Kate and Bella were inseparable as childhood friends. But when Kate disappears after she moves away Bella does everything to forget about her. Fast forward to their 30s when a chance meeting brings up old feelings of the toxic friendship of teenagers. When Bella begins to question her marriage, Kate is there to help her pick up the pieces, or tear them further apart, depending on which way you look. Their toxic friendship spans an entire lifetime, and it leaves the reader questioning just how good of friends they actually are.

The synopsis and cover for The Best Friend had me instantly intrigued. However; I was sorely disappointed by the writing style and lack of quotation marks throughout the book. I was finding it hard to connect with the character storylines and unfortunately, was not able to finish this book after reading to the halfway mark.

This was a very slow burn type of book and the writing style would not agree with a lot of readers, I did finish this book, only because I was curious where the author would take the characters. Bella and Kate meet when they are six (the book chapters depict events at certain ages), the promise to be friends forever. A number of years pass and Bella has a crush on a boy, Peter, Kate gets his interest and Bella is upset. More years pass and Kate's family moves out of town with a promise from Kate to keep in touch, that doesn't happen. Many years later Bella tracks Kate down, she is now a stage actress and quite well known. At this point both are married with a child, Kate also is a stepmother to Randall a son from her husbands' previous marriage. At a party Bella and her husband were invited to at Kate's house, an incident happens to Bella that causes her much distress. Not long after that her husband leaves, something he has done in the past on occasion. Kate invites her to stay with her and engages her to paint a portrait of Randall. This causes memories from the party Bella had attended at Kate's house to surface and she has a hard time sorting through what is a real memory. The conversations at the beginning of each chapter are written without quotes so it's hard to determine who is saying what at times. This was an alright book and if you enjoy domestic/women stories you should enjoy it. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Minotaur for the ARC

Thank you to NetGalley, Jessica Fellowes, Minotaur Books for the advanced copy!

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this 13% of the way through. I was so confused on the writing and nothing was making sense. I felt like it was just fast forwarding through their entire life. It was just.....weird.

Not for me. I was not a fan of the writing style, and it was really confusing throughout the book. The author did not use quotation marks or dialogue tags, so I find myself rereading a lot to figure out what was going on. The story was flat and really vague. Kate and Bella were both really unlikable characters, and I didn’t really care what happen to them. Also, the initial drama for the best friends was really unrealistic, and I couldn’t understand Bella’s obsession with Kate.

I think there is an audience for this type of book if you are looking for more into a dysfunctional narcissistic co-dependent friends than you might like this one. This was not a thriller in my opinion, and it was more of a deep dive into friend dynamics.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for my eARC copy.

For the life of me I can't figure out why this was marketed as a "thriller". It felt like it was solidly in the "women's fiction" category. It's a bittersweet story of the friendship between two women over the years from childhood to old age. There is a hint of an "incident" but I'm not even sure I understand what happened. The format for the book was interesting as a great deal is written as conversations between the two women, but it seemed like very little happened to advance the storyline. Those who go in without the expectation of suspense or mystery may enjoy this.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's press for an advance reader's copy for review.

I don’t know where to start with this one. Ultimately, it’s the story of a friendship through different seasons of life.

Kate and Bella meet when they’re 6 years old and become best friends. It’s a bit of a toxic relationship through the teen years but many are at that age. Many of us can remember and cringe. Things are very competitive and you’re very awkward, coming into your own, but will privileged Kate ever change? She seems to be the root of the problem.

Kate moves and is supposed to give Bella an address but she never does, breaking Bella’s heart and giving her a bad core memory, and they don’t see each other again until they’re in their 30’s. That doesn’t amount to much so we next meet them in their 40’s. They reconnect for real then and have some pretty heavy experiences. Then we see them in their old age after either 30-ish years have past.

This was very bizarre, but I liked it in a weird way. It was very dark and I’ve never read anything like it. I did have some unanswered questions but I believe it’s on purpose so as to only really focus on the friendship of the two women and the dynamics of that strange relationship, so the men were really just included as to how it relates to the women.

The line between love and hate really can be thin sometimes. Not usually, but it is in this case. A strange codependence even when out of each other’s lives. It was very depressing but hauntingly interesting.

I didn’t care for the unmarked dialogue. It grew on me along the way but the book is dialogue-heavy so this was a strange choice. It was hard to figure out which was speaking sometimes.

This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but it was original and I wasn’t expecting it. This is more of an observation of two women throughout their lives than a mystery and definitely not a thriller.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for the chance to read and review!

This one kinda let me down. I was expecting a lot more tense and suspenseful moments. It wasn’t as dark as I would have liked. The relationship between the characters was subtly toxic which I enjoyed and I really liked how the story followed them through their life. But I wanted more from it. More drama, more sinister moments, more betrayal. I felt underwhelmed throughout the majority of the story. I will say though, it was a very quick read and I sailed through it!

My Thoughts: this was a slow burn story about 2 women’s friendship since childhood and along the way all the toxic things they encountered on each other. This one was just a little slow for me.

The Best Friend follows Bella and Kate and their complicated friendship had their lives continue to intersect throughout their lives. Starting in early childhood, this novel explores the dark twisted nature that can hold friends together.
I found the book hard to get into at times, but read quickly and easily.

* I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books in exchange for my honest review

DNF

I made it to 27% on my Kindle before giving up.

Neither main character is at all likable or even interesting.

Absolutely nothing happened worthy of that many pages. We just jumped forward in time, watching Bella and Kate become uninteresting, melodramatic adults, while getting absolutely no real sense of their lives.

I didn't understand Bella's drama over Kate losing touch after moving away. They were teenagers. That happens all the time. Bella dragged the "betrayal" into adulthood, as if they'd been longtime lovers and Kate had abandoned her without a word. Ridiculous.

I was bored, annoyed, and didn't care.

When I first started the book I was very intrigued and captivated by the story. However, half way through, I found it hard to follow the story. I am not sure if it was the writing style or the story itself, but I found myself disappointed in the end.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the eACR. #netgalley

I was really excited to read this book because I love the cover and I’m always up for a creepy story about best friends. Unfortunately, this one didn’t really work for me.

The writing format took some getting used to, since a lot of it was made up of only dialogue with no clear indication of who’s speaking. Once I got used to that, I started to read through the book quickly and I enjoyed the fast pace in that sense.

However, I felt like nothing happened in the story. And whenever anything remotely interesting did happen, it was just sort of mentioned briefly and never gave any details that I think were necessary to make the plot more gripping.

There were a few moments where I thought that a certain event would lead to a more intriguing story later on, but it just sort of felt like there was no reason for any of it. And although it was a darker story, I didn’t get thriller vibes with this one because nothing happened.

If you’re a fan of more abstract and ominous stories and are looking for a quick read, this might be for you. I’m just not the right audience for this book.

Thank you to Minotaur Books for my gifted copy! I have posted a review on Goodreads and my Bookstagram account.

I made it through 20% of the book before I gave up. The characters were very unlikable and lacked development. The way that the author had the characters talk to each other was confusing and hard to follow. I kept having to start over to remember who had spoke first. Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher, but unfortunately this was not for me.

If I’m being completely honest with my review, as I should be. I started this with high hopes and good intentions, it sounded like a good thriller I’d enjoy. I’ve read about 25% and am extremely bored and no part of this story has me interested. I just can’t do this one and it’s a DNF for me because I just cannot get connected. The story is pretty bland up until this point and I need to have something I enjoy this far into it that keeps me wanting to keep reading.

Thanks to the publisher, netgalley and the author for the chance to read an advanced copy of this book.
To me, this should have been maybe an hour read, I had to keep stopping, so it took way longer. I wasn't liking the format, and kept going back to see who was talking. I honestly didn't care for any of the characters except the children. I went in thinking this was a thriller, or mystery of some sort, it wasn't.
I tried very hard to like it, it just fell flat for me.

This book was sent to me by Netgalley for review. The writing style is different. The characters are different…the story is different…I could not become immersed in this book but others might like it. It took too long to get to certain points…events…maybe too many details…

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for sending me an e-ARC of this book to read and review. I didn't really like this one. At first I liked the quick pace of it, but the characters ere completely flat. It felt like a game to see who could be the worst friend. I also hated that the dialogue wasn't put into quotes. It made keeping up with the characters incredibly confusing and it was hard to see who was connected to who as the story went on. I was also expecting more of a thriller vibe and this felt more like a one-note petty drama. There was no suspense or waiting and the details were so vague that I felt like I had no clue what was actually happening. No one was likeable or connect-worthy and the quickness of it was kind of the only redeemable quality. I should have DNF'd.

I enjoyed this one!! It had a very unique writing/story telling style that won’t please everyone, but I found that style a much quicker read. It was certainly uncomfortable at times and hit on some tough topics, but overall I was really a fan of this one!

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Kate and Bella met at the age of 6. The life-long friend's took a couple of long breaks in their relationship due to discards, but together they shared a life of companionship and secrets.