{"id":14908,"date":"2017-06-27T10:30:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T17:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/?p=14908"},"modified":"2017-06-27T10:31:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T17:31:02","slug":"the-party-robyn-harding-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Party by Robyn Harding | Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2tjzclm\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload_inited alignleft wp-image-14914 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/the-party-robyn-harding.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"330\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/the-party-robyn-harding.jpg 330w, https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/the-party-robyn-harding-198x300.jpg 198w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 330px\" \/><\/a>**ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley** <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Birthday. Booze. Boys. Tragedy. Revenge. Mid-life Crises. Comeuppance. Robyn Harding&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2thxYXz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Party<\/a> exposes when what *looks* perfect is terribly, terribly flawed.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>3.5 stars<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2thxYXz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Party<\/a> opens on the day of Hannah Sanders\u2019 16th birthday, diving right into establishing the family dynamic. Dad Jeff is a Silicon Valley workaholic who drives a Tesla (of course), Mom Kim fills her days with Pilates classes and a part-time copywriting gig, along with taking care of the children. Hannah\u2019s always been a good kid, but she\u2019s actually dying to move up in the cool girl pecking order. Soccer playing Aidan rounds out the family. All of this domestic perfection lives in a 3,000 square foot home in San Francisco\u2019s Potrero Hill neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>I totally bought into the premise. <\/b>Hannah\u2019s sweet 16 sleepover, complete with booze, drugs and boys snuck in through a basement window, goes horribly wrong while her parents are asleep upstairs. The aftermath has major repercussions for both Hannah, her friends, and her parents, exposing just how thin the veneer is on their lives. Regardless, it\u2019s hard to empathize with anyone in this book, except for Hannah\u2019s friend Ronni. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>The apples don\u2019t fall far from the trees. <\/b>The Party differentiates itself from other similar stories by delving much further into the teens\u2019 lives, which are as complicated and fraught as their parents\u2019. They\u2019re dealing with similar issues \u2014 social strata, power, loyalty \u2014 but on a different scale. Some of the kids are borderline sociopaths, far more transparent in their cruelty, vengefulness and judgment than their parents. Two words: Fetty Wap. And just when you want to throw up your hands and say, get over yourselves, Jeff, Kim and Lisa, it\u2019s the kids who come through with what\u2019s really interesting in this book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>How could this possibly happen to people like us? <\/b>The story moves along quickly, but at the same time, it\u2019s almost as if Robyn Harding is lulling you into complacency right along with this family. Jeff and Kim\u2019s marriage is worn and fraying after 18 years, and the holes are starting to show. As the reader, you get to be the sanctimonious jerk passing judgment from on high, because both Jeff and Kim seem to be in mid-life crisis mode, making incredibly poor decisions. They\u2019re both piling up the secrets, though most of them aren\u2019t that shocking or salacious (well, except one). I typically love a book where I hate almost all of the characters, but by halfway through, I wrote myself a note: \u201cAll of the whiny entitlement, little of the intrigue\u201d I was hoping for. What really happened at that party?! <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Why stick with it?<\/b> The book earns it stars with a major turning point.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>After a long stretch rolling through emotional traffic, Harding revs the engine and guns it into\u00a0a confrontation. Then, the pedal goes to the floor. Though her parents have been taking up all the oxygen, Hannah finally emerges as the most interesting character in the book, and stays that way to the very end. I just wish we\u2019d seen more hints of that Hannah earlier. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Ultimately, the Party is about flawed\u00a0people obsessed with appearances, comeuppance and revenge, (absentee or not) raising their kids to follow in their footsteps. One last note, this is a family drama, not psychological thriller or suspense. There&#8217;s no murder mystery, so don&#8217;t go in expecting a repeat of Big Little Lies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0# # #<\/p><!-- Start GADSWPV-3.6 --><center><div id=\"ga_29466488\"> <\/div><div style=\"text-align:right; width:300px; padding:5px 0;\">\r\n   <img class=\"lazyload_inited\" src=\"https:\/\/bcdn.grmtas.com\/images\/gourmetads-logo.jpg\" alt=\"logo\" style=\"float:right; border:none;\" \/>\r\n   <div style=\"width:auto; padding:4px 5px 0 0; float:right; display:inline-block; font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size:11px; color:#333;\">\r\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gourmetads.com\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Food Advertisements\" style=\"text-decoration:none; color:#333;\">Food Advertisements<\/a> by\r\n   <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/center><!-- End GADSWPV-3.6 -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>**ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley** Birthday. Booze. Boys. Tragedy. Revenge. Mid-life Crises. Comeuppance. Robyn Harding&#8217;s\u00a0The Party exposes when what *looks* perfect is terribly, terribly flawed. 3.5 stars The Party opens on the day of Hannah Sanders\u2019 16th birthday, diving right into establishing the family dynamic. Dad Jeff is a Silicon Valley workaholic who&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[1601,1171,1600,1599,1602,1174,1597,96,1598],"class_list":["post-14908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-big-little-lies","tag-book-review","tag-domestic-drama","tag-family-drama","tag-net-galley","tag-review","tag-robyn-harding","tag-san-francisco","tag-the-party"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Party by Robyn Harding | Review - DailyWaffle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Birthday. Booze. Boys. Tragedy. Revenge. Mid-life Crises. Comeuppance. Robyn Harding&#039;s The Party exposes when what *looks* perfect is terribly flawed.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michelle\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Michelle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/#\/schema\/person\/699f5bbc3243018b1b4177972fd4c932\"},\"headline\":\"The Party by Robyn Harding | Review\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-27T17:30:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-06-27T17:31:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/\"},\"wordCount\":590,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/the-party-robyn-harding.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"big little lies\",\"book review\",\"domestic drama\",\"family drama\",\"net galley\",\"review\",\"robyn harding\",\"San Francisco\",\"the party\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Book Reviews\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/\",\"name\":\"The Party by Robyn Harding | Review - DailyWaffle\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/the-party-robyn-harding-review\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/the-party-robyn-harding.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-27T17:30:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-06-27T17:31:02+00:00\",\"description\":\"Birthday. 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