The book is about a woman working on a gargantuan luxury cruise liner and it's definitely an unusual read, you're always wondering what on earth will happen next. But it is also well written and an enjoyable read.

I knew this was going to be a weird, slightly unhinged read; I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. Ingrid works on a cult-like cruise ship called the WA, an insane behemoth of a boat where the crew are rotated around different departments, allowed three days of leave a year, and can apply for an elevated programme run by Keith, the leader of the ship/cult. The Odyssey is obviously supposed to be critiquing a system which demands more and more of its employees, and the way work promises people things it can't deliver on. It also reminded me of that Fleabag quote, where she wanted someone to tell her what to do and how to live; Ingrid wants nothing more than to exist in a trancelike state. So while I understood what this book was aiming at and I do think Lara Williams is a good writer, at least on a sentence level, I don't think it was successful and I don't think it went far enough. Instead The Odyssey was just a bit weird, and although there were some elements I liked or appreciated, it felt to me like quite a surface-level indictment.

Strange and surreal. At the beginning I was gripped but my intrigue petered out. The writing was great but overall I found it a bit meandering and unsatisfying in the end.

In the vein of My Year of Rest and Relaxation and other “unhinged woman” novels, but a lot of it felt like strangeness for strangeness’ sake. The ending was very endearing though, I just wish I didn’t have to read about a woman getting her finger chopped off to get there.

Had been looking forward to reading this book. Sadly it wasn’t for me. It just lacked a good plot to get you excited and wanting more. It was very slow paced and never picked up

Ingrid works on the WA, a cruise in which each member of the staff has to take turns in taking on different jobs: lifeguard, manicurist, shop assistant and so on. Life on sea seems to have pushed aside Ingrid’s past, to the point that she can’t even bear to remember that once she was married and had a life on land. Ingrid spends her free time with her friends, siblings Mia and Ezra, although their relationship starts becoming sour when she gets accepted into a very exclusive mentoring scheme on the ship, managed by the elusive Keith. As the days go buy, life on the ship becomes weirder and weirder, and Ingrid gets caught in a reality that starts to scare everybody around her.

Now, this was a very strange book. It gave me lots of food for thought and I can’t say if I truly enjoyed it, but I was hooked to the page and wanted to know how the story ended. It requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief on the reader’s side, but it’s worth it. You will like it if you’re in search of a surreal and slightly creepy read.

Funny, clever and really intriguing, I was thinking about it long after I finished reading.

I was gripped from start to finish and found it very moving.

I hate books that don’t explain a single thing of what is going on.

Except from being boring with a self pitting narrator who’s on the borderline of insanity I have no clue what this was about but I do know that I hated every single moment of it.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin General UK for the digital ARC.

I definitely saw some of Ottessa Moshfeg's qualitiesof narration and character apathy in this twisted take on The Odyssey; Williams' novel provides a unique and sharp approach to Homer's epic.

“my life would have been a lot more straight-forward, i thought, if i could feel only pressure but no pain.”

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

i’ve seen a few reviews of the odyssey recently, so it’s safe to say it’s made a big splash (lol) in the literary world recently, and for good reason!! there’s a spoiler within this review, so only continue if you’re willing to be spoiled.

the odyssey follows ingrid, a young woman who’s worked on a cruise ship for the last five years. after being accepted into a mentorship programme with the cult-like leader, ingrid starts to grapple with what she really wants from her life, and tries to combat memories from her past.

i absolutely loved this book, i flew through it in two days (the fastest i’ve read a book in a while), the plot was so interesting, and i was surprised quite a few times whilst reading this weird and wonderful book. i loved the unpredictability, the lack of cohesion and all-out confusion that i felt whilst reading this book. i STILL don’t understand the ending and yknow what? i’m okay with that.

i absolutely adored ingrid as a main character, she was mean, she was damaged, and she never apologised for it. her relationships with her friends and herself are complicated, and i think williams did a great job of showing the intricacies of mental illness.

HOWEVER i’m unhappy with a few things i’ve seen from other reviews of this book. obviously, every book about an unhinged or sad woman is compared with ottessa moshfegh or sally rooney, and this really needs to stop to be honest. apart from a few of the main character’s traits, this book is completely unique from moshfegh and rooney’s work. i think that these comparisons really pay a disservice to women’s writing, as though female authors copy the trend, and only a few are completely individual. let women write about being miserable!!!!

also, it’s really unsettling and, actually, cruel to see multiple reviews making sarcastic and flat-out weird comments about ingrid’s fertility issues. for many women, this is a huge, devastating issue which takes a lot of work and time to get through. just because you yourself do not want to have children, does not mean that you can compare your experiences with that of infertile women. to be angry at a character’s inability to conceive is just really strange.

obviously, these are nothing to do with williams’ writing, or the book itself, it’s just weird reviews. i would 100% recommend this book if you love travel, miserable women and mentally ill characters!!!

Ingrid works on a cruise ship, cycling through different positions on board and almost never stepping foot on land. Once she starts a mentorship program, things start to get more and more unhinged.

I enjoyed Supper Club by the same author so when I saw this on NetGalley I immediately requested it. Like Supper Club, it’s very readable. I get easily bored with books and lately I can’t seem to finish anything, but I found this very easy to pick up and get into. It’s nice and short too so you make quick progress.

The turn-off for me was I had no idea what was going on! The more you read the less realistic the story gets ending up in a very bizarre surreal place. Around halfway I was started to expect a twist, but it never came. And neither did the explanation! Is it all a big metaphor for something? And if so, what? I know the description calls it a satire on modern living but there’s still a piece missing for me. The last line of the book seemed especially apt.

Still, I did enjoy reading it… I think. Like Supper Club, every so often I’d come across a phrase that really resonated with me. I don’t think I’d ever recommend this book though because I just can’t grasp the concept enough to say who would enjoy this.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Admittedly I have grown pretty tired of ‘disaffected millennial’ novels, but I went into this book thinking I would make an exception for Lara Williams, whose debut, Supper Club, I loved. The story follows Ingrid, who – in an attempt to escape her past – has chosen to work in the unique, anonymising environment of a cruise ship, where she’s drawn into a cult-like ‘mentorship scheme’. It’s easy to see why The Odyssey keeps being compared to Ottessa Moshfegh; for one thing, Ingrid easily matches the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation for sheer unpleasantness. But if I’m going to spend 200 pages with an arsehole giving a deadened account of their awful life, I really want something to make it worth it – an interesting backstory, an interesting motive, or strong enough style and imagery to render the above unimportant – none of which appear here, despite the inherent intrigue of the setting. The blurb copy also fails to reflect the book: nothing in here is a ‘merciless takedown of consumer capitalism’.

If you haven’t read Williams before, go for Supper Club instead of this; if you think the premise of The Odyssey sounds promising, read Sam Byers’ Come Join Our Disease.

Another disenfranchised millennial book except this time it’s on a cruise ship slowly being run aground by a cult like leader???
It had potential but I just didn’t GET in. I didn’t like any of the characters, we didn’t really get enough back story to understand their motivations or to care about them.
I was enthralled by the story but ultimately a bit frustrated. It is probably worth a read if you like the author but I feel like I had more questions that answers at the end.
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC via netgalley.

Found it quite difficult to read and think it may have just not been my type of book. Set on a cruise ship, the main character becomes involved in a mentorship scheme that has cult-like undercurrents. I found the tone of the novel disengaging and laborious to keep reading.

This book left me feeling totally baffled and as if I had completely misunderstood/missed something. Described as a 'slyly poignant new satire on modern life,' I just couldn't quite grasp the Author's intention here.

The writing style is beautiful and worth a read purely for its originality.

Sharply Funny…
A dark and cutting satire hides underneath cruise ship mystery. Characters are drawn with a keen eye for observation, dialogue is sharply funny and edgy and the backdrop well done. Thought provoking and original.

This book was a wild ride! The pacing was perfect and the characters were fascinating. I always find these unlikeable characters quite likeable and I am not sure what that says about me. This is definitely the next "sad girl summer" read and I expect to see this trending on TikTok.

Lara Williams’ THE ODYSSEY was a quick, easy read. I was pulled into Ingrid’s world and intrigued as to where the story would go. Unfortunately the twists were somewhat ridiculous as the book takes a turn for the dystopian/cult (surely not a coincidence to have a charismatic leader called Keith, reminding one of NXIVM) that recalled The Handmaid’s Tale but with little character motivation. I wanted more about Ingrid and her relationships (particularly with Mia and Ezra), and I felt like that was an area that was glossed over.

Thanks to Net Galley, Penguin Random House and Lara Williams for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There are some gleeful tricks going on in the presentation of The Odyssey. First, take that cover, with its glittering swimming-pool water and a pink inflatable. That points to an aspect of the cruise ship WA (no, I don't know...) that the book largely isn't concerned with. Relaxed, holidaying passengers are not the focus here. The longest interaction we see between the main character, Ingrid, and a passenger is when Ingrid very rudely needles an unfortunate woman to buy something in the gift shop that she runs.

No, this story is squarely about the crew side of the ship, and about it's all about the crew, and about Ingrid in particular. And the title - it hints at what's going on, at a return home via many strange adventures, but it doesn't I think capture the sheer weirdness of Ingrid's life. Although that is something that only builds up slowly. Anyway, be clear this isn't a story of sun, sex, and reconciliation on a romantic cruise.

Ingrid herself is a puzzle. We gradually learn the details of her less than satisfactory marriage; that she more or less fled that to a job aboard the liner; and that she's been working there for five years, apparently content with her tiny, self-contained cabin and a minimum of possessions, playing at "families" with brother and sister Ezra and Mia (they take turns to be the baby) and rotating between postings aboard (currently, selling tat in the souvenir shop; later, she's a manicurist, then a lifeguard, and so on - none of them roles she has any qualifications, training or apparently, any aptitude for). The book also follows a couple of Ingrid's adventures when she takes shore leave, once in Spain and once in Canada, both leading to epic drinking and debauchery. The contrast between Ingrid's cool, self-possessed narration and the raucous quantities of alcohol and bad behaviour that she gets through is striking. Together with her relationship with Ezra and Mia, it feels as though she is trying to pick her way though something that has gone badly wrong, but that she doesn't want to articulate.

This smooth course of life get a jolt when Ingrid is invited to take part in the "programme", a development/ mentorship run by Keith (we never find out his exact role on the ship but he's obviously pretty senior as he has his own office with a secretary). Mia especially seems to resent this - is she jealous that Ingrid seems in line for advancement? Concerned that the process may upset their (strange) world of play-acting? Or genuinely worried that it will damage Ingrid? Whichever, it does seem to be revealing increasingly detailed accounts of Ingrid's earlier life in conversations with Keith. He also uses these to impart to her his unsurprisingly shallow philosophy, derived and diluted from the Japanese concept of "wabi sari". And these revelations to seem to open a division with Mia and Ezra and to trigger something self-destructive in Ingrid.

All through this there's a sense of something being missing, something Ingrid either sought aboard the WA or fled from on shore. The relationship with Mia and Ezra seems key, its undermining troubling but significant. And when things take an even darker turn, conditions aboard the liner becoming progressively stranger and even Ballardian, it's hard to tell whether Ingrid welcomes that (perhaps she will find what she's looking for, despite, or even because of, the strangeness?) or actually doesn't see it?

I loved the sceptical depiction of the cruise liner in this book. I've always been slightly suspicious of these liners - they long seem to have mutated from things you might mistake for ships to bizarre offcuts of the modern world, apparently self-contained and therefore full of possibilities for living in different ways while at the same designed to replicate all the worst aspects of modern society. There is a great store of weirdness to be explored here, and Williams sets about it with relish, highlighting the Upstairs-Downstairs division aboard with separate facilities for staff and crew as well as the distancing from any real sense of external reality (disembarking for one of those shore visits, Ingrid is surprised to discover where she actually is).

Yet Ingrid still seems to see the WA as a sanctuary. What does that say about her? What does it say about the life she's left? Williams is able to use this odd location to show us so much about Ingrid without needing to tell it, so that while Ingrid's narrated recollections seem full of detail and significance it's really her day to day life - conversations with her co-workers in the gift shop or the nail bar, or her experience of the trendily named menu items in the staff canteen as all basically the same - that really convey the knots and hidden corners of her character.

Intriguing, absorbing and very thought-provoking this book grabbed me, and I ended up pretty much reading it in one sitting, not wanting to wait a moment to see what became of Ingrid.

I ended up moving my rating up from a 3 to a 4 after a few weeks of finishing The Odyssey because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Lara Williams is one of my favourite writers and storytellers, and this book follows her short story collection Treats and her novel Supper Club - both of which I loved.

Here with follow the mysterious Ingrid who works on a luxury cruise ship and is selected for the employee mentorship programme. Run by the ship's captain, the programme is bizarre and pushes Ingrid to the edge. We follow her getting up to lots of random shenanigans on the ship and on land, during her breaks. The book is ethereal and it sometimes doesn't make sense - but I enjoyed it! I just wish we had chance to get to know the characters more.