The Writing Retreat Review (Julia Bartz)

Cover of “The Writing Retreat” by Julia Bartz. Image taken from the Simon & Schuster website.

After I finished reading Bluebird Day by Megan Tady and reviewed it here, I went to the local bookstore in search of new reading material. Whenever possible, I believe it’s important to support your local libraries and physical bookstores as opposed to Amazon. Regardless, after searching the store for several minutes, I found one called The Writing Retreat.

This title resonated with me. You see, I’m a former fanfiction author in “real life”, or as close as the Internet can realistically come to real life. Perhaps I’d be able to relate to the characters, including protagonist Alex, who is invited to a month-long writing retreat with a world-famous novelist.

Cover of “The Puzzler’s Mansion” by Eric Berlin, a book I initially compared to “The Writing Retreat.” Image taken from Penguin Random House’s website.

The premise reminded me of a book I read about half my life ago (man, I feel old) called The Puzzler’s Mansion, written by Eric Berlin. That novel was also set on an estate in (presumably) upstate New York, and it also featured an intellectual competition. Unlike The Puzzler’s Mansion, however, The Writing Retreat is not suitable for children. 

I’ll get into why it’s not suitable for children later. To make one thing perfectly clear, I’m not the sort of person to get excessively moralistic about adult content in children’s books and TV series. Every kid’s favorite YouTube and TikTok (RIP) stars already cuss like drunken sailors. That being said, I don’t think ten-year-olds should be watching Squid Game, and I also don’t think ten-year-olds should be reading The Writing Retreat.

As stated above, the main character, Alex (who, as far as I remember, was not given a last name), is an aspiring author who has long looked up to the world-famous feminist novelist Roza Vallo. She’s absolutely over the moon at the prospect of attending Roza’s retreat, even after she learns that her former friend Wren is also going to be there. However, once the women arrive at the retreat, they’re told that each of them will have to complete a novel in one month, writing at least three thousand words a day.

Now, during the height of my fanfiction career, there were days when I wrote more than that. But to think that I’d do it every day for a month is pushing it, and that’s not even considering that I barely edited my work before posting it online. Every day by midnight, the retreat’s attendees must print out their work and send it to Roza, to be critiqued by the other authors. 

One key theme in the novel is that of forgiveness. You see, the reason Alex and Wren are no longer friends is because of an incident that occurred before the events of The Writing Retreat. Alex must learn to forgive herself for what happened, but instead she’s tricked herself into hating Wren with a burning passion. As someone who struggles with self-forgiveness in real life, this is one part of the book I greatly appreciated.

Additionally, the book can be considered a “meta-novel.” Within the text, Alex draws inspiration from the storied tale of Roza’s Blackbriar estate in order to write her own novel. Excerpts from said novel are peppered throughout the text, which I honestly didn’t love; I felt like it took me out of the real story to focus on a tale that’s less relevant to the novel’s plot. That being understood, I understand why Bartz wrote parts of Alex’s fictional novel The Great Commission into the real novel The Writing Retreat. So if you’re an aspiring author looking for tips, I suppose this might be the book for you.

Another aspect of the book I liked was the foreshadowing. There were many plot twists present, and in hindsight there were signs, if you knew where to find them, that these twists would occur. I would imagine this is the sort of book you need to read twice in order to fully understand; if I ever pick this one up again, this time knowing how the story ends, I’ll know what to look for. This is a horror novel, after all, and if you’re a horror character, you make poor decisions. It’s what you do.

In addition to being a horror novel, it’s rather erotic. There is of course nothing inherently wrong with that; if anything, I liked how The Writing Retreat brings up themes of sexuality (and Alex’s struggles to accept her own) and race (as Alex expresses surprise that only one of her fellow authors at the retreat is a person of color). In fact, I’m sure this book is going to be banned in some red state before long if that hasn’t happened already.

That being said, if you’re the sort of person who gets squeamish at sex scenes, or even the discussion of sex, this is not the sort of book you should be reading. Reader discretion is advised, as they say.

Now, there are also elements of the book I really didn’t care for. I mentioned above that this is probably the sort of book you should read twice in order to truly understand. However, even if you read it five times, there are things you still probably don’t understand. If you can read The Writing Retreat and honestly tell me that you didn’t see any plot holes, you’ve probably got either slightly worse or far better reading-comprehension abilities than me. 

There were many moments in The Writing Retreat when my jaw was on the floor and I looked up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell just happened. However, at times, it really felt like Bartz prioritized “shock value” over having an internally consistent story. This drags the story lower on my personal scale, because some of the foreshadowing simply doesn’t pay off. 

One or two “mini-storylines” don’t have a conclusion, and I see this as a problem if The Writing Retreat is to be labeled as a “Great American Novel.” It’s not a terrible book by any means, but it’s certainly one of the most bizarre tales I’ve ever subjected myself to. So if you don’t want your mind to be messed with, I suggest not reading this novel.

Overall, I can’t say The Writing Retreat was as amazing a novel as Bluebird Day. Perhaps that’s due to my bias toward the latter as an avid skier. Or perhaps it’s because I can recognize when a book isn’t written with as much care as it perhaps could be. Given that Bartz’s novel is a New York Times bestseller, it can’t be all bad.

Here’s my verdict: The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz is very much a popcorn read. It’s intellectually stimulating sometimes, but other times it’s an erotic fantasy. Again, some erotic fantasy is enjoyable in moderation, and I’m not even saying this book had too much of it. And I’ll give Bartz this: The pages kept on turning! I read this book in less than three days. Unfortunately, the sheer number of plot holes will probably taint any reread I pursue.

If I were purely rating this book based on how exciting it was, I’d give it at least an eight out of ten. However, because I can’t overlook the plot holes, I’ll give it a 6.5/10.  I’ll end with this meme about plot holes I found on Pinterest.

Megan Tady’s “Bluebird Day” - A Review

The other day, I had to fly from Denver back home to Boston. My flight (DL499) was delayed by a whopping twenty minutes, so it occurred to me to head into the airport’s bookstore and find a new novel to read. And wouldn’t you know it, the airport in Colorado had a novel about skiing.

Megan Tady wasn’t really on my radar until I set my eyes on the paperback and knew I had to read it. Knowing that this novel was published in December 2024 (in other words, quite recently) gives me hope. Maybe AI isn’t going to make us lose our humanity and desire to produce art. As an avid skier in real life, this title jumped out to me, as the term “bluebird day” is part of skiing lingo. It basically refers to a day when the sky is deep blue and there are zero clouds, preferably with copious snow having recently fallen.

Cover of Bluebird Day by Megan Tady as I held it on my lap.

The novel centers around Claudine Potts and her daughter Wylie. Claudine is a former alpine skiing legend who won several gold medals before her career ended due to an untimely injury in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Wylie dreamed of following in her mother’s footsteps, but her severe anxiety put an end to that dream before her career really began. Without skiing to bond them together, Claudine and Wylie have drifted apart, and don’t speak to one another for two years prior to the time period in which the main story takes place.

The “inciting incident” of the novel is when Wylie’s boyfriend Dan, who’s planned to pair up with Wylie in a fitness competition in Berlin, suffers a debilitating injury that prevents him from doing so. As such, Wylie asks her mother to be her partner instead, and they travel to Switzerland because…well, I’m not going to spoil it. I will, however, say that family drama is a focal point of Bluebird Day, which explores the timeless theme of an estranged parent-child relationship. 

Bluebird Day is set in Zermatt, a luxurious Swiss town at the base of the world-famous Matterhorn. I’ve personally never been to Zermatt, though I’ve been to another town close to it - Verbier. In any case, the Matterhorn is often referred to as a “living” mountain within the book, like it’s a major character in the novel. To some extent, it is such a character, even if it never has any dialogue.

The Matterhorn overlooking the resort town of Zermatt, Switzerland. Image taken from Tom Archer’s website.

Of course, the elephant in the room for any work of fiction involving skiing, or any other snow sport really, is climate change. As sobering a reminder as it is that climate change threatens the sport many of us love, I appreciated that the author talked about real life. This is not a purely escapist novel - it should make readers think.

 Given that the climate crisis has been in the public consciousness with events like the fires in Los Angeles, Bluebird Day felt quite timely and not just what some call a “popcorn read.” Several characters in the novel mention how the warming planet is causing glaciers to recede, and it plays more of a role in the story than I anticipated. When fictional characters take climate change more seriously than the President-elect of the United States, you know the world’s in trouble.

Putting aside climate denial, there’s a more subtle aspect of American culture that I feel the book criticizes. As stated above, Claudine is a former Olympic medalist. She’s extremely competitive - some might use the word hardcore, given how she endlessly travels the world in search of snow. She kept competing even as a 24-year-old mother to a toddler Wylie. As a 24-year-old myself, such a life seems unthinkable.

We see such themes in real life too. American society, at least from a worker’s point of view, is highly competitive. If you invent something ground-breaking, you might become a billionaire; fail to prove your worth, and you may well end up destitute on the streets. Admission to the “best” universities, like Yale or Harvard, is often reserved for either those who get the highest SAT scores or whose parents also attended those universities. 

You and I can debate all day about unearned advantages and whatnot, but competition is a constant in both real-life America and Bluebird Day. The common refrain is “If you ain’t first, you’re last”, and it’s that mindset which motivates many of the decisions Claudine and Wylie make in the novel.

When unforeseen circumstances jeopardize Wylie’s ability to partake in the aforementioned fitness competition, she is devastated. She and her mother go to extraordinary lengths to be able to reach Berlin in time. Additionally, there are several points in the story where Wylie feels guilty about eating anything that doesn’t conform to a perfect keto diet, leading to a tension between her moral “obligation” to compete and her desire to take things less seriously at least temporarily.

Although the book tackles some serious and important topics, both those that existed since time immemorial (like healthy family relationships and how to maintain them) and those that are more associated with the last few decades (like climate change and the effects of social media on mental health), it’s also very funny. On more than a few occasions, I literally laughed out loud reading Bluebird Day.

 Some books about climate change lack any comic relief whatsoever. This is understandable, given that it’s a serious, complex topic. But this was not one of them. Just because it wasn’t a totally escapist novel doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good way to distract oneself from doomscrolling. (And by the way, the word “doomscrolling” does make an appearance in the book.)

Overall, I greatly enjoyed Bluebird Day and would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in skiing, or even if you just want a fairly quick read that’s still thought-provoking. It certainly kept me from doomscrolling as much as I might otherwise have the last few days. 

A cursory Google search tells me that Bluebird Day currently has about 3.9 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. While it’s not the most amazing Great American Novel that’s ever been written, and there have been books with more suspense, I still think it deserves better. I’d probably give it a 9 out of 10; if I do future book reviews, I’ll probably come up with a more precise scale.

Thank you, Megan Tady. You gave me several hours of enjoyment that I might otherwise have spent in front of my computer reading about Trump threatening to invade Canada.