The cover is intriguing and the premise sounded fresh and promising. Unfortunately the main character was unlikeable and hard to root for. The villian was obvious so there wasn't a big twist or reveal. The novel became too wordy and I found myself skimming. Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy.

This is one of the few books I've read recently that I'm really struggling to review. The main character, Lindsay, decides to investigate the apparent suicide of one of her best friends (Edie) on the 10 year anniversary of her death. Although Lindsay pieces together a data trail that is quite interesting, I doubt even the best tech genius could pull up emails from a dead email account from that many years ago. Or uncover deleted flip cam footage.

I frequently had to remind myself of Lindsay's age, because her character seemed very immature. The slow narrative and lack of character development throughout is what made this book difficult for me to read. We get glimpses of people as they were during Edie's life, and as they are now, but it was hard to remember who did what then, who they were with back then, and what they were helping Lindsay figure out now. And how did Lindsay even hold down the great job that she had with all of this going on in her life?

I did try to figure out the suspect and did not guess the ending. It was interesting, but the character "switch" was so sudden that I had trouble believing it was happening and I thought maybe it was another one of Lindsay's blackout memories.

This was an ok book for a debut author. I found myself skimming some parts as the storyline dragged in places.

Oh boy was this book bad. I finished it because I got an ARC from Netgalley and owed it an honest review, but I couldn’t wait for it to be over. The plot sounded intriguing based on the summary and it has a good cover that lured me in but if I realized how insufferable the narration and characters would be I would have given it a hard pass. I think the author really lacks self awareness because all of the pretentious navel-gazing she dismisses throughout the book were exactly what she was doing; it was a way to name drop bands and venues and trends that were “cool” in the early 2000s to - what? Prove she was there? Prove she was cool? No one cares that you hung out at the Levee eating cheese balls. Also, I think if her characters were real, they would have made her dumb book into a drinking game where you drink every time you come to the word “hipster.” The twist was dumb. The climax fell flat. Lindsay, the main character, was completely unlikeable, but not in a complicated or compelling way. I saw that this has been optioned for a tv show and I was super disappointed; it doesn’t deserve it. I’d advise anyone asking to skip this one.

Goodreads posted 3/21: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2754018599

Instagram 3/22:
https://instagram.com/p/BvTvGZcH13_/

Lindsay found herself questioning everything that she thought she knew about the faithful night her friend killed herself..was it really how it happened or was there something that she blocked out because it was just to terrible to remember? This did not play out at all how I thought it would, and boy was it interesting. Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

What happened to Edie 10 years ago? Why can't Lindsay remember that night? Why are her memories different than her friends?

Edie supposedly committed suicide note on her computer before shooting herself in the head. But Lindsay isn't sure anymore. She starts to question everything about the night she lost. She's gone so far as to stop drinking because she hates not remembering. Lindsay seeks out her old group of friends near the 10th anniversary and finds out that she is not the only one with doubts.

The story unfolds by jumping back and forth from about 10 years before and the present. It is mostly told through Lindsay, but occasionally jumps to the male characters (and only the male characters, I have a theory about that which has a lot to do with the objectification of women). Sometimes the snippets remembered seem unimportant or are misleading. By the end, their inclusion makes sense and the events are seen in a different light. You start to see what it is really telling you. I found this made the story much more engrossing. I love a book that makes me look back at something I've already read.

I did laugh a little at the nostalgia for 2009. The characters all seemed to have the impression that the year itself was special instead of their own age. The age of a strange freedom that has very little real responsibility. I'm 15 years older than the characters and you could have been describing my own college experience. It made me think about that time in everyone's life. Early adulthood. Do we think it is special so we don't have to admit that now we are older, more tired, and have a lot of responsibilities? I mean, change the tech, music, and fashion and it's all interchangeable. People with new freedom that are in a strange purgatory between responsibility for part and all of themselves. My own children are there now and it seems so much the same (even the music and fashion).

The ending did not disappoint. You started to see the point of every little thing you had read before. You see the point to some of the recollections than were presented. Well done all around.

Thank you yo Netgalley, Andrea Bartz, and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book. See my blog for this and more reviews- https://readeotw.wordpress.com.

3 stars. This was a decent thriller and a nice change from the usual big bad man plotline.

It was hard to get into at first because I didn't like the main character very much and got tired of spending time with her. The author occasionally provided us with an alternate point of view from more minor characters. These were kind of strange interruptions from the main action and basically red herrings. Still, it was kind of a relief to get away from Lindsay, the main character for a while, because she was so sad and heavy... think of the main character from The Woman on the Train. She was a lot like her.

Takes place in modern day New York City, with a lot of reminiscing about hipster Brooklyn in the 2009 era. I never partied like these people did and so that was kind of painful to read about. Drinking whisky until the room spins. Doing bumps of cocaine. Ugh. No thank you.

Overall, a middle of the road thriller. Good for a plane ride or a day on the beach.

I thought the premise of this sounded good but ultimately not much ended up working for me. I found Lyndsey to be annoying as a narrator along with just plain unreliable. The plot didn't stand out to me, in fact I found it pretty predictable. The characters all seemed one dimensional and selfish, there just wasn't the range or depth I look for in a well written mystery or thriller. Finally, I prefer shorter chapters that help to keep the pace moving and these chapters were so long and often way too wordy.

Always such a bummer to me when a book has such a beautiful cover but not much to offer me on the inside. The writing in The Lost Night was very wordy and I found myself skimming through paragraphs and paragraphs of useless dialogue. I thought this would be a story that had a strong plot line, strong characters, and a "shocking" strong twist as advertised but nothing really stood out about the book to me.

The Lost Night lost me about halfway through when I realized it was turning into the typical "who did it" but it was lacking in multiple departments. With the predictable story line, I had unfortunately found out who the killer was very early into the book. I still didn't understand why the killer did it so I hung out until the end and was still let down. 

I also felt the characters were underdeveloped and too much time was spent on random dialogue that wasn't necessary to the story. I was hoping for characterization to become stronger and brought to light but it just wasn't. But my MAIN problem with this book was the lead protagonist, Lindsay. She was an unbearably annoying character with the mental capacity of a teenager rather than a woman in her 30's. It was insufferable to say the least. 

Chalking this one up as one that just didn't hit the mark for me. The cover is outstanding and the premise had such a huge hope for me but by the time it was all said and done, I was just happy to be done with this one.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. For the most part I enjoyed reading it, but I'm not sure I'd say it was "good."

On the positive side, the pacing is excellent and atmospherically, it's a home run. Aside from, you know, someone getting murdered, this is a really accurate portrait of your first year living in New York in your 20s. The whole hipster thing did make me detach from the characters a little (my friends and I would have hated these people and they would have hated us), but it's sort of a funny realization to look back and realize the experience for that type of person wasn't actually that different than yours.

Now to the bad...the big reveal/twist on who our villain is was really, REALLY obvious almost immediately. The author dropped a clue within the first 30 or so pages that made it very clear to me who our protagonist was up against, and that was followed up by several more clunky, blatant slip-ups by our villain. The twist involving the villain is also kind of a tired one. I've seen this exact solve many times recently in thrillers.

Also problematic: The protagonist is hard to empathize with and hard to root for. Drinking problems and amnesia are two of my least favorite mystery tropes. Drunks make poor heroes, and amnesia always feels like a sad plot device used to cover for a story that's lacking.

The gaslight element did help mitigate the above problem, but it was still too easy to figure out what was happening. It's also frustrating to have to read through multiple rounds of the protagonist remembering what happened and then forgetting again and then remembering again and then...you get the idea.

But mostly, Lindsay just cuts too pathetic a figure to get the reader on her side. I understand why she's upset about how her parents handled her childhood issues, but she is 33 years old and still blaming her current bad behavior and every bad decision she's ever made on mom and dad. Get some therapy and grow up, girlie. She leads a sort of a shell of an existence, disappearing into the world and hiding from her problems, both those in her past and those plaguing her now.

In all, I enjoyed the book to an extent and really appreciated how well Bartz captured the atmosphere of living in New York in your twenties in the first decade of the millennium, but the plot had way too many significant flaws for it to hold up as a quality thriller.

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Lindsay Bach is a thirty-something single woman, living and working in New York City. After randomly reconnecting with an old friend named Sarah, Lindsay begins to fixate on an event that occurred ten years before--the death of her friend Edie. Edie's death was ruled a suicide, but an offhand comment by Sarah makes Lindsay begin to question that. What really happened that night? Unfortunately, Lindsay was blackout drunk that night and can't remember anything. So she starts contacting other people from the group of friends and does some other research as well. Memories begin to resurface, she finds an old camera, and things just go crazily from there.

I enjoyed this book--there were lots of good twists, but I will say that this book made me feel very old. I'm in my 40's, and hearing these characters reminisce about the good old days of 2009 makes me feel a little sick (I'm joking, sort of). Also, if I never hear the word "pregame" again it will be too soon.

Overall, it's a good suspense novel!

For me, this book was just meh. I enjoyed the author's writing style, no doubt.... But books or movies where a main character has memory issues related to drug or alcohol use tend to just BOTHER me for some reason. I was in my 20's once, I get it... but it just seems like a lazy way to explain situations or give characters an excuse or a way out. It just rubs me the wrong way. Im sure many people will really enjoy this book, but like I said, it was just Okay in my opinion.

Mixed feelings about this one. I enjoyed the main character, Lindsay, and identified with her in some ways. I totally get that feeling of trying to figure out what life is in your thirties while looking back at your twenties with both nostalgia and pity. The regrets and confusion felt real.

But when we get the big reveal, it was just, ugh. Seriously? This again? But then again, I read a lot of this psychological thriller "if you liked Gone Girl..." genre, so the fact that some tropes felt overdone could just be me.

That being said, I kept wanting to read more. In this case, that spoke more to the writing style and suspense-building than the actual plot line.

This was an incredibly gripping thriller. I did not predict the twist at all until it was revealed and was completely shocked. I loved the way the story unfolded and eliminated suspects slowly until it was time for the truth to come out. Incredibly well done! I highly recommend this to all thriller and mystery lovers!

For me, this book was only okay. I didn’t love Lindsay and I don’t love books with lots of partying and drinking that result in memory loss. The detective work was interesting while Lindsay is trying to piece together what happened the night her friend died and I did like the story well enough to keep reading and find out the ending. Overall, however, this just wasn’t the book for me.
Thank you to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.

Great buildup to an ending I wasn't expecting. Loved the characters and the way the relationships worked between them.

This is a nice albeit slow burning mystery about a group of college friends in NY and night that changed the main character's life forever.

The main character struggles with her memories about the night her friend died, thus starting a chain of events where she questions her own memories and whether or not you truly know those closest to you.

The plot is intriguing with interesting characters, but the middle of the novel became burdened with too much descriptions which affected the flow of the pace. However, towards the end the pace picks up with several twists leading to a surprising end which I never saw coming.

Thanks Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC, I voluntarily reviewed this title.

After Stuff Hipsters Hate, a Murder Mystery Inspired By the McKibbin Lofts

Bushwick finally has its own murder-mystery novel—and it’s a good one, too! Journalist Andrea Bartz, who established herself as a scholar of hipsterdom as co-author of mock-guidebook Stuff Hipsters Hate, has deftly placed a group of plaid-shirt-wearing characters in a whodunit set at the intersection of the media and art worlds. Set between 2008-2009 and the present day, her novel The Lost Night follows literary essayist turned head fact-checker Lindsay Bach as she tries to piece together what happened the night her impossibly beautiful and charismatic former best friend Edie was found dead by apparent suicide; the “Calhoun Lofts,” a dump-meets-arts-haven in Bushwick, is its sandbox-like backdrop.

For those who are into following a group of self-absorbed and pretentious twenty-somethings as they unravel, The Lost Night elicits the same gleeful pleasure as subculture-specific thrillers like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. with its classicists, and Tara Isabella Burton’s Social Creature, which follows literary types with rich-people hobbies. These novels seamlessly combine the “thriller” element with acute remarks on a particular kind of people, and could almost sustain themselves even without the obligatory dead body.

I caught up with Bartz ahead of the Feb. 26 release of her book to talk about then and now. It’s about time for some aughts nostalgia.
The full Q&A can be found here:
http://bedfordandbowery.com/2019/02/after-stuff-hipsters-hate-a-murder-mystery-inspired-by-the-mckibbin-lofts/

The Lost Night is a slow-burning mystery involving a group of friends in the past and the supposed suicide of their best friend. It has been ten years. Only now Lindsey realizes Edie may not have killed herself after all. She might have been murdered! The characters are strong. The unreliable narrator keeps readers guessing. If you enjoy mysteries in a New York setting, be sure to pick up The Lost Night today!

I absolutely love any sort of book that deals with old murders and unsolved cases and this one appealed to me even more so because it’s unknown whether Edie was even murdered or if she committed suicide like the cops assumed. There was a lot of unknown factors in the one across the board and while it only left me guessing for about half the time, it maintained my interest throughout.

The bulk of the narrative is shaped by Lindsay with a handful of chapters from her old friend group scattered about. Lindsay is a tough character to describe, on the one hand she’s not likable at all, but it’s not really in a fun way, like a love to hate character. Instead she was pretty immature and whiny for a thirty something grown ass woman. It even kind of felt like a YA novel at times due to her lack of maturity, she got on my nerves quite a bit. Edie herself was actually pretty terrible too, she wasn’t portrayed as a very kind person and it was kind of difficult to toss any sympathy her way.

While the characters were pretty awful I was drawn in by the authors writing style, though it was slightly verbose. Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of long chapters, especially in a mystery. I much prefer the fast paced, cliffhanger type chapters that propel me forward and urge me to keep reading just one more chapter. But Bartz’s style was captivating, almost poetic at times and she did bring me back to NYV circa 2009 with surprising ease. I would suggest this one to anyone that’s new to thrillers or someone looking for a lighter style mystery, it was lacking that punch and darkness that I crave when I’m wholly invested in a thriller.