The Vacation- Storyline and Book Review

The Vacation- a book by John Marrs, has all the essential elements of a thriller- suspense, murder and action.

Set up in a backpacking hostel in Los Angeles, the story revolves around random strangers who land up in the hostel. Each has a past that he/she wants to hide either because they are not very proud of it, or they are scared, or they have some other hidden agendas. What is common between all the characters is that they want to keep the past behind and make a fresh start. But things are not as easy as imagined! Life brings them to a point wherein, by coincidence, chance, deception or destiny, they come face to face with their past and have to make tough decisions to bring things to a final closure.

Some of the characters that stood out for me are Tommy, who leaves his home after the death of his two brothers in a car crash and is blamed by his parents for the unfortunate event, Savannah, who escapes from home as she can no more handle being dominated by her extremist father and Nikole- who lives a mundane life working in a hospital, until, a patient leads her to a journey of discovery she had never imagined. There are many more characters with intriguing stories of sadness, frustration, helplessness, non-acceptance and dejection, which lead them to leave everything and land in the hostel.

The story is narrated in chapters. Through each chapter, the author narrates the character’s life in his/her present and reveals a bit about their past. As the story progresses, many unexpected connections and links between the characters are brought out, which makes the reading quite grippy and captivating.

The Vacation is indeed an interesting book, full of unexpected twists and turns. If you like being surprised, do pick this book as your next read!