#AlexFinlay never disappoints for a solid, unputdownable #thriller. I loved this one.

•

Five very different families all come together to celebrate Parents’ Weekend with their children’s freshman year of college at a small private college in Northern California. A judge embattled in a nationwide, hot-button case and his grief embroiled wife, a high priority, security toting State Department official, a placating and nervous struggling, single mother who works as the secretary to the Dean of the college, and a borderline morally bankrupt plastic surgeon and his yogi suburban wife, though diverse in background, ethnicities, and social standing, all discover the one thing they have in common: their undying and eternal love for their children.

•

When the parents await their children’s arrival at dinner, they are shocked when hours later the children never arrive. Initially determined that they simply wanted to avoid their parents and partake in a more fun collegiate event, they are eventually forced to acknowledge that something truly terrible is at play. Something that may be connected to a recent tragic and unfortunate scandal and death at the school.

While I enjoyed this book, there was a lot going on. It was a good storyline, it was just a crazy journey getting through it. I would read another book from this author.

I actually really enjoyed this!
I liked how the parents and kids were equally guilty.
I liked how it went between what the parents were going through and also the kids.
Family relationships are so dynamic, and you never really know what's going on.
I also like how it showed how the media and social media can distort an investigation and do serious damage to everyone involved.
It also took this and compared it to what happened with the Idaho college murders.
It was a very interesting take.
I really enjoyed this and would definitely recommend it!

Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay
⭐⭐⭐⭐
#mystery

It's parents weekend at Santa Clara University. Eight parents are here to see 5 of their freshmen kids but where are they? They couldn't all have skipped out, right?

Each family has their own POV. Then the students have their POV. It's a total of 6 POVs. It's a lot. It does seem to be a trademark of this author. But each POV, each chapter, is clearly marked. No confusion there. This could be a downside of this book for some people.

Not only does every family have its own POV, they also have their own backstory. Each backstory has its possible reasons why their child may be missing. But not why all 5 of them are missing at once. One by one the stories get canceled and they move on to the next and try to find the real reason why all 5 freshmen are missing.

It's a good book. By a really good author. I have now read and really liked 4 out of his 5 books. He is an auto buy author for me and will continue to be one.

#netgalley #parentsweekend
#stmartinspress #minotaurbooks

I am usually a big Alex Finley fan unfortunately this one really lackluster for me. It was kind of boring and really didn’t follow his normal plot lines. I would give a three out of five stars.

I am a huge fan of this author but this book must not have stuck with me like their works usually do, because I read it months ago and I am just now remembering to leave a review.
I can't wait to read the next one.

Thanks to Minotaur Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for early access to both ebook and audiobook versions of Parents Weekend in exchange for my honest opinion. I have been a fan of the author since reading his first book, Every Last Fear, and I enjoyed this upcoming release. FBI Agent Sarah Keller, from Every Last Fear and The Night Shift, is back as a character in this book, although I didn't realize this until the book specifically referenced The Night Shift (apparently it has been a while since I read those!), and you definitely don't need to have read either of those books first. Just a fun overlap for readers of his previous books! She is a badass FBI agent - I would definitely read more books involving her!
Parents Weekend takes place at Santa Clara University, where four students’ parents are set to have dinner with their students together. The parents are from all over (NY, DC, LA, etc) and their jobs range from one working at the school to one being a big deal in the State Department. The parents show up at the dinner, but none of their students do. Come to find out the students plus one more, now referred to as “the five,” have all disappeared. A student had previously been found dead earlier in the week, so this is NOT the type of attention the school wanted to have, especially over parents weekend.
This was a quick read/listen for me, and while I enjoyed it, it felt lacking compared to the author's previous books. I can't quite put my finger on what would have helped the plot. I definitely love a book that is under 300 pages, but this one felt like it could have used a little more (I know, who am I wanting a book to be longer?!). It was a good vacation read if you're looking for a fast thriller, so I recommend checking it out.

Alex Finlay’s latest, Parent’s Weekend is a thriller that follows five families and their children.

When their parents turn up to Santa Clara University for Parent’s Weekend, all five of their children fail to show up at the Parent’s dinner. Following the death of one of their fellow students, emotions are high and faculty is on red alert but the five students are nowhere to be found.

Enter FBI agent Sarah Keller, the agent who must locate the missing students and find out what really happened to their deceased classmate.

This story is quick and short however I found it to be lacklustre. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters and I made assumptions that turned into reveals early on. I wish we spent more time with each of the characters or had less characters in order to truly engage with the narrative about parental expectations, the college experience and familial trauma.

This book had an interesting premise, but was hard to follow at times with the amount of characters. Overall it was a good read, but wasn't a book I was super drawn to

3.5 ⭐️ I really enjoyed this book until the last little chunk of it. I was really invested in the characters and their stories and was really rooting for them. I also really enjoyed the investigation point of view as well! I did see the ending coming so that was disappointing and I also felt the ending was a little rushed. Overall it was decent but just be prepared for the ending to fall a bit flat.

Parents Weekend is a story of 5 missing kids and the FBI agent who is tasked with helping to find them. I found this book so easy to devour, I read it in just one day. I love a look with short chapters, and the characters were endearing in their own ways. Great thriller!!

Alex Finlay is probably a top fave thriller author of mine, but this one missed it for me. Easily my least favourite of his, but still decent! I'd call it a quick and easy popcorn thriller read, with great twists and overall enjoyable, but there were way too many characters to keep track of and way too many plot lines to keep track.

I thought this was pretty well rounded! This was my third book from Alex and the writing style was very similar to the others in terms of structuring the twists and turns. I thought the development of the characters was well done and did leave a bit of mystery as to who was actually responsible. Can’t wait to see what’s next

Parents Weekend was from the POV of various characters which at times was very confusing. Hard to keep everyone straight. As the story went along, it got more interesting but in the end the book was just okay for me. I know other people would enjoy it though.

I freaking LOVED If Something Happens to Me and The Night Shift. Five and four star reads, easy.

I wasn't totally sold on the premise, to be honest. But given my enjoyment of the previous two novels I read, I went for it anyway.

Should have listened to my gut.

Five families are in town to celebrate the end of the first year of college for their children at a small private school in northern California.

The first event of the evening starts with dinner and cocktails for the families, but five students all from the same dorm never show up. My first issue came right away with this - everyone just kidn of shrugs it off as, "Oh, they're just being kids, went off to party, blah blah,"

...like, what?

Your family travels all this way to see you and celebrate with you, and you have a track record that would make it make sense to them that you just didn't show? Okay...

Anyway, the hours fly by and none of the missing students have contacted their parents. Everyone panics, the campus police call in help, they get search parties going and reporters pop up quick.

Armchair sleuths are quick to compile theories and share them widely. Do their disappearances have to do with their parents, or something the students have done themselves?

I could not have cared less.

Not one single character had a unique voice. I didn't care what happened to any of them, because we didn't get to know the kids. They were just kind of there, but not, since they'd been kidnapped and were absent for much of the book.

The single biggest problem with this book, that then causes all the other problems, is because there were too many characters. You've got five kidnapped kids, which equals five sets of parents, though some were divorced or single parents. Way too many points of view.

TOO MANY CHARACTERS. TOO MANY TOO MANY TOO MANY.

With that many people milling around, you don't get to know any of them. I don't typically demand to know characters of thrillers and mysteries inside-out, but I would like to know enough about them to at least care somewhat about their survival, when warrented.

Given the fact that we don't get to know the kids very well, it's was extremely hard for me to remember which kid belong to which parent(s). And honestly, it didn't really make a difference because the story could have easily taken place with fewer kids/parents and still been the same. Excet maybe then I would have been more invested because I would have actually been able to keep straight who was with who.

The pacing was fast, but not the way it was probably intended. Instead of creating the tension and making readers feel like it was a race against time to save these kids, it was more like the faster we go, the fewer plot holes able to be pondered because you're already on to the next event.

So there's chaos because the kids are missing, chaos because there's too many characters, chaos because nothing is making any kind of sense.

I also found the reference to the brutal murders of the four Idaho students gross and unnecessary. And Calling the missing kids 'The Five' was weird, like trying to link them to the 'Idaho Four'.

Absolutely not recommended.

Alex Finlay is a must-read author for me. I knew I had to read this one. I've been in a reading slump the last little bit and this helped me get out of it. While I didn't LOVE this book, and I called one of the twists early on, this book was still entertaining. I still don't think I know exactly what kid belonged to what parents but that's okay. I don't feel like you NEED to know for the story. I love a book with multiple POVs and short chapters. If you are looking for a fast read this summer, this one is it. I listened and read. I think the narrator did a great job!

This was a quick read that gripped me right from the start. Told through multiple POVs, the story moved at a solid pace and kept me invested throughout. The sections from the college student’s perspective had a definite YA feel, but I actually appreciated that. They were young, and they sounded young, which made it feel more authentic.

The dual timeline was handled really well, weaving the past and present together in a way that felt seamless and enhanced the story. While the characters weren’t perfect and had their flaws, they were believable, which made their struggles and decisions more compelling. I also loved seeing familiar faces from previous books, continuing their story without being a series.

Overall, a solid, fast-paced read with just the right mix of suspense, character development, and continuity for fans of the series.

The narrator did a fantastic job. She made it easy to distinguish between the different POVs and kept the pacing and tone engaging throughout. Her performance added another layer to the story that really worked for me.

Thank you NetGalley, Minotaur Books for an ARC, and Macmillan Audio for an advanced listening copy.

Some college kids are kidnapped. They were all supposed to meet their parents for dinner at the school. None of them showed up. No one knows what happened to them. Is this a prank? These kids have parents who have high-power positions and jobs. Perhaps there is a ransom. There has to be a reason that these kids have disappeared.

I love Alex Finlay. All of his previous books have been 5 star reads for me. This book just didn’t feel the same. There weren’t the twists and turns I was expecting. Where were the thrills? The story was entertaining enough to finish but in the end I was really left a bit surprised at how much this one missed the mark for me.

The opening of this story was really good and engaging. The characters and their back stories were very interesting, and the action starts relatively soon in the beginning. I felt, though that the book did lose steam about halfway through and it was only at the very end that I picked back up again. I did enjoy the story and I didn’t want to stop reading it, I was interested to see how it was going to turn out. I wouldn’t say it was thrilling, but it was definitely interesting and a good quick read if you like a good mystery in a university setting.