Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book for free in exchange for my honest review.
This is the second and last review that I wrote before I took my break. After this review I will be posting all reviews of books I read during my break from blogging in the form of mini reviews. I will be featuring four-five books and summing up my thoughts on them in a sentence or two. This series will start next Saturday.
Title: Girls’ Night Out
Author: Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke
Pages: 333
Genre: Thriller, Suspense
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: July 24, 2018
Rating: 2/5
From the bestselling authors of The Good Widow comes a chilling novel of psychological suspense that will make you think twice about what your best friend may be hiding…
For estranged friends Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, it’s time to heal the old wounds between them. Where better to repair those severed ties than on a girls’ getaway to the beautiful paradise of Tulum, Mexico? But even after they’re reunited, no one is being completely honest about the past or the secrets they’re hiding. When Ashley disappears on their girls’ night out, Natalie and Lauren have to try to piece together their hazy memories to figure out what could have happened to her, while also reconciling their feelings of guilt over their last moments together.
Was Ashley with the man she’d met only days before? Did she pack up and leave? Was she kidnapped? Or worse—could Natalie or Lauren have snapped under the weight of her own lies?
As the clock ticks, hour by hour, Natalie and Lauren’s search rushes headlong into growing suspicion and dread. Maybe their secrets run deeper and more dangerous than one of them is willing—or too afraid—to admit.
Trigger Warning: Domestic Abuse
I really wanted to like this book. The summary sounds right up my alley but unfortunately I just didn’t like this book. I found all the characters unlikeable and I honestly didn’t really care to find out what happened Ashely or to the other girls.
I really didn’t like the book kept portraying these characters as being best friends when it was hard to believe they were even friends at all. They all were keeping secrets from each other, which is what you would expect in a thriller, but I didn’t feel like most of the secrets were such a big deal. Ashely and Natalie run a very successful company together and one of them wants out and the other one doesn’t want to leave and I was so confused the whole book about why this was such a big deal. Another problem I had with the book was the cause of the estrangement between Ashley and Natalie with Lauren. I just can’t believe women, who we are told over and over again are such good friends, would let something like that come between them. I think the authors had good intentions and maybe all these secrets would have worked better if we weren’t told so many times how they were friends.
I liked the format of past and present and the different perspectives the story was told through. I also might not have liked this book so much because Ashley was my favorite character and it annoyed me so much how the other women thought of her. I feel like if I had bonded more with a different character than my thoughts on this book might have been more positive.
Overall, I rated this book so low because I really hated how the authors dealt with the characters relationships. Their friendships and their romantic relationships. It just seemed like one stereotype after another and like I mentioned before I found all the characters very annoying and unlikeable. To have a sort of whodunnit story line you have to be able to have characters that the reader is invested in and I honestly could have cared less if they had all died or who did it. That sounds so harsh but it is my honest thoughts. This book has been out for awhile now so I would love to hear from any of you who have read this what your thoughts on it are.
I will say that I know there is a market for these kind of books that have overly dramatic women who are not likable and are in the most ridiculous situations. Clearly, I am not the target audience for this kind of story, but I appreciate that their are some amazing people out there who would probably really enjoy this.
~ Cassie
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