Rach's Reading Club 2024

Last Night at the Circle Cinema

For my second March book, I found this book, Last Night at the Circle Cinema by Emily Franklin.

This book is. . .well. . . different. It's about three High School friends, two boys and a girl and one of the boys--named Bertucci-- is particularly strange. He is constantly coming up with strange ideas for activities. And the book is about an idea he has to sneak into an old Cinema which is being condemned and spend the night there.

The novel alternates between the viewpoints of these three. But it also alternates between the present and the past. Various events during the night trigger memories of things the three have done together. And this kind of makes the book a difficult read. The back and forth becomes hard to keep track of. I wasn't sure what was happening at the moment in the cinema, what was a memory of several weeks previous, or what was just a fictional idea in the characters' head.

Now, I can't say much more about this book without spoilers. I will say that towards the end we come to realize that one of the three is not actually there. Maybe what I've said (combined with the knowledge that this is indeed a book about mental illness) will make it possible to guess the ending.

And I will say also that the ending is extremely powerful, although I'm not sure I enjoyed the trip there.