A reunion weekend for seven friends becomes a nightmare in DEVICE FREE WEEKEND by Sean Doolittle. Ryan Cloverhill, an wildly successful founder and CEO of a prominent social media platform, invites his six closest friends from college to an all expenses paid vacation to his private island. The seven of them together were are close as any group of friends can get, but as the years have progressed, everyone has found their place in the world and most of them have drifted apart from each other. After a wonderful night of rekindling their friendship, the next morning everything changes and Ryan's true intentions for his friends stay on his island is revealed.
Doolittle creates a group of friends that are interesting and entertaining to read about. The book doesn't rush the suspense, letting it slowly and naturally build, rather than forcing it sooner than necessary. There are also layers of backstory that are slowly doled out in way that keeps the novel's progression from slowing down. There is a shift in tone towards the end of the book that is little jarring and while the ending is a little predictable, I still really enjoyed it.
DEVICE FREE WEEKEND nostalgically reminds the reader about those wonderful connections we all made in our early twenties and while we all change as we grow into adulthood, we are in many ways the same people we always were.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

Entertaining and fun to read, even if it became kind of unbelievable.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC of this book.
I have mixed feelings about this one. It started off slow. Got weird and interesting and then just became unbelievable all around. The writing was good however. Though I just didn’t find myself really liking any of the characters. All of them had a lot of flaws.
I did struggle at times to continue reading it but ultimately finished it.

This ended up not being at all what I though or hoped. I guess I should gave expected some modern tech lingo and references but, Jesus. I felt like I was reading another language or a computer manual at times. And then, of course, there was the big reveal which I hated. And I was waiting and waiting for it all to come together but it never really did. Just not my cup of tea.

NetGalley ARC (thanks!) - fun, entertaining, even if more-than-slightly ridiculous. Many likeable characters gave me lots to root for. A quick, enjoyable read that would make me check out this author’s other work.

“Emma said, ‘What is the point?’”

Indeed, Emma, indeed.

The premise of this book had a great hook—a group of old friends is invited to the home of their billionaire tech friend from college and things start to go deadly wrong.

But the execution led to an entirely unsatisfying read.

I flew though this one—just simply hoping for the end, trying to find the point behind any of this. The dialogue/exchanges between the characters felt weird and cringey, and for something that should have been exciting—we’re trying to stop the country from blowing up!—there was a complete lack of suspense. Characters were generic and flat and I couldn’t muster up any care of what happened to them.

I suppose, if anything, I could sympathize with Ryan’s worries about social media, but how he went about to “fix” it just made no sense and it was all so wildly unbelievable.

I hate to be harsh, but nothing about this book would lead me to read anything else by this author.

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for letting me read this for review through NetGalley.

Friends invited for a get together…no electronic devices…their host disappears…what will happen to them? How will they get out of this ordeal? Old friends…love and romance…a mystery to solve…intrigue…this book was sent to me electronically by Netgalley for review. The author is gifted at keeping the reader wanting to know the ending. Enjoy but imagine being without your phone…isolated from help…

Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the copy of Device Free Weekend. I loved the idea of this story, but the execution was disappointing and really over the top. I couldn’t connect to the characters and they seemed generic and so interchangeable. The writing was not engaging and the snippets from the past would probably have been more effective if the book had started with the past so we could get to know more about the characters and their relationships before moving to the present. This book was not for me, but if you like lots of action and can suspend belief, you will probably enjoy it.

I would say this book is about 50% thriller 50% mystery. I literally could not put it down for two days and I was not disappointed with the ending, it was amazing.

3.5 stars rounded up

Device Free Weekend was a pretty good page turner. Lots of action, lots of twists. Pretty well developed characters.
Overall this is a fun summer read. I look forward to reading more by this author.

Device Free Weekend is a locked room mystery on an island that Ryan, a billionaire purchased. He has invited 6 college friends to come and join in him a wonderful all-expense paid vacation. As the title says - no electronics allowed. The first day is all that you could ask for but the second day turns into a bit of a nightmare.

At this point technology makes it's entrance via a tablet that has appeared as mysteriously as Ryan has disappeared. The friends have to figure out the puzzle of the password. It is somehow tied to all of them and is insanely elusive.

Will the password be a pandora's box? What does it all mean? This book just keeps on turning and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I LOVE vacation gone wrong stories and this is a totally unique and interesting tale. 7 college friends are brought to the Island that their childhood friend has purchased with the billions he has mae on a META type social media platform. It's not long before they learn that they are there for a purpose other than catching up. Billionaire Ryan is brilliant and he has posed a type of trolley problem for them to solve - right out of one of his favorite ethics activities in college.

Get ready for lots of action and plenty of opportunity to ask, "What would you do?" If you love a vacation -gone-wrong, a unique thriller and a crazy page turner, Device Free Weekend is for you!
#GrandCentralPub #DeviceFreeWeekend #SeanDoolittle