The Safari is a great read. I felt like I was taking a minor risk by reading something so little-hyped, but this was terrific.
Odelia Babel plans a destination late-in-life wedding at her South African resort and brings her closest family and friends for the celebration. But Odelia is an easy person to hate, even for them. When she winds up dead, everyone is a suspect. Differing points of views, including Odelia’s, make this a real puzzle. When reveals start to come out, they keep flowing. All of them have secrets.
From the animals to life on another continent, the backdrop is immersive. The Safari deserves any hype. If you love mysteries, or if you love armchair traveling with a well-written book, this is for you.

I thought the mystery was good. The start was a nice build up. But I found it to be just a few too many POV - each new POV pulled and distracted as they each had their own emotions, ideas, and annoyances. I thought the twists were interesting and, even though I'd guessed a few. But I did find the ending to be a bit messy - there were just so many secrets and reveals. But it did wrap it all up nicely. A nice mystery mixed with family drama. I liked it!

The Safari is my first Jaclyn Goldis read and going by the blurb, I thought it would be quite interesting. I liked the idea of the plot - it seemed quite promising. Unfortunately, the execution was not the greatest. To be honest, I did not enjoy reading this book. The amount of Hebrew translation that this book contains is a little off-putting. I could understand minor translations here and there, but the exact same phrase was used every time. It's very repetitive and became a little annoying. "In Hebrew, x means y." Hebrew, x means y. "In Hebrew, x means y." It's the same way every time. Very repetitive.
I also did not care for the number of twists crammed into the end of the book. It's as if the author didn't spend much time developing the story and then tried to save it at the end. It made reading the twists unexciting and anticlimactic. There was also an odd point where I did not know what was happening with.. I'm not sure of the psychic's name. There are just so many characters. And the sister's storyline, oh man. I feel like the book could have done without. It was not my favorite read, however, I'm sure it would probably appeal to its targeted audience.
Thank you NetGalley, Atria Books, and Jaclyn Goldis for this ARC.

I can't recommend it enough! I really enjoyed this book, I couldn't put it down, I finished it in a couple of days!

Rich people acting badly is quite entertaining, if I do say so! It’s interesting to see the dynamics of a family who has everything but still not quite happy and willing to kill, lie, & cheat to get what they want! The twists in this book were very interesting and some were mouth dropping!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my personal opinion.

A wedding brings the family together but secrets will break them apart.

A rich family gathers for their mother's new marriage. The wedding should be the next day and they have gathered to celebrate. Although, no one feels like celebrating - none of the kids are excited to have their mom marry someone closer to their age than hers.

I thought the mystery was good. The start was a nice build up. But I found it to be just a few too many POV - each new POV pulled and distracted as they each had their own emotions, ideas, and annoyances. I thought the twists were interesting and, even though I'd guessed a few. But I did find the ending to be a bit messy - there were just so many secrets and reveals. But it did wrap it all up nicely. A nice mystery mixed with family drama. I liked it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This story was so well done and I really enjoyed it. I enjoy reading from this author and I'm looking forward to the next book. The plot was really well explored and I enjoyed the overall story. The characters were great and I was able to dive myself into this book. It was well done and I highly recommend. This book was so good.

Thank you to Atria Books for my copy of THE SAFARI.

I gobbled this book up so fast and definitely solidified Jaclyn Goldis in my top writers list. This book has such wild atmosphere, (literally) insane twists I didn't see coming and characters that are so deeply and perfectly fleshed out that make you instantly care about them. I highly recommend this one.

A story about a very rich family with so many secrets.

I liked the concept of the story being about a family and a safari. A family gathers as their mother wants her kids to be present for her wedding to a man considerably younger than her. When folks start dying and/or disappearing thigs really get out of control.

I enjoyed the story but the ending just seemed too complicated.

When I say this is FULL of twists and turns, that is an understatement. Almost everyone has something to hide and a reason to want Odelia dead.
I did struggle a bit at the beginning to connect with the characters and felt the pacing was a bit slow as we built up the tension leading up to the death. But once the body was found, the story took off. Secrets were revealed left and right, and I couldn't put it down.

I wanted to love this, unfortunately I struggled a bit to garner any sympathy for the characters in the early phase of the novel, making it a little tougher to stick with than I would've liked! Jaclyn Goldis built a rather evocative exploration of the impactful ways that the upper classes can impose upon tourism culture with this one. I just wish I was more invested in the characters themselves. I have no doubt that this will still find great readership with folks who like their thriller characters to be awful (in the best way!)

Odelia Babel, CEO of a sustainable fashion empire, is about to marry for the second time—to a man twenty-five years her junior. Asher Bach is the thirty-something designer of Odelia’s luxury clothing line, the darling of every high-fashion journalist, and madly in love with Odelia. Odelia is eager to celebrate her nuptials with her nearest and dearest, so Odelia invites her adult children, her daughter-in-law, her grandchild, and her best friend/assistant to an all-expenses-paid luxury safari at Leopard Sands in South Africa, the Babel family’s favorite vacation spot. In its soil, they have deep roots and deeper secrets. The oldest son, Joshua, works at the company and is the heir apparent. The mother doesn’t want to give up any control yet. The daughter, Bailey, is the chief conservation officer but finds out her mother has used less friendly products to save money, plus she really would like to be a veterinarian. Her twin brother, Sam, who is gay and has done rehab multiple times wants money. It seems like the perfect trip, but not everyone is thrilled. The game drives in the bush and bonfires beneath the desert stars, tensions among the family threaten to boil over. And then, the morning after a big fight with her son Sam—and hours before the wedding—Odelia is found murdered. Sam is immediately the prime suspect, but he claims he has an ironclad alibi—he was with his twin sister, Bailey. Only Bailey is nowhere to be found. Where is Bailey?

The author has written a family drama in a remote location with torrential rains and dead bodies turning up. The novel looked so interesting with its African setting and mystery genre. The pacing is good. Everyone has their issues, insecurities, desires and secrets; they all have secrets. It’s suspenseful worrying about who might die and who is doing the killing. There are some twists I didn’t see coming which add made it enjoyable for me.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to finish this book.

I’m almost 50% in and spent weeks reading but had to make myself pick it up each time. I was so excited for the setting but found that I couldn’t relate to any characters and the pace was just too slow.

I will try other books by this author though!

Thank you so much to Atria for the gifted ARC!

I've read all of Jaclyn Goldis' books so far and am always excited for new work from her!

This one was such a fun concept and I loved the full cast and the murder mystery aspect!

A lot of the characters were extra, but I think that was the point! I overall thought it was fun but just wanted a little more!

Still hoping this will be a big hit!

En bref, j'ai trouvé que le côté huis clos et le contexte géographique étaient bien fait tout comme le final que je n'avais pas vu venir mais il m'a manqué quelque chose du côté des personnages pour vraiment m'attacher à eux et me sentir concernée par ce qu'ils traversent. Un thriller somme toute efficace mais j'ai quand même manqué de quelque chose pour adorer ma lecture. Par contre les lieux et le suspense sont très bien faits !

Overall, this book did not work for me. It is very character driven, but the characters were so unlikeable that it was difficult to read. I almost stopped reading the book at the 48% mark, but that is when something finally happens with a character death, so I was hopeful that my interest would increase from the point forward. Now, however, I wish that I had just stopped the book and not finished it. The second half was predictable and I did not find any of the twists to be interesting, just disturbing (not in a good way). I'm really disappointed that this book was not for me since I loved the Chateau.

Actual Rating 2.5

This work is told using multiple POVs - many, many POVs. It was honestly too many and ended up weakening the plot and the book as a whole. Because of how many POVs were used, we get a lot of introspection and going through memories from everyone's POV, drastically slowing down this already slow plot. The amount of time spent on this aspect for all the characters made this work feel boring quite regularly, which was disappointing.

The murder mystery not only took a backseat to all of that, but also to the massive number of repetitive arguments that took place between the cast. There were also many, many pages of info-dumping used to explain why the murder happened, which completely took away from any possibility of tension or interest.

There were a few smaller aspects that I enjoyed, like the setting and some interesting information relating to greenwashing and sustainability myths used by corporations. But honestly, most of the good stuff was buried beneath the unnecessarily overwritten elements. This work could be good if it underwent a solid editing and trimming.

If you're looking for a slow family drama with a murder mystery aspect, then you may enjoy this one. My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The death of the matriarch while on safari? Count me in. However, the premise was way more interesting that the writing or the plot. I had read and liked one of Goldis' previous books, but this one wasn't great. It might just be that I was the wrong reader at the wrong time, but this book didn't land with me.

DNF @ 4%

“we must compete for jobs with Black South Africans. Well, sometimes when wrongs are redressed, there are casualties. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, eh?”
This line just really rubbed me the wrong way.

Fascinating setting. There's just something about safari locales that are enchanting. Although I really don't like the "circle of life", I get the necessity of it all. But it hurts my sensibilities! The characters are fleshed out so well and each one has their back story which is wrapped up very nicely in the end.