Review:

I know LS has a huge fan base but for some reason over the years I’ve only read one of her books before. This one sounded exactly like the type of book I would like, there’s always something about domestic suspense that pulls me in and this was no exception, and made me eager to go back and check out her other books.

This is told via two timelines, present day and twenty years ago. It opens with the current day and then the majority is told in the past only flipping forward towards the end. One thing I really liked here was the multiple narrators, you hear from almost every single character in the story at some point and there are quite a few. I wasn’t confused by this, it was fairly easy to work out who was who and how they all related to each other early on. Most of the chapters were on the short side as well making this a compulsive read for me.

The plot focuses on one terrible night when a group of teenagers made typical awful teenaged decisions but their unfortunate choices ended in a tragic death. Along the way you learn that everyone from the kids themselves to their parents have some juicy and sometimes disturbing secrets, so there was also something interesting going on here no matter who’s viewpoint you were currently reading. It is on the slower side as far as suspense goes, it’s a gradual build but the ending packs a solid punch. There were twists, some I predicted and others that shocked me, but overall I was satisfied with how it all ended. It loosely reminded me of a Liane Moriarty novel in that it had the same lighter style but this one definitely had more dark moments too, it explored some heavy issues so keep that in mind.