The Seven O'Clock Club by Amelia Ireland

In a perfectly ordinary building, four strangers who couldn't be more different meet for the first time. Their skepticism of this new kind of grief therapy—and the unnervingly perceptive group leader—means they're all wary, but as the weeks go by, they find themselves returning again and again, pulled to work toward healing, even if it means first facing the pain head-on.

 

A sharp-tongued lawyer who has no intention of letting down her walls, a fragile young woman looking for a place to belong, a musician at the top of his game who's one drink away from losing it all, and an interior designer facing the crumbling of her picture-perfect life—this unlikely group slowly opens up, not only to the possibility of a happier future but to friendship, change, and even romance.

 

When a shocking revelation reveals the real reason they were chosen for this group, it shakes the very foundation of what they thought they knew. What began as a journey designed to heal turns out to be a much greater test of friendship, strength, and love as they realize happiness is just outside the door...if they're brave enough to seek it.

 Publisher: Berkley |Genre: Literary Fiction | Source: Publisher | Rating: 2.5

When four strangers from four different walks of life are brought together in a grief support group, Genevieve, the leader of the group is determined to prove that an experimental treatment will help heal their broken hearts. Although resistant at the start, they soon find themselves trusting each other as they reveal pieces of their lives. Just when they start to feel as though they’re being helped through their grief, someone reveals a secret that will rattle everyone to their core.

Just a note before we get into the review. I don’t want to spoil this book so I’m going to give my thoughts on the book without diving into too much of the plot.

On to the review, I was intrigued by the premise: four very different strangers untied in grief and sharing their very personal stories in hope of healing their wounds. This could have been a beautiful story of processing grief and healing from loss instead the execution fell a bit flat.

There’s four characters (Victoria, Mischa, Freya, Callum) who are at different stages and ages in their lives. They’re from vastly different backgrounds, vastly different personalities, and vastly different experiences. They each share their own POVs in rotating chapters, but instead of having four vastly different voices, they blend together to the point I had to go back and read the chapter heading so I knew which character I was reading. It would have improved plot had each character had their own voice instead of the author just telling us they were this way or that way.

There are also plot inconsistencies. There’s an event that happens in the book that we’re told, in great detail, should not have been able to happen, yet there’s another event that’s pretty much the same that was never brought up when these situations were discussed. A few other things occurred that wasn’t addressed but I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll leave it at that.

I also feel as though this book was a little too long and repetitive. 368 pages felt a bit much given that not a lot of different things were happening. It could have easily worked as a novella or a short story given the way it ended.

Overall, this could have been a moving, beautifully written story of healing but, sadly, it was underwhelming and underdeveloped. I’m having a hard time finding something to recommend about this one, which is disappointing because I was expecting to love this one.