In How to Kill Your Best Friend, longtime friends gather for a memorial for one of their friends who has recently died on the island of the resort in which she owns. Her death is a mystery and the friends soon find themselves in strange circumstances and dangerous situations.

This book has one of my favorite tropes in a thriller. A group locked together and a mystery to solve.

The friend group was believable and the characters felt genuine in the story. Their connection to swimming made the group feel more tightknit. And, it was interesting to read the parts where they all swim together. I learned a little about the sport of swimming along the way.

I didn't think that the sea monster that was introduced to the story added anything significant to the plot and really could have been left out. I understood it's intention but it didn't feel like it was a strong enough plot point to be used.

Overall, this was a quick thriller that's perfect for readers who aren't avid thriller readers. For someone who reads thrillers often, I felt like there wasn't anything that I hadn't already read.

This is my first thriller in a long while - I just got into a funk of not being interested in thrillers and being able to guess the twists.

This is a weird book for me too because I read the first 60% fairly quickly, then the next 30% was slower and the last 10% was like almost painfully slow, which doesn't make sense because the last 15% is when all the action happens. It was like the moments between the actions that seemed to take forever.

I mentioned that I guessed all the twists, except for the very last one - that was a surprise, but not enough to bring my rating from 3.5 to 4.

It was enjoyable and reminded me of His & Hers (switching narrators with unidentified third narrator) and The Guest List (remote island with murders happening). I probably won't be recommending this to everyone though.

This is a good example on why you shouldn’t decide to read a book based on the title alone. I thought this would be fun and mysterious, but it was incredibly slow paced and a bit of a chore to get through.

The story is told in alternating points of view between Georgie and Bronwyn, with a few anonymous pages thrown in. The anonymous POV pages describe the various ways in which you might kill your best friend, which I wanted to like, but ultimately found kind of pointless. The chapters from Georgie and Bron weren’t much better. There were tedious amounts of detail and nothing happened for long stretches of time. I predicted pretty much every single twist, except for one surprise right at the end.

Overall, I found How to Kill Your Best Friend disappointing. The very slow pace and unlikable characters kept me from ever getting that invested in the story. I wish there had been more time spent exploring Lissa’s past and her relationships instead of just one or two stories and vague references to her unstable behavior. The only reason I’m giving this two stars instead of one is because it did manage to surprise me once at the end.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2 Stars

When Lissa, member of a tight-knit friend group, drowns in the sea near her and her husband’s tropical luxury resort, her best friends gather for a memorial on the Southeast Asian island. But things quickly seem strange to some of the group. Not only was it unthinkable that Lissa, a strong, experienced swimmer would purposely go out into dangerous waters alone at night, but then it seems as if someone is sabotaging the groups’ getaway. What really happened to Lissa? And who’s trying to prevent the group from finding out what that truth is?

The book is told from the alternating viewpoints of Byrony and Georgie, two of Lissa’s closest friends, who attend the memorial.

This book is definitely a slow burn thriller, in that the action is mostly in the past at first, with the group trying to look back and figure out what could have actually happened. Then the events start fairly slowly, with the friends left with a “is it a coincidence or am I imaging things,” vibe. It’s definitely creepy and adds to the isolated island theme that book goes for. Things begin to unravel very quickly at about the 3/4 mark, but up until then, it’s mostly subtle.

What I loved about the book is that it’s definitely a case of you don’t know who to trust - any of the people on the island could be up to no good and there’s no telling what anyone’s motives are. The fact that they’re all pretty isolated at this resort just adds to the paranoia and thrills. Even with the narrators, its hard to deduce their motives and true thoughts.

The ending was pretty intense and I really enjoyed it. There’s a couple of good twists in there that I really enjoyed. Like I said, it really picks up there in the end, so its worth hanging in there!

(Table of contents)
Method 1: Accident
Method 2: Poison
Method 3:Hire a Hit Man
Method 4: Electrocution
Method 5:Shooting
Method 6: Hit and Run
Method 7: Strangulation
Method 8:Drowning

That is all I will say!
This really did keep me hooked throughout

This book alternated between Georgie and Bron’s viewpoints, and a lot of the reveal was done through flashbacks to memories with Lissa. This one wasn’t super fast paced, but it was interesting to see how the characters excused their friends really questionable and harmful behavior. A lot of the stuff was so petty that it truly highlighted how crazy Lissa and her actions were. Through reveals you see the mind games Lissa played with her closest friends, and you begin to question why Georgie still considers her to be her best friend. Georgie is not dumb and clearly sees who and what Lissa is, and what she’s capable of.
All in all I really enjoyed this one, it is a perfect summer thriller. And I think we’ve all had a toxic friend in our lives, though I hope none as bad as Lissa.

2 Stars

How to Kill Your Best Friend sounded like it was right up my alley. A thriller that centers around college friends trying to discover what happened to their friend. But what we got was a long dragged-out book with a lot of swimming references.

I ended up reading this in one sitting because I just had to know, who really did it? But when it came down to it, it quickly became predictable. Not that there is anything wrong with a predictable plot. There was just nothing original about it. It did keep me invested, but I think it could have been shorter

The characters were a bit bland, I did enjoy Adam and Georgie the most. But Lissa and Bronwyn, those two were something else. Especially, Lissa, getting to the root of who she was, was terrifying. Her true character was not something I predicted. So that feels like a win!

If you are looking for a slow-paced thriller, then this is the one to check out.

Georgie wasn't able to go on vacation with her college friends and now her best friend Lissa is dead. Lissa drowned, but the group is swimmers, so Georgie has questions as to how it could have happened. The funeral is at the island resort Lissa owned with her husband and where she drowned. When strange things start happening to the group they question what is really going on in paradise.

This book is so well written. I was absorbed from the very beginning! I could picture the resort location so clearly and you sense the tension and start to understand the dynamics of the friendship group almost immediately. This book is such a FUN twisting delight of a thriller ride. I honestly wasn't totally sure what I was expecting when I dived in, but what I found was a fast paced, highly suspenseful and uniquely premised mystery that sucked me totally in from page one and was impossible to set down. I LOVED the different methods -of killing your best friend- put in there between chapters. I thought that was a really creative idea and the way it connects with the events in the chapter before or after it was really clever as well. I was literally suspecting everyone in the beginning because I had no idea what to believe and who to trust. Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for sharing this eArc with me in exchange for my thoughts.

This was a delightful and spooky “trapped on an island” mystery. I deeply appreciate how the group of life-long friends questioned one another but never TURNED on each other. That made the “whodunnit” reveal a bit obvious, but I enjoyed the relationships in the book so much that I didn’t mind. Really well done.

I was lucky enough to win an e-ARC of HOW TO KILL YOUR BEST FRIEND in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thanks for the early look, and have a safe and happy weekend!

Three close college friends who were all in the school swim team have always remained close. Now one has drowned off the island resort owned by her husband and herself. Gathering for a memorial service, Georgie and Bronwyn, the remaining two friends are trying to make sense of it all. As weather moves in and the mourners are trapped on the resort island, tensions rise as they wonder if it was suicide or murder. Descriptions of the resort were so realistic that I could visualize it all. The use of starting the chapters with How to Kill your Best Friend was very effective and different.

I tried to contact this author for an interview on Facebook, but I never got a response. If she'd like an interview, please have her contact me at ekba@msn.com
Thank you,
E. B. Davis
http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com

For the first half of the novel, I wasn't certain how I felt. It was a little slow and meandering. However, the action picked up in the second half, especially toward the end. The ending tied it all together well and raised my rating. I think this would make a great beach read for the summer!
Thanks to Berkeley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advance copy to review. All opinions are my own.

Imagine you're on your way to a gorgeous island resort called Kanu Cove to be reunited with some of your closest friends--- all but one that is because you're on your way to this island a little earlier than expected to attend your best friend's funeral.

Each section starts off with "way to kill your best friend." At first, these seemed to cut the flow of the novel because the tone was so different from the main story and it wasn't always clear how or even if the "how to kill" intros fit the chapter(s) that followed. This ambiguity lends itself well to the mystery surrounding the death of Lissa despite being a distraction to me. It seems clear to Lissa's best friend, Georgie, that Lissa did not complete suicide and the readers get to tag along as more and more questions arise and it seems that some of the friends' lives are also at risk.

As the story progresses more is revealed about the tangled web of Georgie, Lissa, and other close friend, Bronwyn's friendship. Ultimately leading to the question, how much would you do for a friend? Although, the author flips this question on it's head. There are a couple red herrings, island folklore, infidelity, and jealousy. A pretty quick and thrilling read.

This is the first book by Lexie Elliott that I have read. It started out really strong for me but started to fall short as the book went on. Although I liked the storyline, I felt it dragged a bit near the end. Told from alternating points of view, I often had to look back to the chapter heading to see who was narrating, and I found it a bit confusing. I did finish the book to find out "whodunnit". The book had a large focus on swimming, so if readers are avid swimmers, they may enjoy the story more. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

What a ride! Elliott has become one of my new favorite mystery authors and her books just keep getting better. How To reminds me of The Guest List and My Sister The Serial Killer and the central question they pose -- what happens when you suspect someone close to you is harming others? Elliott takes this dilemma and builds around it all the elements of a fantastic mystery with lots of layers and plot twists. Even though many aspects are classic mystery tropes (secluded on an island, sus dudes, incompetent police, the big storm), Elliott makes it feel fresh and it kept surprising me all the way to the end.

I love trying to figure out a mystery, and this book is a great one for that. Just as I’d start to form a theory, one of the characters would voice the same idea, which would then be proven incorrect. Lots of twists in this one, all leading to a satisfying ending. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I could not get into this book so I skipped to the end to find out what happened. The pacing was too slow and too much emphasis on swimming. I will admit the ending was pretty good so I gave it a better rating because of the ending. I would probably try to read this author again in the future.

A group of friends attend a memorial service at an island resort. Lissa was a good swimmer; they all were swimmers, but somehow Lissa drowned. Her body was seen, but not recovered, so her fiends are having a hard time getting closure. As the group mourns Lissa’s death, more and more secrets come out that test their sense of closure and their friendship even more. Told through the alternating perspectives of Georgie, Lissa’s best friend and “soul mate,” and Bronwyn, somewhat of a third wheel to Georgie and Lissa, readers slowly begin to understand how Lissa held their group together. As Georgie and Bronwyn have strange and scary experiences on the island, the mystery becomes stranger with every turn of the page. Readers of Lucy Foley and Lisa Gardner will become Lexie Elliott fans with this twisty sinister read.

Georgie wasn't able to go on vacation with her college friends and now her best friend Lissa is dead. Lissa drowned, but the group is swimmers, so Georgie has questions as to how it could have happened. The funeral is at the island resort Lissa owned with her husband and where she drowned. When strange things start happening to the group they question what is really going on in paradise.