I enjoyed this thriller book. It flipped back and forth between the past and the present as things were revealed a little at a time. I thought the twists were good but also found this book to be incredibly sad.

Charlie Colbert is the editor-in-chief of a major magazine who seemingly has the perfect life. She's successful at her job and engaged to a wealthy heir to a publishing empire. One thing she's hell-bent on forgetting is an event from her past. A survivor of "Scarlet Christmas", Charlie suffers from memory loss and survivor's guilt. She wants nothing more than to move on but a relative of one of the victims wants to dig everything up. They want to release a movie about the events of that night.

Charlie doesn't want that to happen. She's afraid that the truth will come out about that night and the lies she has built her life on will unravel. She's desperate to stop the films release and is worried about the lengths she will go to.

Told from Charlie's point of view, the book alternates between the present and the past. The past is told as Charlie has sessions with her therapist in an effort to recover the pieces of the past that she's forgotten. As the movie's release is announced it's a race to figure out what happened, and figure out why she's carrying so much guilt. Will the answers crumble her carefully constructed life?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There were a few twists and turns that kept me guessing. The ending was okay, with everything tied up neatly, but it worked for this book. It's a solid debut novel, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the author comes up with next.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Minotaur Books for an advance reader copy of this book.

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

By: Jenny Hollander

4 Stars

In this story, you meet Charlie. She lives with the horrible trauma of the night known as "Scarlet Christmas," the night that she and some of her classmates were attacked. What she "thinks" she knows about that night has played into her every decision after that fateful night. When an old classmate starts to bring the story back into the limelight, years after, it threatens everything in her "almost" perfect new life. Charlie finds herself doing anything to keep that night, and herself, out of the news, again. More truths come to light than she ever bargained for, and she will once again be forever changed.

From start to finish, this is a fast-paced thriller. You never know what waits with the turn of a page. I definitely could "feel" some of these chapters. Maybe it was the way it was written, but in some chapters, I swear Charlie wasn't the only one freaking out. The story is definitely suspensefully written. It was a story of murder and drama, but it had a strong backdrop of family and friendship and the things you will do to protect those you love. It had strong characters and a good solid storyline with more than one surprise. I really enjoyed it.

*I want to thank Netgalley and the author for this book in return for my honest review*

Stormi Ellis
Boundless Book Reviews

This was a gripping read that kept me rushing to the end. While the ride was emotional and twisty, I felt the ending was a tiny bit underwhelming, but I seriously enjoyed the ride and the writing style. Great plot and characters, I definitely recommend!

While this book took me a little bit to get into, I am so glad that I stuck with it. The first half was a bit slow, but by the middle as the reader is able to start actually piecing things together, I couldn't read fast enough. I really liked Charlie as a character - I thought she was very raw and developed. Side characters, such as her family, really made me understand who she was a person. The ending was a pleasant surprise, and though overall a little predictable, I thoroughly enjoyed this read.

boycotting SMP no matter how much it pains me, so I will be withholding my review in solidarity with my fellow booklovers.

This is a slow-burn thriller with dual timelines.

“Nine years ago, with the world's eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a "witness" to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve—events known to the public as "Scarlet Christmas"—though Charlie knows she was much more than that. 

Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She's the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie's former classmates threatens to shatter everything she's worked for, Charlie realizes how much she's changed in nine years. Now, she's not going to let anything—not even the people she once loved most—get in her way.”

I will be honest and admit it did take me a little bit to get into this one. It’s definitely not a fast paced thriller which I love! I love the enticing title and the cover is pretty, which is what drew me in. The ending didn’t hit the mark for me and fell a little short.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

What a debut by Jenny Hollander!! Right away, I was sucked in to what could have happened all those years ago to Charlie. I loved the dual timelines and it gave a perfect balance to finding out what happened the night of Scarlet Christmas versus what is happening in the present. I truly had no idea where this book was going and was fairly surprised at a few of the twists. I did think the ending "twist" was a little predictable but it still made for an extremely fun read! I would have loved to have learned a little bit more about the characters and their time during school. I almost wish that Scarlet Christmas could have happened a little later in their graduate program so that the characters could have been a little more developed, and that you could have gotten to know them a little better. Overall, this was a solid read and I will 100% read whatever Jenny puts out next!

Thank you Netgalley. I really enjoyed this thrilling read. The characters were well done and the storyline was suspenseful. The alternating timelines was phenomenal and really kept the story moving.

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead is the debut thriller from Jenny Hollander. The book follows Charlie, a magazine editor who suffered a severe trauma in her college years that has followed her into adulthood. With a new movie set to release about the tragedy known as ‘Scarlet Christmas’, Charlie scrambles to keep her name and face out of the press before she has to reveal the secret she has kept about that fateful day.

I usually am not a fan of books where the main character holds onto this terrible secret that doesn’t turn out to be that bad. This book definitely employs this – Charlie’s insane guilt and secret-keeping is over the fact that she (maybe) killed someone in self-defense - but the point that it makes about trauma makes this iteration work. Unlike similar books in the genre, this book instead focuses on the trauma of people’s experiences and how important it is to work on and move past them. There is a lot of emotional depth in this book that isn’t always present in thrillers, and I appreciated this change in tone from the expected formula.

If you need books that move quickly with lots of plot twists, this isn’t the thriller for you. It has a much more mature, slow-burn tone to it that definitely won’t be for everyone. I will admit that, even though I enjoyed the book as a whole very much, I found some of the middle chapters about Charlie’s relationship with her fiancé and her friends a little tedious. I also felt that the reveal of the actually killer came a little out of left field. The “signs” of mental illness discussed earlier in the book are only revealed after the incidence, and Charlie isn’t really privy to them – meaning, neither are we. That said, the reveal of the actual killer on Scarlet Christmas doesn’t feel as important as the emotional journey that Charlie takes to come to terms with the events of that night.

This book won’t be for everyone, but those that like their thriller a little more slow-moving with greater emotional development for the characters will like this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the DRC of the audiobook.

This was a bingeable read with a fantastic title. The alternating timelines were well used and left the reader wondering what happened all those years ago. I felt an emotional connection to Charlie - I could not imagine having the press at my door because of something I was a witness to. The writing was strong and the plot was interesting. I like how Hollander unfolded the mystery and there were a few twists I didn’t see coming. I can’t decide how I feel about the ending - it was neatly wrapped up but maybe too neat? I can’t decide. I alternated between reading and listening because I really wanted to know what happened!

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead is a tense thriller and the panic that our main character, Charlie, feels set in very quickly. She was a survivor in a gruesome murder at Carroll University and is filled with stress and anxiety still even though she's done a good job of rebuilding her life. A film is being made regarding the murders and its been promised the truths of what happened will be revealed. As Charlie's panic and dread increase things very slowly unfold. Overall I enjoyed this one but it is a very slow burn, at times too slow.

what an incredible book! Charlie is a smart, resilient protagonist, who is able to rebuild her life after horrible tragedy, and reinvent herself in the publishing world, only to find herself as a twist on final girl nine years later. Watching her fight back was a pleasure. Five stars.

Trauma. Anxiety. Stress. Any and/or all of these three things can really screw with your memory. Any and/or all three of these things can erase memories too (temporarily and permanently). You may never even know you lost memories until someone makes you aware something is missing. You know what that can lead to? Panic.

This what Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead feels like: Panic, manic, fevered, desperate, even grasping and clamoring as it shoots off like a pinball machine and bounces back and forth, up and down, around and over from beginning to end as Charlie, our protagonist, tries to keep the truth about the worst night of her life from coming out.

Author Jenny Hollander does a terrific job making this tightly-wound and fast-paced thriller feel just as high-strung, helpless, and spiraling as Charlie feels. As a reader, I can tell you I felt just as stressed out as Charlie did as Hollander switched between then and now, giving us glimpses of what happened on the fateful night that made Charlie and her friends infamous and letting us ride along while Charlie takes ever-increasingly desperate steps to try and stop a film based on those events from being made because she’s afraid of the truth coming out. There’s just too much at stake.

It’s not a perfect book but it’s a really good thriller read. I totally recommend it.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller/Thriller

The title packs a punch and so does the story.

Charlie is a survivor of the infamous “Scarlett Christmas”. Once the media hype stopped, she was able to start her life anew and completely reinvent herself. But now that another of the survivors is planning on producing a film about the Scarlett Christmas, Charlie fears her old life, and her past secrets, will come roaring back.

Hollander is an excellent writer, who really makes readers feel like they are inside Charlie’s head, which can sometimes be a frightening place. The Now and Then format works really well in this instance, building a ton of suspense and letting out just enough information at one time to keep you hooked. I would recommend this book.

Overall Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead was pretty good. The ability to make this a great book was there, definitely, but I felt like it missed the mark.
It started out slow, hit a pretty good pace with some shocking twists then the ending just missed.

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead alternates between then and now but it isnt consistent. Theres alternating points, multiple times, within 1 chapter. Personally, I didnt like that style of writing.
I found the relationship between Charlotte and Tripp to be a bit weird or unbelievable. The twist plays into this, so no spoilers, but I can't imagine ending up engaged to someone and not knowing so much about them.

It's an ok read!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Jenny Hollander's debut thriller Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead follows Charlie Colbert as she struggles to remember the events of 'Scarlet Christmas' while she was in journalism years before. The writing was solid and had me hooked from the beginning. The unreliable narration throughout the first 80% of the book was well done and kept me guessing.
Unfortunately, around the last 20% it felt like I was reading a completely different book all together. This is a solid 3 stars for me.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Minotaur Books for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

What a great title!
This is more of a slow burn mystery rather than a thriller. Charlotte/Charlie is one of the survivors of a tragedy at her journalism school 10 years ago. She has selective amnesia around the events so the story alternates between present time and the past as she starts to recover her memories with the help of her therapist. I was invested in finding out what really happened on the night deemed “Scarlet Christmas”, although I was getting frustrated at how slowly the past events were coming to light. The ending did eventually come together but it was less climactic than it could have been.

Overall I read this quickly and it kept me turning the pages. I would read another book by this author in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for an e-ARC of Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead in exchange for an honest review.

Charlie Colbert was witness to a traumatic event in college, which the town refers to as “Scarlet Christmas,” and it took a lot of work for Charlie to take charge of her life. She is now a successful editor-in-chief with the perfect powerful fiancée. But someone wants to make a film about Scarlet Christmas, which brings up many memories and questions for Charlie. One of the most critical was just how involved she was in the deaths of her friends.

This book was a quick, immersive read for me. The characters were varied and had some depth to them. It was easy to like or hate them! The premise was interesting, and the back-and-forth storytelling provided a very engaging experience. I was genuinely questioning what happened at Scarlett Christmas. There were plenty of twists and turns and red herrings. Some red herrings felt slightly more apparent than others, and there were some twists that I didn’t predict! It concluded pretty nicely and succinctly, leaving me with no further questions.

Some side themes I enjoyed include work-life balance and how important it is in real life. The other piece I liked was how government and university institutions deal with mental health complaints. I think it’s a topic that is only just coming to light in media but needs to be discussed more.

Overall, I loved this debut and will look for other work from Jenny Hollander!

First thing I want to start with this review is to make it clear, I think this is a well thought out and written debut. It had a lot of twists and back and forth on timelines and it was perfectly executed. I didn’t find the jumping around confusing or too much. However, I felt like the story itself was lacking. It was a bit slow at times for being a thriller, which I would not categorize it as that. There is grief and trauma and navigating that along with missing memories in an unreliable narrator, which in general i loathe. This book reminded me so much of luckiest girl alive and Listen For the Lie, so I didn’t find the plot super fresh. The twists were ok, not surprising and I found I just didn’t care much when they happened. I think Jenny Hollander will give us some solid thrillers in the future and some of my friends loved this one, sadly it wasn’t for me.