Synopsis:
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life.
Her husband surprises her with a birthday weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi.
Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity. But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever.
The friends are forced to come to terms with some pretty eternal consequences in this bloody, seductive novel about how it’s never too late to find satisfaction, even though it might taste different than expected.
Review:
Many thanks to NetGalley for my E-arc of this novel!
If in theory Rachel Harrison + vampires sounds like a juicy cocktail brimming with drama, romance, and of course, blood, then I am here to confirm that the theory very much lives up to the billing, and more. So Thirsty takes our main character Sloane from the calm, shallow waters of her mundane day to day life and thrusts her into the dangerous, choppy waters of the unknown. Sloane has long been going through the motions in her steady, loveless marriage, but this is all flipped on its head after a birthday night out with her outgoing best friend Naomi. So Thirsty is a novel of upheaval, self-discovery and personal growth, and this is matched by the story’s break-neck pace. Just as Sloane struggles to adapt to her rapidly altering life-state, so too do we struggle to match speed. Harrison’s latest is an intense little bundle of heart and heartbreak that critically examines the complexities of friendship and self-identity through the microscope of what it truly means to live and be happy.
For a story that widely discusses the importance of independence and finding joy and acceptance in your day to day life, it is difficult to imagine a more fitting medium to examine these ideas through than the vampire. Our bloodthirsty friends are renowned for living their lives at their own speed and at the whim of their own desires, desires that they are not afraid to quench at a moment’s notice. The story centres around Sloane and Naomi, and Naomi’s desire to help Sloane ‘live’ more. The vampiric lifestyle offers a fantastic foil for this dynamic, emphasising both Sloane’s personal troubles and the rift in her friendship with the more outgoing Naomi.
Indeed, the friendship between Sloane and Naomi was the real highlight of this novel for me. In these two, Harrison presents two women who love each other through thick and thin, no matter their differences. Childhood friendships are unique in their ability to survive and adapt through personal growth and any challenge that life inevitably throws at you. Long lasting friendships are special in this way, and I thought that Harrison did a great job at examining the rich tapestry of their friendship – both the good and the bad – and the ramifications of this on these new frightening developments in their lives. These are two women who ultimately just want the other to be the best version of themselves, and although this creates multiple uncomfortable moments and several difficult conversations, the intentions of both are always pure and love felt.
So Thirsty is a journey in not just quenching your thirst and fulfilling your basic human needs, but also in indulgence – finding satisfaction in your day-to-day life and freeing yourself of its guilt-riddled shackles. Reading this, it dawned on me how silly it is that coming-of-age stories only represent the mammoth leap between childhood and adulthood, blissful innocence and jaded knowledge. We as humans are always learning, always evolving, and our age should never be a restriction on that. So Thirsty offers an honest look into the mundane terrors of adulthood and loveless relationships, before crystallising into something beautiful in its simple yet important message: live life at your own speed, but savour every last drop.
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