Name: Leigh Osborne's review of That Weekend by Kara Thomas
Item: That Weekend
Rating: 2
Author: Leigh Osborne

Kara Thomas

"A bold and expertly plotted page-turner." --Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie From the author of The Cheerleaders, comes a thriller about best friends on a weekend getaway that goes horribly, dangerously wrong. THREE BEST FRIENDS, A LAKE HOUSE, A SECRET TRIP -- WHAT COULD GO WRONG? It was supposed to be the perfect prom weekend getaway. But it's clear something terrible happened when Claire wakes up alone and bloodied on a hiking trail with no memory of the past forty-eight hours. Now everyone wants answers--most of all, Claire. She remembers Friday night, but after that . . . nothing. And now Kat and Jesse--her best friends--are missing. What happened on the mountain? And where are Kat and Jesse? Claire knows the answers are buried somewhere in her memory. But as she's learning, everyone has secrets--even her best friends. And she's pretty sure she's not going to like what she remembers.

That Weekend

Courtney Passio

Leigh Osborne

After Claire wakes up alone on a mountain with no memory of how she got there, she learns her best friend Kat and Kat's boyfriend are missing and Kat's past is full of secrets.

rhegan🧋

** spoiler alert **
           That was great and tbh I didn’t see the plot twists coming. The ending was kinda weird though and I don’t like how it was revealed jesse and kat were related and the fact Jesse knew about it and we didn’t get any further thoughts about it from Kats side, like she was a horrible person but that’s still hard to deal with. I wanted to see how she felt.

Alexa M

3.5 probably i really enjoyed reading this but the ending... was.... odd... definitely caused this to drop .5 for me. would still recommend for a fun, fast-paced YA thriller!

Holly

Holy cow.
Every time the twists seemed to be over, another one was thrown in my face and now I'm sitting here with nary a thought in my brain. 
I kind of hated everyone in this book with the exceptions of the dog and Claire.

kendall p

This is a YA mystery about 3 best friends. They spend the night at a lake house, with plans to go camping on Saturday. Sunday rolls around, and Claire is the only one found. She has no memory of anything that happened Saturday, or Sunday. Kat and Jesse are missing, and Claire is going to do what she can to figure it out.
This book was written really well. I’m always drawn to the premise of one survivor, and finding the clues out as we go. It hasn’t always been written good, but Kara does an excellent job. I like how the story is broken up into sections, and the way everything comes perfectly together. We are left with no questions and all the strings tie together. 
Even though we don’t get a lot from Kat or Jesse throughout the story, the ending gives us the right amount of information to see character growth and change. 
I really, really felt bad for Kat. I wish things could have turned out differently for her, and Jesse is just disgusting. Iykyk. 
I didn’t really have a solid idea of what could have happened through the story honestly - When we got near the end of the book I was thinking of it going an entirely different way than it did but the ending was so much better than what I thought was going to happen.
The characters are written well. We see a lot of different kind of personalities being portrayed, but they all build and we see good character development with a lot of them. 
I recommend this!

It was a pretty good book up until the last hour and the ending was awful.

Kennedy Olsen

Pretty good. Not my favorite or least favorite. 

Kiersten Wallace

Wow wow wow 🤩 This book was amazing the whole thing kept me guessing. At one point I thought I had found out who it was then she totally went in the opposite direction! Keep in mind this has abuse,violence,guns,and thoughts of suicide.

Candyce Kirk

Not sure what to rate this one yet. Full review to follow soon!

Janine Pickering

I really enjoyed this one. The pacing felt consistent and I loved following Claire as she slowly pieced together what happened "That Weekend". I felt the final twist came a little out of left field (mainly because I'm not the best at picking up clues), but I can honestly appreciate Thomas's decision to throw in such a crazy revelation, despite how polarizing she likely knew it would be to her audience.

laura

I really enjoyed this read. It was a very twisty and a book that the turns i did not expect. I Am always a fan of anmeisa plot lines. This book also like Kara previous books really focused on morally gray characters. I also really enjoyed the various time lines we got and how this Mystery. Was def not what i expected. It had hints and elements that reminded me of I killed zoe spans. But such a solid quick read!!

Mare Malvīne Īstenā 

Oh
My
God

This really messed with my brain. 5/5 no doubts.
And oh my God you can't even imagine how much I hated Kat and Jesse at the end. And when this one other thing came up about Jesse (iykyk) I- OH MY GOD.
just read it.

Trigger warnings: (view spoiler)[memory loss, death of a friend, domestic abuse parental abuse /violence, harassment, doxing, incest, physical assault, nonconsensual drugging (resulting in overdose), captivity, suicidal ideation, car accident, emesis, alcohol abuse, murder (hide spoiler)]

For 90% of this book I thought I knew what was happening. But Thomas still managed to blow me away with a twist I did NOT see coming.

This isn't my favourite book from Kara Thomas, but I can not doubt that she weaves a fantastic and intriguing story. I was hooked from the beginning. 

Definitely a read for anyone looking for a quick who-dun-it that will keep you engaged throughout. 


  Note: Review copy received via NetGalley. This does not impact opinions within this review.


blog •  trigger warning database • more links

Happy reading! ❤

Becca Futrell

This was a buddy read with Reg! ♥



That Weekend is a little tricky to review because I was absolutely vibin' until the very end. & unfortunately, that ending changed all of the vibes.

To begin with, I really did like our main character Claire. She goes through Hell & back, and even then still tries to figure out what happened to her two friends. We love a persistent and caring Queen, what we don't love is when her persistence goes unappreciated. At some point, we get another character's point of view. As much as I enjoyed seeing the difference of how this character actually is after hearing how Claire views them, I couldn't help but want to get Claire's point of view back. She is, by far, the best character in this book.

There were a couple of scenes where Kara Thomas went truly brutal & I loved it. I was pleasantly surprised at the end of part two & the beginning of part four (disregard part three when it comes to me being pleasantly surprised). There was violence, there was action, and there was I, absolutely THRIVING. 

At a certain point, it felt like we could slap a THE END sticker on That Weekend & it would have been great. A bit disappointing, yes, but great. Instead, Kara Thomas decided to squeeze one more unnecessary plot twist & change my entire thoughts on this book. Moving forward, to make myself happy (because hashtag self-care), I'm going to pretend this plot twist never happened.

& then as the book does reach its conclusion & its horrible ending plot twist, I couldn't help but feel that there were things in this book that didn't feel complete. 

In general, I liked the journey this book took me on but absolutely hated where we landed.

Aubrey Erskine

This book is a minefield of spoilers so this review will be short and sweet to avoid them. This Weekend was nothing short of genius. I couldn’t put it down and was constantly on edge trying to figure just what the heck went down on that mountain. There were never any lulls but instead just more clues or red-herrings. The true crime junkie in me was obsessed.

It was definitely more of a plot driven book than character driven. That being said we do get to see how lies and deceptions twist the narrative and how the characters see one another. We get to go on this journey with them that starts out as this innocent high school drama YA book that turns deadly fast. To see firsthand just how far someone will go to protect someone they love. 

The twists and turns were so well done that even when we finally think we have an idea of what went down that weekend, the rug is pulled out from under us a few more times. That final little twist at the end I truly did not see coming and was *chef’s kiss* perfection. It just added a whole other layer to the story; made it that more sickening. It was the perfect tangle of lies, secrets and deceptions all expertly woven together.

Thomas has truly found her niche in the Mystery/Thriller genre. The story was a Greta mix of fast-paced and engaging that left me wanting more. I’ll definitely be picking up her other books in the future and can’t wait to see what twisted story she gives us next.

Leigh Osborne &
That Weekend by Kara Thomas

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

Leigh Osborne &That Weekend by Kara Thomas

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

Leigh Osborne &
That Weekend by Kara Thomas