We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz (2021) After finishing this best selling new thriller, we pondered what possessed book club powerhouse Reese Witherspoon to put her recommendation imprint on it........
Hmmm......well, there's certainly female empowerment in this twisty tale of two BFFs, Emily and Kristen who suffer through an overwhelming amount of traumatic bad luck while touring Europe and Asia.
During their Cambodia excursion, Emily's overnight hookup with another travelling backpacker ends up in an attempted rape and an apparent rescue by Kristen......which leaves the guy dead on the floor.
After the girls cover up the death (and corpse) they're off to Chile, where this time, Kristen's overnight hookup with another travelling backpacker ends up in yet another attempted rape.....and once again, a dead guy on the floor to be disposed of before our shaken Gal Pals flee the country.
Through all of these series of unfortunate events that even Lemony Snicket couldn't conceive of, it's established in Emily's narration that Kristen's the take-charge, Type A personality and Emily functions mostly as a follower living in her friend's formidable shadow.......
Once the girls are back in America together, the crushing burdens of guilt and fear of being caught consume them, tearing away at a friendship that was already crumbling......with more than a few clues dropped that imply Kristen's psychotically stalking Emily and has more than few other suspicious deaths in her past.
Emily's budding relationship with a new boyfriend drives her and Kristen into a wildly off-the-rails confrontation sequence that defines the final chapters........and so ridiculous that the book lost us completely......it smacked of something that soap opera writers come up with at the last minute to juice up the ratings and make viewers' jaws drop, no matter how senseless it plays out.
But we can only assume that, lucky for the author, Reese Witherspoon was cool with the ending......but we couldn't help wondering if Reese would go with this book's climax if she ever decides to turn it into a movie or a streaming series.....(we doubt it....)
Intriguing and filled with dread throughout, we'll admit to enjoying most of the book as Guilty Pleasure read......but sorry, the what-the-hellapalooza windup rendered the whole thing silly and we just couldn't get on board with it.
So "We Were Never Here" may benefit from being a Witherspoon pick but for us......it just withered.....2 stars (**).
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