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.