A review by jstilts
You're Invited by Amanda Jayatissa

dark funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is a bit of a trick, and it's - only just - won me over. The first 70% of the book follows one character trying to ruin the wedding of her ex-best friend to her ex-boyfriend. It's a fun fast-paced affair with a kooky character that drags you along deliciously because it's pretty clear she has serial-killer tendencies and this gloriously silly thriller is going to ramp up and up into some glorious crescendo of camp drama. The plot is interspersed with flash-forward interviews of the suspects of a slowly-revealed crime, which sounds cliche but is very neatly done.

Then in the last 30% the book changes gears and viewpoint, and becomes rather serious, revealing the main chunk of the book to have been - not exactly wr tten by an unreliable narrator so much as a cunning author determined to see an illusion through. At first this rather sucks all the fun out of the book. Then it becomes VERY serious indeed, and somehow I'm invested in this new style. It ends satisfyingly, and then in an epilogue of sorts there is a rather nice little extra twist, and I find myself living it again.

In the end I have to say well done to the author, but I still want to read that unwritten other version of the book where it goes to where it looks like it is going for the vast majority of the book!
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