Print Length: 352 pages
Publisher: St.Martin's Press (January 14, 2025)
From Goodreads.com: Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—the messages becoming stranger and more erratic.
And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women— or what did they do to him?
Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, where nothing is as it seems, THE BUSINESS TRIP takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who?
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My Rating: 2 stars out of 5
This book had the potential to be amazing, and yet I was left feeling torn between significantly underwhelmed and being in a state of utter disbelief at the absurdity of what was going on throughout most of it.
To begin with, Jasmine, our main character is so completely unlikeable that I found myself secretly hoping that she would be caught the entire time. I just could not understand her motivation, doing what she did simply because other people seemed to be better off than she was? I get her, her boyfriend was a walking red flag she she needed to flee for her own safety, but why the elaborate scheme on top of the plan she already had? Why not simply head to Mexico right off the bat if that was her end-goal anyway? And if she really felt that strongly towards disliking Stephanie, her drivers license and two of her credits cards and done cash advances on them before Stephanie realized what had happened. Or at the very least, went on a spending spree overnight buying new clothing, food, etc before having to dip into the cash that she had to continue on her journey. The entire thing just seemed so over the top to me. And while I agree Trent was a piece of garbage, I don't feel like he needed to be brought into her drama, and again all because he represented something she didn't like.
Aside from the characters behaving ridiculously, the plot was also very unbelievable, and at times hard to follow. The reason I found it hard to follow was due to all of the different POVS ( at least ELEVEN different ones if I remember them all) that we have to wade through over the course of the novel. Not only do we see things from Jasmine and Stephanie's point of view, but also through that of friends of both women as well as Stephanie's co-workers. Add into that Jasmine's ex-boyfriend Glenn, the mysterious Trent and his boss and it became a lot to handle. And at first I got it - we needed those different points of view to get a look at what was going on since they were all getting different pieces of information. But then we get to the ending where Jasmine takes over as our narrator - and the book literally starts repeating everything we already know. Every little text that was sent over the course of the novel is repeated.
And then we get to that twist at the end - while yes was something I had not expected, was again so dang unbelievable that it was mind-blowing. I mean, seriously what are the odds on something like that actually happening in real life? Had it been up to me, I would have kept the twist (as unbelievable as it was), but gone a different route with it. After all, Jasmine spent so much time setting Trent up to take the fall, what would have happened had Stephanie's body been found back in California when she had supposedly been in Atlanta?
At the end of the day, I do think this book will appeal to other readers, it just wasn't the right fir for me.
DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.
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