Andrea Bartz

I have quite mixed feelings about this book. Let’s start with - there is nothing at all wrong with it. The writing is strong, too strong at times, if you will, and that may be some of my reticence about moving beyond liking to loving the book. Ms. Bartz is obviously very well-written and understands and uses unusual and unique words fluently, however, the plot did not require that type of verbiage. To me, the use of these unique and unusual words almost felt like the overuse of a thesaurus, forced, trying to “sound smart.”

The storyline was good, the concept was also good, the gaslighting from one BFF of the other for the ten-year length of their friendship, which includes, who actually killed both backpackers in two different countries on two different girls’ trips. Again, a good story, but, surprisingly, too predicable, and too forced.

The ending is a lot of story dumping to wrap up the lose ends; a telling of events. And then the last line or two was an attempted red herring.

We Were Never Here is a decent book, but do have a dictionary standing by for the zinger words.… (mehr)

This book seemed like it took forever to get through! Katie, a writer, wants to write an expose on her sister's, Hana's, friend, Eleanor who owns the women co-working space called The HERD. But, Eleanor goes missing after attempts at blackmail, and disgusting graffiti is found. When she is later discovered dead, the women all become suspects. As they attempt to unravel what could have happened and why, many secrets come out.
I think this book could have been so much better, but it dragged on for me.… (mehr)

Except for a few issues I will mention below, this could have easily been a four or five star book. Unfortunately, a number of items totally ruined the book.

The story follows Kelly, who has just broken up/separated from her boyfriend, and moves in with a friend she has known since childhood and her friend’s husband. Things go great at first, but then more and more troubling incidents occur and Kelly is rethinking her decision. Dead bodies appear. Deceptions and lies are commonplace. No one seems to know whom to trust, even to the end of the book.

None of the characters are believable and are all unreliable. That makes the book interesting as the reader does not know whom or what to believe.

The book started out very slow. The first 100 pages were difficult to get through. Then the book picked up for a while, but then slowed down just past the half-way mark. Overall, I would say the book is about 50 to 75 pages too long. There is too much focus on the pandemic and lockdown of 2020. That reference becomes tiresome quickly. Much of the book is repetitive and should have been edited out.

The ending is absolutely inane, insipid, and totally ridiculous. The final 30 pages of the book are awful. The “twist” at the end made no sense. It was stupid and illogical. Too many events happened due to coincidence and were not believable at all.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but how does a murderer break into an extremely secure house, murder someone, clean up the murder scene, and exit, without three people not hearing or seeing anything? That make no sense at all and is expecting too much of the reader to simply accept it at face value.

As I was reading the book I felt it would probably be a four to five star read, but the ridiculous ending and the final 30 pages ruined the book for me. I cannot in good conscious recommend this book. It was a total waste of my time.… (mehr)