family in over five years. After a life changing event forces Amaya to cut off contact from the people that have been her biggest support, she quietly fades into the background, subsisting on social media updates to keep her in the loop about her friend's life. When Amaya sees that Kaavi is engaged to Amaya's ex-boyfriend, she knows immediately that she has to stop the wedding. After she receives a surprising invitation to the wedding, Amaya travels back to her hometown in Sri Lanka, opening the door to the life that she used to live and threatening to uncover secrets that will rock the foundation of this well-to-do community.

Overall, I simply don't think that this book was very well executed or edited. There were a few too many red herrings throughout the book that were never truly explained and were not necessary to the plot line, which made the story convoluted and hard to follow at times. I was intrigued at the outset of the book, I thought the exposition was well done, but the follow through was poor. The device of Amaya's time checking was an interesting bit of characterization, though I was unclear on whether this was designed to be a compulsion for which we were to infer that Amaya is mentally ill and an unreliable narrator, or whether this was a function of Sri Lankan cultural superstition. If the former, I am never a fan of mental illness being used as a trope that perpetuates a harmful narrative. If the latter, I would have appreciated more attention paid to this cultural piece as a moment for learning, and the author could have leaned in more to that ominous feeling.

Though I liked the use of detective interviews with each character as a device for slowly revealing new details about the case, I wonder whether this story could have been more effective if we were aware of what specific crime had taken place at the outset and then we got chapters working backwards in time to discover the perpetrator.

The twists at the end were relatively predictable and not entirely interesting within the thriller genre. Here we have yet another entitled man ruining things for women without remorse. It leaves me wondering if the author could have chosen a different central conflict that brings Amaya and Kaavi back together so that the overall narrative of the book could be more focused on the female relationships, which I found far more interesting.

Overall, this was yet another disappointing thriller selected as a Book of the Month pick, and it has me questioning the screening process by which the company makes their selections. I think we can do better than this.

“IT’S FUNNY WHAT you call home. Some find it in a place, others in people. You can find it in a smell, in a smile, in a feeling. Home is where the heart is, people say. So where’s your home if your heart has been broken into a million pieces, over and over again?”

What could be worse than your childhood best friend marrying your ex? Getting accused of her murder, for one. This is an addictive thriller about a lavish Sri Lankan wedding celebration that not everyone will survive.

Wheeeee what a ride! From the multiple unreliable narrators to the nonlinear timeline giving you glimpses into the events leading up to the wedding..just wow! I really enjoyed the peek into Sri Lanken culture and into the country itself.

It started out with what appears to be an obvious motive for a potential murder and a cut and dry mystery, but it quickly turned into anything but. I have whiplash from all of the twists and turns in this one! This fast paced thriller will have you guessing until the very end. I really enjoyed the transcript chapters throughout the book too.

Although I purchased the physical copy, thank you to Netgalley, Berkley Publishing, and the author for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Amanda Jayatissa has created magic once again. I am in love with the way she sets up a book. She is a master of building up suspense until it is whirling around your head. Making you turn the pages faster and faster. Needing to know what is going on and who is responsible. The suspects change with each passing chapter. Bringing forth more questions, and creating more depth and background for each character. The deeply guarded secrets which come to light will shock you and spin you 180 degrees. All of this makes for a stellar read, where you have to remind yourself to come up for breath.

Amaya and Kaavi were best friends from childhood, until something happened five years ago that ripped them apart. Amaya is shocked and elated to receive a wedding invitation from Kaavi. When she finds out that she is marrying her ex-boyfriend, her heart is ripped out once again. She decides to fly home to Sri Lanka, determined not to allow this wedding to happen. But how far is Amaya willing to go?

This is an astounding book that will leave you gasping at all of the twists and turns. I loved reading about the gossiping Sri Lankan Aunties, who love to know everyone's business but claim they are looking out for everyone. The Sri Lankan culture is wonderfully represented and makes you feel as though you are taking part in all of the wedding splendor. Do yourself a favor and read this book. Thank you to Amanda Jayatissa and Berkley Publishing for sending me this thrill a minute read.