{"id":263916,"date":"2025-05-30T10:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T10:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/suicide-thursday-will-carver-bookshine-and-readbows\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T10:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T10:31:11","slug":"suicide-thursday-will-carver-bookshine-and-readbows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=263916","title":{"rendered":"Suicide Thursday \u2013 Will Carver \u2013 Bookshine And Readbows"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Welcome to the tenth of my \u2018Calendar Chaos\u2019 posts, in which I take the books I received in my 2024 book advent \u2013 each cover representing a different period of time \u2013 and review them for you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Closing May is THURSDAY and the book is\u00a0Suicide Thursday<\/em>\u00a0by Will Carver.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read on to find out more\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blurb:<\/em> A disenchanted man struggles to get beyond the first chapter of the books he\u2019s writing, and to separate fact from fiction in his own life. His friend\u2019s suicide changes everything \u2026 The mind-blowing, heart-rending new thriller from cult bestselling author Will Carver.<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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Eli Hagin can\u2019t finish anything.<\/em><\/p>\n

He hates his job, but can\u2019t seem to quit. He doesn\u2019t want to be with his girlfriend, but doesn\u2019t know how end things with her, either. Eli wants to write a novel, but he\u2019s never taken a story beyond the first chapter.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Eli also has trouble separating reality from fiction.<\/em><\/p>\n

When his best friend kills himself, Eli is motivated, for the first time in his life, to finally end something himself, just as Mike did\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Except sessions with his therapist suggest that Eli\u2019s most recent \u2018first chapters\u2019 are not as fictitious as he had intended \u2026 and a series of text messages that Mike received before his death point to something much, much darker\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong> From the blurb and other reviews I really thought this book would be right up my street, but unfortunately it wasn\u2019t for me at all. I absolutely admit that the book is technically well-written and skilfully plotted but the stylistic choices the author has made throughout switched me off the story.<\/p>\n

For instance, the timeline jumps all over the place. Each section is clearly labelled with where it falls in relation to the titular \u2018Suicide Thursday\u2019, so it wasn\u2019t confusing to follow, but every time I started to engage with the story it skipped on to a different character and time, continually frustrating me. <\/p>\n

Similarly, I quite enjoy an unreliable narrator usually, but Eli is so<\/em> unreliable that you simply can\u2019t believe a single word of the story. And even the chapters that are nominally from other character\u2019s perspectives are actually also filtered through Eli\u2019s narrative voice. By the third time of reading a recount of events that abruptly cut off with \u2018that didn\u2019t happen\u2019, or \u2018but that\u2019s not how it went\u2019, I literally put the book down and screamed in frustration. Once is forgivable, but I don\u2019t want to read a whole swathe about what didn\u2019t happen\u2026 I want to know what DID!<\/p>\n

In contrast to the dark and unsettling (but interesting) events of the underlying mystery in the plot, we spend a lot of time living through Eli\u2019s bleak, nihilistic drudge through office life and the marginally wider world of his local pub and shops in painfully boring detail. We dwell lovingly on his disdain for everyone around him \u2013 rooted in his self-loathing \u2013 and listen to lots of his self-indulgent maundering to his imaginary therapist, as he loops around his main obsessions \u2013 Mike\u2019s shocking exit, dumping Jackie, and not being able to finish anything.<\/p>\n

I get that it\u2019s all incredibly clever and thought-provoking, but I just found it dreary and repetitive. It does perfectly capture the going-nowhere feelings that might push someone to take their own life, incite others to do so, or ignore a \u201cloved\u201d one\u2019s cry for help (none of these characters seem to even like<\/em> each other!), but in practice it made for an angsty and irritating read. The underlying mystery is a brilliant hook, but it was lost, buried under the self-obsessed ponderings of an unhappy fantasist.<\/p>\n

About the author:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred\u2019s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Will\u2019s latest title published by Orenda Books,\u00a0The Beresford<\/em>\u00a0came out in July 2021. His previous title\u00a0Hinton Hollow Death Trip<\/em>\u00a0was longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize, while\u00a0Nothing Important Happened Today\u00a0<\/em>was longlisted for the Theakston\u2019s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.\u00a0Good Samaritans\u00a0<\/em>was book of the year in\u00a0Guardian, Telegraph<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Daily Express<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Website:<\/strong> https:\/\/willcarver.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Instagram: <\/strong>https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/will_carver\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WillCarverAuthor<\/a><\/p>\n

X\/Twitter: <\/strong>https:\/\/x.com\/will_carver<\/a><\/p>\n

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