Blogmas Day 16: Book Review – Friends Like These By Kimberly McCreight

Friends Like These By Kimberly McCreight

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Adult, Suspense, Adult Fiction
Pages: 320 pages
Publication Date: September 7th 2021
Publisher: Harper

Plot: Everyone has those friends. Doesn’t matter how long it’s been, or how badly they’ve occasionally behaved, or how late it is when that call finally comes—you show up. No questions asked.

Honestly, that’s how the five of us ended up here in the Catskills. We did have the best of intentions. Especially after what happened to Alice all those years ago, we can’t bear to think of losing anyone else. In fact, we’ll do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’ll go so much farther than we ever thought we would.

In the end, maybe that’s what caught up with us. That, and the fact that we’re such a complicated group—so much history and so many big personalities. Secrets, too, that can slip out at the most inopportune moments. Of course, we love each other despite all of those things. We love each other no matter what.

There’s something so beautiful about that kind of unconditional love. It can turn ugly, though. Or maybe that’s just us. After all, we’ve already been through so much together. And we have so very much to hide. 

My Thoughts: Man I really wanted to like this book so bad. Kimberly is hands down one of my favorite thriller writers. I’ve enjoyed pretty much every book I’ve read from her. Sadly this one just wasn’t a favorite. I guess I did enjoy it but it took me a while to get into it. I think my main problem with this book is there was just so much going on.

Firstly I just was a bit confused by the characters. I feel it took me some time to actually establish who the characters were. I feel we would learn about a couple of the characters the bam here are some new ones. I would have to stop and remind myself who was who then keep reading then do it over again. I feel maybe if I got some time with the first couple characters then got introduced to the others I wouldn’t have been as confused.

Secondly, I also felt like way too much was going on. One moment we were in the past then all of a sudden we were in the current time. Then we’re going even further in the past. So I’m here trying to peace everything together. It took me a bit of time for me to realize like hey this isn’t happening right now this happened before these events. It is told at the beginning of the chapter but I still was just unsure of things.

However, I do have to say even though there were a lot of people I did like that everyone had secrets you needed to uncover. I am pretty sure one’s character hidden secret was talked about early on. Other people’s secrets they would hint at but take some time to discover. I was not really excepting some of these secrets. I like that even in the end even these friends had shared secret that brings them together they still are hiding things from each other. I do feel that helped the story in the end. I definitely was a lot more interested in the end. I feel that was the writing from Kimberly I know and really enjoy. It just took some time to get there because things were a bit much.

Overall this book was a like for me. I wasn’t very in love with it. I feel it was trying to be way too confusing in the beginning. It just took me out of the story and not as invested as I would have liked to be. Thankfully later on in the book I felt things picked up. Once I finally learned who everyone was and understood the timeline. I wanted the dirt on everyone and was interested in figuring that out. I’m not going to say much else. I really don’t want to spoil this for anyone who reads it. I ended up enjoying the ending so I’m going to keep quiet. I do hope if you pick this up you enjoy it more than I did.

Damn I’m still feeling a bit rusty with writing reviews. I feel I need to go back to some of my old ones and take some notes. I think I should also start taking some notes when I do book reviews. Maybe I should switch up my review layout. I need to think about this once Blogmas is over. My main focus is trying to come up with more ideas for Blogmas posts. I’ve been so busy this month. It’s been tough.

Anyway, I can’t wait for the next Kimberly McCreight book even though I wasn’t huge into this one. She’s a great author. I don’t believe she’s announced a new book yet. I am anxiously awaiting the details of it!

Have you guys read this book? If not are you planning on picking it up? I would love to hear from you guys!

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