Book Review – Neverworld Wake | Smitten For Fiction

I can’t tell you why I read Neverworld Wake just yet…you’ll find out in a couple of months if all stays on track. However, I CAN share what I thought of it!

About The Book 📚

Title: Neverworld Wake

Author: Marisha Pessl

Publication Date: 2018

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Suggested Reader Age: 13+

Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery

Goodreads Link

My Review

› Victoria’s boyfriend, Jim, died while attending a private school. She’s currently helping her parents with their restaurant on Rhode Island, trying to get her life back on track. Victoria (her friends call her Bee or Bumble) and Jim had a close-knit group of friends at Darrow Harker School, but she stopped hanging around with them after his death.
› Victoria’s friends invited her to join them at Whitley’s parent’s estate for a reunion. At the last minute, Victoria shows up wanting to finally figure out how Jim really died. The police said it was a suicide, but Victoria doesn’t believe them and she’s convinced one of her friends knows something.
› The five friends attend a concert and while driving to Whitley’s house they have a near-death experience. Shaken, they are leery of the strange who shows up at the door saying the five of them are “nearly dead”, and are in a closed-circuit called Neverworld Wake. The stranger, who calls himself “The Keeper”, explains there’s only one way out of the loop, a unanimous vote for just one of the five to live.

“The ongoing experience of Recurring goes against the very heart of being human, and it is – I will tell you this without flinching – unbearable.”

The rest of the story is about the five friends living the same day over-and-over, struggling to come to grips with what is happening and how they can change it.

› Likes 😻
• It’s a fast read with an interesting premise.

› Dislikes 😾
• I struggled with the first-person writing style, and the characters felt really flat for me. The plot is a slow-burn until page 160 and there are some unbelievable details. For example, at one point someone calls 9-1-1 and explains who they are, where they live, and that they need help, but the call is disconnected and the cops never show up? I’m pretty sure 9-1-1 would have definitely responded to that call, especially if it was disconnected.
• The ending was really weird and predictable.

› Final Thoughts
• Neverworld Wake is a Sci-Fi Mystery about friendship, death, secrets that reminded me of Groundhog Day meets Alice in Wonderland meets Blake Crouch’s novels Dark Matter and Recursion. This book was a miss for me, but I am interested in reading more from Pessl. I’d recommend Neverworld Wake to readers who like repetitive Groundhog Day-type mysteries that are just a little bit Sci-Fi, with just a small sprinkle of fantasy.

About The Author

Goodreads Bio
“Marisha Pessl grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and now lives in New York City. Special Topics in Calamity Physics, her debut novel, was a bestseller in both hardcover and paperback. It won the 2006 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize (now the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize), and was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review.”

Author Website http://marishapessl.com/