Hello everyone and welcome to a new edition of Lil Red’s Book Club! After finishing the extremely wordy and fairly lengthy The Sleeping Nymph, I was ready for something short and sweet and I definitely got that with the two hundred and seventy page The Best Of Friends. While Johnny played his video games, I devoured this book in a handful of days and, although it wasn’t my absolute favorite thing I’ve read, I still enjoyed it and would happily read more by the author, Lucinda Berry. So, without giving any spoilers away, let’s discuss:

Kendra, Lindsey, and Dani spent their childhood imagining the fairy tale adult life. Great husbands, children who could play together, and their best friendships flourishing into old age. Lucky for them, they all got exactly what they wanted. However, picture perfect families and friendships tend to be anything but that in a psychological thriller and The Best Of Friends is a true testament to that. And, when an alcohol and drug fueled incident between Kendra, Lindsey, and Dani’s teenage sons leaves one of them dead, the other comatose, and the last one too traumatized to speak, their picture perfect world begins to disintegrate around them.

The Best Of Friends is written in alternating chapters between the three mothers who are each handling their grief in their own ways on top of the stress of a police investigation of what happened to their boys. Not to mention that some of their relationships with their husbands are hanging on by a thread. Dark secrets from their past and present comes to life as each mother tries to do what they can to make sense of what they thought was a horrible accident. Or was it murder? Read The Best Of Friends to find out!

I can guarantee you that if you read this book, you will fly through it just as quickly as I did. I love books with alternating narrators and, with each chapter being roughly four pages or less, I would knock out forty to fifty pages in one sitting and not even notice it. In fact, I wish it was longer! The Best Of Friends was a riveting whodoneit and, despite being able to work out some of the plot twists on my own, I still did not see the grand reveal coming.

This story line felt like something out of Law & Order and I was so there for it. I will be the first to admit that The Best Of Friends was not the most well written book – or maybe it just felt that way after the highly detailed Sleeping Nymph that I finished previously. Regardless, it was the palette cleanser I needed and I am going to rate it with: seven out of ten stars for the exciting story line, shocking grand reveal, and the fact that I couldn’t put it down if you paid me. I would definitely recommend The Best Of Friends.

What was the last book that you finished? What should I read next? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah