📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚 We Were Never Here
AUTHOR: Andrea Bartz @andibartz
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐ + 🐰
Published: July 13, 2021
The Review 📚 We Were Never Here
✨ The Title/Cover Draw:
- I had read a book of Andrea’s last year, The Herd, and thought it was unique so this one seemed like another one I should read. Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine books for the opportunity to read this book ahead of publishing.
💜 What I liked:
- There is an element of unknowing what the true viewpoint is in this book. While we do read from Emily’s point of view, there is a lot that Kristen affects. To discover the truth through Emily’s eyes is quite a ride.
😱 What I didn’t like:
- The story could be tightened up a little more. Even though this is an extremely fast read, there were time I grew bored with Emily’s ruminations.
💁♀️ The Characters:
- Emily and Kristen are backpacking through Chile when a traumatic occurrence happens.
🚦 My face at the end: 😵
💭 3 Reasons to Read:
- Travel to other countries
- Unreliable narrator (in a sense).
- A journey of truth
🕧 Mini-Summary:
- Emily and Kristen travel each summer, but traumatic occurrences follow them.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Received from Netgalley.
📘 Summary 📚 We Were Never Here
An annual backpacking trip has deadly consequences in a chilling new novel from the bestselling author of The Lost Night and The Herd.
Emily is having the time of her life–she’s in the mountains of Chile with her best friend, Kristen, on their annual reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than ever. But on the last night of their trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find blood and broken glass on the floor. Kristen says the cute backpacker she’d been flirting with attacked her, and she had no choice but to kill him in self-defense. Even more shocking: The scene is horrifyingly similar to last year’s trip, when another backpacker wound up dead. Emily can’t believe it’s happened again–can lightning really strike twice?
Back home in Wisconsin, Emily struggles to bury her trauma, diving head-first into a new relationship and throwing herself into work. But when Kristen shows up for a surprise visit, Emily is forced to to confront their violent past. The more Kristen tries to keep Emily close, the more Emily questions her friend’s motives. As Emily feels the walls closing in on their coverups, she must reckon with the truth about her closest friend. Can she outrun the secrets she shares with Kristen, or will they destroy her relationship, her freedom–even her life?