SUMMARY: In the last days before the real world, six college friends prepare to take a bow in epic fashion. No longer armed with the excuse of college stupidity, these friends will go on a journey with higher stakes than a night out has ever had.
The BookViral Review:
With some novels you find yourself wondering how they will end but in a rare few you want the end to come because you know you are being set up for something special and that’s exactly what Cassidy achieves with The Final Weekend.
Piercingly funny it’s both wildly free-wheeling and fastidiously contrived but don’t for a moment think there isn’t real depth to Cassidy’s story as he weaves superbly nuanced dialogue with exemplary plotting. Each of his characters coming to life through their given perspectives and backstories as the weekend’s events get into full swing.
On this level, The Final Weekend proves a powerful character study and there’s a level of detail and observation in Cassidy’s dialogue which is quite remarkable. His characters aren’t generically funny, but specifically funny and wholly convincing as we become fully invested in them. Honouring the significance of male and female friendship without insisting on its primacy. But what makes The Final Weekend so gripping – so edgy in spots, so moving in others, – is how nothing happens as we think it will.
The result is a novel of intense fascination. As the final chapters draw near we’ve built an intimate understanding of Cassidy’s characters, who they are and what their lives are like. We know that their last weekend together is a pivotal point in their lives but nothing prepares us for the harrowing ending that Cassidy has waiting for us!
An exceptional debut from a talented writer The Final Weekend: A Stoned Tale is recommended without reservation.