Book Review | Friends Like These @TBRBeyondTours

I am excited to be one of the stops kicking off the tour for Friends Like These.

Friends Like These
Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

Twisted secrets that will have readers guessing with every flip of the page. Perfect for fans of GONE GIRL and Karen M. McManus.

Tegan Sheffield’s annual end-of-summer beach party is the only way to start their senior year. At least that’s what Jake Healy tells his girlfriend Jessica Sanchez.

But when a video prank from the party goes viral and a body is discovered at the beach, Jake and Jessica find themselves at the centre of a national media storm and a police investigation.

It’s a race to uncover the truth before the killer strikes again.

Content Warning: Toxic friendships, sexual assault, rape, mentions of various types of abuse

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After reading Lies Like Wildfire by this author last year I was excited to pick up this book and see if it had that same all-consuming energy, I didn’t think it would be possible but this book was even more intense and maddening and heart-breaking than I imagined. Honestly once I got started reading I didn’t want to tear myself away, this author manages to get that captivating tension just right and then holds you with it for the entirety of the book.

I never thought this would be a sentence I would write but this book is toxic friendships at their finest. I think what works so brilliantly about them in this book is that all the characters are flawed and because we get to see events from multiple POVs it’s hard to hate any of the main characters even when you are desperate for them to make better choices. Each one of them makes a mistake in some way and I thought it was so clever how the catalyst of some seemingly small events could work themselves up into such a horrible result.

This author can certainly send me on an emotional rollercoaster, the main cause of it in this particular book was Jake. The perception of his character switches from villain to victim a few times and as a reader, you are never quite sure where he is going to land, I was angry at him and then heartbroken for him in what felt like a cycle. His storyline was handled so well and did a great job of encapsulating the torrent of emotions that that kind of situation could cause in any young person, but especially a young man.

Friends Like These really packs a punch from the beginning and has a lot of dark and difficult subjects but is written with care. There were a lot of unexpected surprises in this book and I enjoyed that even when one answer was revealed there were still so many to uncover, also that Jake, Jessica, and Tegan were narrators that you weren’t always 100% sure you could trust.

Another brilliant book from Jennifer Lynn Alvarez with a story and characters that will stay with me for a little while, and I am looking forward to what will come next already.

I received my B.A. in English from the University of California at Berkeley. I’m fascinated by underdogs and power dynamics between groups of people.

I’m the author of LIES LIKE WILDFIRE, a teen thriller soon-to-be published by Delacorte Press, and two middle grade book series, each published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, THE GUARDIAN HERD (a quartet) and RIDERS OF THE REALM (a trilogy). Before this, I self-published a middle grade fantasy called THE PET WASHER.

When I’m not writing, you’ll find me galloping my little black mare through the foothills of Sonoma County or teaching free creative writing workshops to kids and adults at various branches of our local library system.

The Healdsburg Literary Guild selected me as their 2019/2020 Literary Laureate for my work in building literacy in my community. It is an honor I hold dear. I am also the current SCBWI Sonoma County Coordinator and a volunteer on the Sonoma County Library Advisory Board.

I live in Northern California with my husband, three children, and more than my fair share of pets!

To see the other hosts and follow the tour, click here.

Reviews of other books by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
Lies Like Wildfire