Charlie Colbert was part of a tragedy at her elite journalism school. The tragedy was dubbed "Scarlet Christmas" by the press because the event took place on Christmas Eve. Charlie leaves England and moves to New York and becomes a successful editor-in-chief for a popular magazine. She is also married to Tripp who is from a wealthy family. Charlie is able to move on with her life with the help of her therapist, Noor. The story moves between Then and Now and it includes times during therapy sessions. When a classmate from school announces that she plans to make a "Based on a True Story" about the events, Charlie's life begins to spiral as she becomes more and more convinced that she was more than just a "part" of the tragedy.
I felt that this story was long winded and slow to get to what should have been an attention grabber. This story never got me engrossed in the characters or the events. I don't enjoy DNF'ing books because I have the hope that they eventually get better but this one really pushed the limits. This was my first Jennifer Hollander read so I would like to read another by her to see if this is a normal writing style or maybe just a "one off."
Unfortunately, for me, this book missed the "thriller" aspect, and it didn't capture my interest.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this advanced readers copy of this audiobook.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝙎𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧―𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙞𝙙𝙚.

I’m so bummed I ended up not enjoying this book and the synopsis sounded so interesting. I didn’t hate it by any means, but I also wasn’t the biggest fan. It was just an okay read for me.

I did a combo of the ebook and audio. The story started on a good start, I was immediately intrigued and invested. I loved that throughout the book Charlotte was super unreliable, I couldn’t even process what was true and what wasn’t.

I thought the writing was very interesting, I definitely could see myself picking more up from this author. However, I didn’t really get the thrills from this book. Sure there were a few twists here and there, but I felt like the story did too much in the beginning and not enough towards the end.

I would say the first half of the book was enjoyable, but the second half is where it completely lost me. I lost interest and it felt way too slow, I wanted more suspense.

Overall, this was just an okay thriller for me. I had such high hopes as the premise had me entertained, but the second half of the book is what really put me off. I would still recommend this, just don’t expect too much of a thriller, and know it’s more of a slow burn.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the review eARC and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!

What a debut novel from Jenny Hollander! I was hooked from the very first page. While this is a slow burn in regards to the "what" of the main plot, I enjoyed the process of going along for the ride with the narrator. Some of my favorite reads use the "then and now" format as well as the various forms of media that is included to piece together the story. The book overall begins with very little structure which I believe added to the way that I was anxiously devouring it to find out what happened. I think this debut was beautifully done and in a way that felt fresh to me. The twists are !!!!!

I would give this novel 4.5 or 5 stars, up until the very end where I felt the pace change drastically. The more I think about it, I think I can understand why that is where the characters landed in the end, but there were some parts that just felt too perfect after such an intense and exciting ride. I'm not sure if I just wanted more of the story or if I was done and wanted the story to be done, too. Regardless, I would recommend readers who enjoy an edge-of-their-seat, anxiety-producing, and mysterious novel in 2024 to grab this one!

Thank you to Netgalley for an digital advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I had a had time getting into this one. It was slow in the beginning and kept a slow pace until the end. I did like the unreliable narrator and the surprises.

Received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book centers around a night where a group of college kids get together on Christmas Eve, and some end up dying. The day is deemed "Scarlet Christmas" due to the bloody nature of the event.

Years later, main Character Charlotte is a successful businesswoman in the magazine world and about to marry a rich man from an influential family. However, she gets wind that someone she knew from college is going to be make a movie for the tenth anniversary of the Scarlet Christmas and promises to reveal "what really happened" and claims the investigation years ago was bungled.

This sends Charlotte down a paranoid psychological spiral, because she is afraid of what might be revealed. The character has missing holes in her memory that slowly come back to her. However, there is also a lot that the main character knows that is not revealed to the reader.

The issue I have with this book is that even 75% into the book, it's never explained what happened on Scarlet Christmas. All we know is some people died, but we aren't told exactly who died, or how. It's largely implied that there was foul play, but no one ever had been a suspect, gotten arrested, or was in the news as a person of interest.

Information about Scarlet Christmas and the main character's role in that night, along with the events of that night, are deliberately withheld from the reader. I think this is a cheap tactic because without this, there is no story, or mystery.

The writing style in this book was good, but the writing devices used and the execution were tacky, in my opinion. That being said, the ending twist did surprise me, as what I thought happened was not what actually happened.

4.5 stars. I really rather enjoyed the "mystery" of this one the depictions of back and forth in time as our FMC tried to decipher what was going on and what had happened in the past. I felt that the "twist" of who killed who was a little lackluster in its description/delivery but otherwise I really enjoyed the novel and the ending

This one had a lot of promise and I did enjoy my time with it but there were a few things that just kept it from being a good read. What fell short for me was the structure. I found it very confusing how we were just sort of dropped into the middle of things and expected to muddle through. I find this works well when the characters don't know what's going on either, but they did (mostly), so why drag out what the big event issue was for so long?
The other problem was with the ending. It was too clean and honestly didn't align with what I felt that character's motives would be.

This book was so haunting and intense. From the synopsis, I thought that Charlie would be dealing with the fallout of the traumatic and bloody events of "Scarlet Christmas" and only trying to keep the crime out of the news because she didn't want the press focus but this book was so much more than that. The mystery of what happened that night, who was there, who committed the crimes, and who actually died was only revealed at the very end and the twists genuinely surprised me. I went back and forth, convincing myself that there was no way that Charlie was to blame and then the next chapter would make me question everything. It didn't have the dark acedemia vibes I was hoping for, and some of Charlie's self-destructive tendencies, while understandable, caused the story to be slow at points, but overall it was an intense and gripping read!

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you @minotaur_books for the #gifted copy of this ebook.

Several years ago Charlie was the only one left standing at the scene of a brutal attack and murders at her graduate school. She worked hard to rebuild her persona and life becoming a top editor at a magazine company leaving that dark day in the past. She refuses to talk about it however, she soon discovers one of her old classmates is going to create a film based on the events of that tragic night. Charlie has blocked out that night but now frantically is trying through therapy to fill in the gaps of the major black hole. The problem quickly arises as she admits she lied under oath during her testimony. She said she remembered things when she truly didn’t. As pieces and clues come together during therapy she starts to wonder if she herself was involved in this crime!

Thoughts: I did think this book was definitely a solid mystery with intense pressure making it hard to put this book down. The book started out really well and I found myself really interested in the therapy sessions and wondering how terrible Charlie must feel not truly knowing what happened that night. It made me question how much you can truly trust the ideas or thoughts that come out after such a tragic event. I wonder how this really works and found myself googling to find out. I loved how the author created such doubt surrounding her memory. I will say as the end neared I felt the lead up was intense and the ending fizzled a bit for me. Overall however a solid book and I can’t wait to see what Jenny writes next!

Not all readers like a prologue, but I do. And this one pulled me in immediately. Charlie feels she has much to hide regarding the horrific events of Christmas Eve at Carroll. Lapses in her memory haunt her as the tenth anniversary of the event approach, and there are rumors of a movie “to set things straight”. But, what are the true facts of what happened that night? I liked the way the author used the THEN and NOW approach in helping characters tell the story. I definitely was kept guessing, about what really happened, through most of the story. Charlie was a character I had mixed emotions about, until I learned the truth toward the end of the story. Just as her sister, Felicity, found comfort in her dog, so did Charlie in the end. A good debut mystery. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review without any compensation.

This book sounds amazing, but because of the publisher I will not be reviewing. St. Martin's Press still has not addressed the racist/Islamophobic things that an employee publicly posted. People are getting harassed/stalked by friends of the employee which is one of the many problems with SMP not speaking up. I post reviews on my bookstagram all the time, and I will not be posting about one of my favorite books of 2023. I will be supporting the author, but I will not be supporting the publisher until this is addressed.

Holy **** this was good.

Charlie’s a successful editor, having built the picture perfect life for herself in NYC, 10 years after a violent tragedy in grad school she tries not to think about. But now on the 10-year anniversary, a former classmate is making a movie about the crime, and Charlie can’t find a way to stop it. We jump from the present to the past as we, along with Charlie, try and piece together what exactly happened that night and what Charlie’s role was in what happened.

I inhaled this book. The fragile, broken woman putting on a brave front is a character I will always root for. I love dual timeline stories, piecing together how the past has shapes the present. I could not read fast enough to find out what happened and how this was going to end. And yes, the truth took me entirely by surprise. Read this book!!!

This had all the elements of a great thriller, a woman who went through something horrible in college, lost memories and the whole story being pulled back up from the dead for a movie adaptation.

Unfortunately I felt it fell flat in a few ways. The lost memory trope seemed to be a crutch and a way to prolong the story rather than create tension, the ending didn’t have a “wow” moment and ended rather abruptly, and the characters needed some work to have a little bit of relatability.

It felt like it was going to be a dark academia, hidden secrets, dark motives kind of story and it just seemed more like a unhinged woman (women?) story. I also thought the representation of the therapist was a bit concerning, as a therapist would never push a client into revealing repressed memories so forcefully. There was a little pushback in the story but she still let our MC do it?

There were some elements I liked, the idea of making a movie and the way if affects everyone involved. I also enjoyed the “true crime” bit and wish it had been leaned into a bit more. Maybe have some chapters of true crime forums and people starting to theorize on Charlie’s secrets?

Let me start with what worked. The prose is good, the plot has been done many times in one form or another but was solid, and the whodunnit stayed within the scope of believability, which was nice.

So where did this one miss for me? The pace was a little slow, you don’t get details about the actual mystery until about a quarter of the way through, I didn’t like any of the characters apart from two who showed up at the END of the book and were barely in it - one of which was a DOG, and the twists fell flat. In trying to fool the reader with the lost memories trope, the ending got muddled in misdirection, making me feel more confused than surprised, and, unfortunately, this was a rare time when the audio made my experience worse, though reading it on my Kindle wasn't working either.

Is it a bad book? Not at all. It just wasn’t to my particular taste. Others have enjoyed it much more, so please read some of those reviews before you decide. My guess is that Jenny Hollander will have some great stories to savor in the future!

★★ ½

This is categorized as a thriller but I’d say it’s more of a very slow burn drama, mystery with an unreliable narrator and lots of time jumps.

I had to push myself a bit to get through it. The characters could’ve used a little more defining. I kept getting everyone mixed up.

The audio narrator was excellent but I think reading the physical book might’ve been better for me to help me keep track of what was going on as it was a bit all over the place.

This one just didn’t keep my attention. It never really grabbed me. So for me personally it was a miss. It could totally be a preference thing though, because the writing wasn’t bad or anything, I just didn’t like it.

This was such a great debut, hats off! It had major Luckiest Girl Alive vibes which is one of my favorite thrillers. The twists kept coming but weren’t too outlandish. The story has a college campus, NYC setting, and wealthy untouchable families which are all huge selling points for me in a book! Overall loved this one and would recommend adding to your thriller TBR in 2024!

(Out on 2/6/2024 - thank you Minotaur and Net Galley for the advance digital copy!!)

"Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead" is a strong debut novel by Jenny Hollander. The book offers an intriguing exploration of an unreliable narrator and the consequences of a tragic event. This one moved a bit slowly for me and I didn't love it/didn't hate it - I just found it to be an okay read. I do have to say that the cover art looks amazing - it is so pretty - no doubt that people will pick this up in a bookstore based on the cover and synopsis.
While this book wasn't a favorite of mine - it seems a lot of people enjoyed it based on their reviews.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

•Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead (ARC)•

📚Genre: dark academia/thriller
🤔Rating: 🍺🍺🍺.5(3.5/5)
#️⃣ of pages: 304
👯‍♀️ read if you like: “in my dreams I hold a knife”, dark academia, unreliable narrators
⚠️TW: mental illness, PTSD
📆Publishing Date- February 6, 2024

👍🏼:
•we LOVE a good dark academia!!!
•this one reminded me a lot of “In My Dreams I Hold A Knife” and I loved that one
•had some pretty shocking reveals

👎🏼:
•I didn’t really buy into the motive of the whole thing. Seemed too far fetched
•ending felt rushed & everything was all “tied in a bow”
•didn’t love the last 25%

Overall…
This was on track to be a 4 or 5 star book for me until the last 20/25%. Even saying that, I did really enjoy the book overall. This was a strong debut novel & as I said, I *love* dark academia. Even with the dark, thriller vibes, there was some wit/humor appropriately thrown in and I loved that. I would definitely read the next thing she writes & I did enjoy this one!

Thank you @netfalley and st Martina press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

🍻 match:
“Yellow Rose” by Lone Pint Brewery
•6.8% American IPA
•this clean IPA gives hops with grapefruit & blueberry aromas. It goes down easy & surprises you with the amount of flavor you still get in a pretty hoppy beer

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Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book ahead of its release. My review will post to my blog on 1/29/24. I will also post the review to Goodreads and retail sites and feature the book on my Instagram.

Review:
The moment I read the synopsis for this book, I knew it was going to be right up my alley. The prologue is absolutely captivating and immediately pulled me in. It's dark and creepy and left me craving more. I just wish the rest of the book had been as engaging as the prologue. It wasn't bad - in fact, parts of this book are fantastic - I just felt that the pacing faltered a bit here and there, and things didn't really take off until about halfway through the book.

The story is set against the backdrop of a horrifying event known to the public as "Scarlet Christmas" when, on Christmas Eve nine years prior, three students were killed and several others injured. Charlotte (aka Charlie), our protagonist, made international headlines because she was there when it happened. A picture of her being led out of the building by paramedics, drenched in blood, was in every major news outlet. That night still haunts Charlotte - mostly because she can't remember everything that happened, and she knows she lied to the police just to appease them. Now, the twin sister of one of the victims is producing a movie about the incident, and Charlie is afraid that the truth will be revealed and everyone will know she lied.

The details of what happened that night are revealed slowly throughout the novel, adding layers of suspense and a constant feeling of unease. There are several red herrings (as one would suspect with this type of book), and there were several potential outcomes that I had plotted out in my head. Surprisingly, it didn't play out as I expected, and there were a couple of nice little twists and reveals along the way.

One of the strengths of this novel is the way it explores the power of secrets and the lengths people will go to protect them. Charlie's desire to keep her past buried is palpable throughout the story, and it creates a sense of tension that drives the plot forward. The author skillfully demonstrates how secrets can shape a person's life and impact their relationships, adding a layer of psychological depth to the narrative.

Charlie is a complex and multifaceted character. She is a successful editor-in-chief of a major magazine and engaged to a prominent figure in the publishing industry. However, beneath her polished exterior, there is a vulnerability that is gradually revealed as the story unfolds. The author expertly explores Charlie's inner turmoil, giving her depth and making her relatable to readers.

As I mentioned earlier, the prologue is absolutely fantastic and really pulled me in, but then the pacing slowed a bit as everything was set up. It wasn't until I got about halfway into the book when a shocking reveal was thrown my way that I felt the pace picked back up. Until that point, it felt almost as though we were going in circles. While the pace did pick up at this point, and the mystery and intrigue kept me turning the pages, there were still moments when I found myself confused. The author's intent to keep the reader guessing at times made the plot feel a little convoluted, and I struggled to piece together what was happening in some chapters. This confusion was ultimately resolved by the end, though, and the final reveal was satisfying and well-executed.

Overall, I felt this was a captivating mystery. Despite moments of confusion, the overall story is gripping and keeps the reader hooked until the very end. Would I read it again? Probably not, but I would recommend it to someone looking for a twisty thriller.

WOW! I loved this story. The way It was written I did not expect how it would end at all. I thought one thing had happened for 75% of the book , but never truly thought it 100% added up. The last 25% was full of twist that added to the thrill of the story.