Book Review: "We Were Never Here" by Andrea Bartz

As if I needed more reasons not to go hiking? Now there's Andrea Bartz's new thriller, We Were Never Here.

Emily and Kristen have been best friends since college. Kristen has always been there for Emily, helping to try and shake her out of her routines and build her self-confidence. But now that Kristen is living in Australia and Emily is still in Wisconsin, both are looking forward to their annual reunion trip.

This year they go to Chile to go backpacking. On the last night of the trip, Kristen goes back to their hotel with a handsome backpacker she picks up at a bar. When Emily goes back to their room a little while later she finds Kristen covered in blood, broken glass everywhere. Kristen says the backpacker attacked her so she had no excuse but to kill him to ensure her safety.

Emily is shaken by the scene in front of her. She immediately snaps into action to help Kristen. But what floors her is that last year, when they were in Cambodia, Emily was attacked by a hiker she picked up in a bar, and the same thing happened. Is it possible they both could have experienced an identical incident?

After the trip, they go their separate ways and Emily tries to put what happened behind her and concentrate on her new boyfriend. She is thrown when Kristen shows up in Milwaukee, and Emily starts to wonder what Kristen wants from her and whether she has to fear her friend.

I felt the tension in We Were Never Here right away, and even though I’ve seen similar stories, I needed to see how Bartz would tie everything up. There were a few surprises and one thing in the story definitely piqued my curiosity.

I felt like the pace slowed down in the middle but as the book got closer to the end, wow! Bartz really gets you hooked on unlikeable characters.

Thanks to BookSparks, Andrea Bartz, and Ballantine Books for providing me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review as part of #SRC2021!