This book is less of a thriller than a coming-of-age story about three teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, teetering between the profound vulnerability and a sense of being invincible that is so often juxtaposed at that age.

Elizabeth (Bess), Joni and Evangeline come from privileged families in Calabasas - in the latter's case, with stratospherically well-off parents. They go off together to spend their first independent summer in Greece, but only two of them will return from that trip.

The subsequent media frenzy around the case of "rich kids gone bad" means that neither of the remaining two girls has much of a chance at having a normal life thereafter. One becomes an online influencer and lifestyle guru of sorts, and by contrast, the other retreats completely from the public eye.

But Joni and Bess (respectively) are now leading very different lives from each other, and they are also very different people from who they were 10 years ago, during that tragic summer in Greece.

Or are they? Because in an eerily similar set of circumstances, Joni contacts Bess on the eve of the launch of her highly-anticipated book - at a time when her girlfriend has inexplicably disappeared - to beg her to provide an alibi.

And for reasons that she doesn't entirely understand, Bess agrees to do it. But can they really expect to get through the situation unscathed this time around? And do they deserve to?

Before We Were Innocent essentially reads like a literary fiction novel about toxic friendships, and the decisions that people make in their youth that they sometimes pay dearly for afterwards, with some mystery/thriller elements thrown in.

It's well-written and absorbing, but would have benefited from being edited more tightly. The book is well worth a read though. And it's likely to evoke nostalgia even among those who may not have had the good fortune (?) to travel to the Greek islands as teenagers, but will recognise some aspect of themselves in this very diverse trio of friends...

Great summer book to just get lost in! Super easy read and you honestly get sucked into this book and lost track of time!

So glad this was my first ARC! For someone who never reads on a screen, I managed to finish this in about two days on the train on my daily commute to work! Which is a big achievement for me because usually I can only read from a physical copy.

But my oh my this was a page turner. I loved the fact that the story shifted between the past and the present and at each turn there was a new development that caught my attention.

It dealt with so many different themes. Friendship, trust, manipulation and love. But what I found most interesting was the portrayal of the media and the way they are able to manipulate people’s feelings and thoughts. Not only are they able to manipulate the public opinion but they are also able to manipulate police investigations. The media manages to ruin the reputation of two teenage girls based on photos, texts and lifestyle choices. To have your every move scrutinised and published out to the whole world to such an extent means to leave life long scars on those under the microscope. The book follows the life of both teenagers and how they each handle the situation. With Joni using the media for her own gain and turning it into a positive and Bess turning into a recluse trying to disappear from the limelight entirely.

Would definitely recommend!

I could not stop reading this book. I had to know what happened. Highly recommend.
This would be a great ride for the summer.

I went into this, expecting a thriller novel, full of murder and mystery and the past coming to bite you. I definitely got that, but at the same time, I got a beautiful study of the relationships between girls in that revolutionary, instrumental teenage age. The story follows Bess, a survivor of a terrible accident that left her best friend, Evangeline, dead as a teenager while they were on a sun-soaked trip in Greece. Blamed for Evangeline's murder, along with her other best friend, Joni, the story is told in two timelines, one from the infamous trip to Greece, and one from the present, where Joni's personal life leaves Bess like she'd never Greece years ago.

Bess was a great protagonist. She had so much internalised guilt and so much desperation to keep Joni, the last remnant of a previous life, in her orbit, to the dirty work of defending her no matter what. And Joni was a fantastic character too. Right up until the end, I was left guessing about her. The juxtaposition of the two timelines kept things interesting and mysterious. The supporting cast, especially Bess' brother and their changing relationship as they overcame the trauma of the past, was excellent too!

This was a great book, and can't wait to see what comes out of Berman next!

This was great, looking forward to recommending it to friends as a thoughtful and suspenseful beach read!

This book is written in dual timelines, 2008 when Bess, Joni and Ev(angeline) have just finished high school and are off to a tiny Greek island for the summer, and 2018 back in California, a decade after the events that took place the summer of 2008 when Joni appears on Bess’ doorstep asking for a favour. I found I was initially more invested in the 2008 timeline to find out what actually happened but towards the end both timelines were equally engaging.

I was initially expecting this to be more of a thriller/mystery but a lot of what kept me engaged was the stuff about toxic friendships, how young women are portrayed in the media and how differently people can react to the same circumstances. It made me think about the holidays I went on with friends in my late teens/early 20s and also how, at 19 years old, I’d have coped with every detail of my personal life being dissected in newspapers and discussed in online forums. I’m not sure I’d have even coped as well as Bess who mainly hides away from the world with a WFH job and no social life, never mind as well as Joni who has reinvented herself as a successful motivational speaker and influencer!

I also couldn’t help but think about Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher when reading about Bess, Joni and Ev. A different and more extreme situation but the because of the way Knox was vilified and scrutinised by the press at a similar age and in slightly similar circumstances it was hard not to think of that incident.

If you’re looking for a page-turning thriller a with a shock reveal this is probably not it, there was an element of that at the beginning but it’s a lot more thoughtful, slow and introspective. I’d say the books I read the most are contemporary/literary/women’s fiction with the occasional foray into murder/mystery/thriller so this was right in the sweet spot for me.

Thanks to NetGalley, Head of Zeus and Ella Berman for my very first ARC!

★★★☆☆ (3.5)

Something about rich, privileged teenage girls getting wrapped up crimes amidst sun-soaked settings is so pleasing to me (fictionally speaking, of course.) This is like 90210 but a White Lotus setting.

Bess is sucked into Joni's life, her teenage best-friend, after ten years of not speaking and asked to lie to the police for her. What follows unravels Bess' coming to terms with what happened that summer when three friends went to Greece and only two came back.

I did really enjoy this - I was hooked reading it, and it was super easy to keep track of the dual timelines. I think for me, I got a bit sucked into it being more of a thriller than it is. There's no big twist or shock reveal. The second half is much more introspective for Bess and how she finally faces what happened ten years and what that means for her now. It's not to say it was bad, just not the path I had been going down for the first half of the book.

Fabulous - I couldn't put this down, and I'll think about it for a long time.

Joni and Bess are friends with a history - a very dark history. A story of rich kids, privilege, youthful trangressions/innocence, death and loss, mental health, family and friendship. I loved the perspective of Bess especially as she was so introspective and self-aware. Very literary and beautifully written, and I'll keep my eyes peeled for more books by Ella Berman.

Thanks so much to the publisher for the chance to read this book, I really really loved it.

I sat down to read this for ten mins, and when I looked up, I was half way through.
Obviously it was more than ten minutes later, but it's a big testament to the readability of this book.
The words just flowed. I was fully sucked in.
The last third , not quite so much.
However, it was a book that I enjoyed immensely.
The character studies, and power plays of these two/three women as adults/teens .
How a tragedy has affected everything they have done since.
Very well done.

I really enjoyed this book for the first two thirds or so but felt that the ending was a bit of a let down. Joni is a far more interesting character than Bess, but that is not necessarily to the detriment of the book, and I predicted the twist coming early on but enjoyed it nevertheless. However, I felt that the conclusion was unsatisfying - without going into spoilers, I had hoped for something that felt a little less neat. I’d recommend this book to twisty thriller fans but perhaps not anyone else.