We Were Never Here – Book Review

Title:- We Were Never Here

Author:- Andrea Bartz

Date published:- August 3rd 2021

No. of pages:- 306 pages

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:-

Plot:- 5/5

Writing:- 4/5

Overall rating:- 4/5

It was meant to be the holiday of a lifetime.

Until Emily found their hotel suite covered in blood.

Her friend Kristen claims a backpacker attacked her . . . she had no option but to kill him.

With no evidence of the assault, Emily must help her hide the body.

But back home, as the walls close in around the events of that night, Emily is forced to ask herself:

Can her closest friend be trusted? . . .

So, the plot of this book sounded interesting–Kristen and Emily are best friends since college and they are backpacking in Chile. But one night, when Emily comes into the room, she finds Kristen had killed another backpacker named Paolo. Kristen says that it was self defense as Paolo had come attacking her. Believing her friend, Emily helps Kristen bury the body and they tried to move on with their own lives by going back to their places. Emily tries to forget the incident behind her but one day, Kristen came back, knocking at her front door. Then soon Emily wonders if she should trust her friend…or not.

This was an OK thriller for me and it wasn’t so much fast paced like I thought it would be. The story is slow burn and I felt the main character, Emily was slightly naive. Also unreliable narrators seemed to be a trend in many psychological thrillers as a reader, you question if Emily is really telling the truth. However, it was in the middle of the book that grabbed my attention and really put me on the edge of the seat. Overall, it was an OK thriller and worth four stars. Oh, this book will soon be made into a Netflix movie.

Andrea Bartz is a Brooklyn-based journalist and the author of the forthcoming WE WERE NEVER HERE. Her second thriller, THE HERD, was named a best book of 2020 by Real Simple, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, CrimeReads, and other outlets. Her LA-Times bestselling debut, THE LOST NIGHT, was optioned for TV development by Mila Kunis. It was named a best book of the year by Real Simple, Glamour, Marie Claire, Library Journal, Crime Reads, Popsugar, She Reads, and other publications. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, Martha Stewart Living, Elle, and many other outlets, and she’s held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other titles.