Published Sept 5th, 2017
384 Pages
Maria Weston wants to be friends. But Maria Weston is dead. Isn’t she?
1989. When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren’t. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends.
2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.
Louise has always known that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything. Her job. Her son. Her freedom. Maria’s sudden reappearance threatens it all, and forces Louise to reconnect with everyone she’d severed ties with to escape the past. But as she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there’s more to the story than she ever knew. To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what’s known to Maria–or whoever’s pretending to be her–is known to all.- Goodreads
It didn’t take long for me to be sucked into this book. I stayed up late to finish this book and was disappointed in the ending but the overall book left an impression. Louise was a follower as a teen and still is in a way as an adult. What she did and didn’t do as a teen is coming back to haunt her in the forum of a Facebook request, guilt and some stalking.
I really enjoyed the vagueness and suspense the author was able to create in a everyday environment. There isn’t a lot that actually happens. A lot of the tension and the what will happen next is because Louise is freaking out. Which is completely understandable if the person you thought was dead is physically haunting you. There is no paranormal activity going on in this book, so that may be a hint to where things are going but it is also important to note that because things move slower then what you would think if this was a paranormal book. But there is a constant need to find out what happens next. There is a desire to get to 1: find out about the secret 2: find the truth about Maria 3: find out what is actually happening.
Here are my issues with the book:
1: There are some parts of the book that are very misleading. The author leads you down a specific road but the at the end you’re like what?
2: The ending was weak. All that building, waiting for the truth, excitement for the truth just lead to the most lack luster ending I could possibility think of. Think of staying up until 1 a.m. to get to that. -_-
Those were my two biggest issues in this book. I felt that there should have been more going on other then Louise freaking out and feeling guilty and still wanting the approval of others. There should have been some growth in Louise and personality. There wasn’t much to her other than what happened when she was a teen and her relationship with past friends and her ex-husband.
Overall, I enjoyed the book but I know it could have been 5 Pickles as opposed to
3 Pickles
Motif by Tanya 