Everyone who can forgive me is dead is a super mystery novel that
has so many twists and turns that it is hard to put it down. Once you think you have solved the mystery it just keeps on tricking you more. Thanks for the arc for pleasant reading.

A fantastic first book for debut author Jenny Hollander. A psychological thriller that immediately grabs you and pulls you in and doesn’t let you go until the last chapter.

Unreliable main character who can’t remember her past. Flashbacks to what happened years ago as she tries to remember what truly happened the night that changed her life. As she processes more and more of what she has blocked out, there are huge plot twists that you’ll never see coming.

I really got invested in each of the characters and thought the author did a great way of writing unlikeable characters in a way that wasn’t a turn off from the book itself. Sometimes characters can get on my nerves, but I really enjoyed each of the characters parts.

The ending really tied everything together in a nice bow and was a good way to round out the story. Some books leave you with 100 questions, but this one I felt was done very well and leaves you feeling satisfied and the story complete.

I am so excited I had the opportunity to read Hollander’s first book and cannot wait to read many, many more.

Thank you for St Martins Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Unreliable characters.
Twists - some predictable, some shocking
Secrets
A nightmarish event that happened 9 years ago.

This was a wild ride, albeit slower than I would have liked at times. Charlie, witnessed a horrible event 9 years ago, known as ¨Scarlett Christmas.¨ She has spent the time between building her life and doing her best to forget that night. However, with the ten year anniversary approaching, and some trying to dig up the past, she is forced to revisit that terrible night.
Quite the puzzle until the very end! I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller!

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead is a slow burn of a thriller. I enjoyed it for the most part. There were moments where I got a bit lost, and sometimes the flashbacks were hard to keep up with. All in all I loved the overall plot and ending.
Charlotte was involved in a gruesome campus killing years ago, and continues to deal with the aftermath. Now there are rumors that this traumatic event is going to be made into a film, spinning Charlotte into a frenzy to stop it.
I didn’t see the twist coming. Such a great debut novel. Excited to read more from Jenny Hollander.



Thank you NetGalley and St.Martin’s press for the ARC

Excellent mystery/suspense story. Charlie is the main character, she even tells us she's unreliable because she has a dark hole in her memory of what happen in graduate school on Christmas Eve, dubbed Scarlett Christmas by the media. She has become a successful editor for a magazine, engaged into a very wealthy family, but she is a robot of controlled emotions as she lives her life, until she finds out a movie on the deadly day is being made bring up bits and pieces of memory. The time line shifts between now and then when she is with her therapist trying to help her remember, in which she becomes frantic in remembering what happened to the point of panic attacks. Ultimately we do find out what really happened, the why's it did, and a look in the future. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Publishing for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

4.5/5 ⭐️
Holy crap! What a ride. This book was absolutely amazing. So many twists and turns. It had me gasping. It had me gobbling it up at warp speed cause I needed to know what happened.
As I read this book, it reminded me a lot of like If We Were Villains and The Secret History. Except we spend more time years later and get glimpses at the past whereas IWWV is the reverse, and Secret History doesn’t jump around as much. But all three have a murder that happens at a prestigious college with a unique group of friends. But this story felt even more murder mystery. Like I had no idea who actually died and who did it for so long. Plus, we are immediately introduced to the idea that our narrator is unreliable.
Overall, it was an exciting read that I cannot wait for others to read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Publishing for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

3.5⭐️ rounded up.

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead is told from the inner thoughts of Charlie as she struggles with the trauma that took place at her graduate school 9 years earlier. What starts as a black hole turns into a shocking memory of what happened the night the media dubbed Scarlet Christmas. Who can Charlie trust? Who knows too much?

This book included past and present narration by Charlie and snippets from various media/articles. At first the past is only given in small amounts as Charlie works with her therapist to remember the details in a safe place. When she is triggered outside of her therapy sessions it leads to panic attacks.

I really enjoyed the story until it started to wind down. I liked the initial/middle suspense, but the twists seemed subpar compared to the great suspense that was built up to that point. As I read it felt like there was big risk involved, but once everything was explained it didn’t seem very concerning to me and, regardless of who did it, it would be easily explained and probably wouldn’t have consequences based on the whole situation.

Overall it was a good debut novel!

Thank you NetGalley, Jenny Hollander, and St. Martin's Press for this ARC opportunity.

Publication date: February 6th, 2024.

“Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead” is a really solid thriller with a great title. The story is told in “then” and “now”, with “then” being the events leading up to a tragedy at a journalism graduate program, and “now” being the ten year anniversary of that tragedy. The book did the unreliable narrator trope almost too well. I got a little confused following the plot at times. But overall I found this to be a really enjoyable thriller, and it will be out on February 6th!

3.5⭐️

Nine years ago, Charlie Colbert was a witness to a horrible event at her graduate school that ended with two people dead and is known across the world as "Scarlet Christmas." In the after math of the event, Charlie is the only one who has not spoken about the event and has pulled away from all her former friends. But Charlie knows she was more than just a witness.

As the ten year anniversary gets closer, she learns of a film being created by one of the other survivors that is being created to set the record straight on what happened that night. And now that all of her secrets are at a risk of coming out, even the ones she may have blacked out, Charlie must do what she can to prevent this film from being released.

This started out very good. I was invested in the story line and it felt suspenseful enough trying to guess what actually happened the night of Scarlet Christmas and who was the killer. I liked the interactions between Charlie and her therapist as they try to uncover everything she had blocked out. The fragile relationship between Tripp, Charlie, and Tripp's overbearing mother was also interesting.

Unfortunately, the reveal really didn't work for me. There was so much build up to this reveal and the actual twist was just underwhelming. There was several instances of betrayal that seem unlikely unless Charlie is really as traumatized and self-centered as she sometimes comes across. The actual killer of the event on Christmas Eve also made no sense to me as the motive seems to be more or less mental illness.

Thank you Netgalley and Minotaur for providing this ARC to me!

This book had me hooked from the first chapter… It was a good debut book for this author
There were some confusing spots for me, but I do look forward to seeing what this author can do in the future

A brutal and gripping debut! I wasn't sure how to feel about this initially and was super worried it would be predictable. Thankfully, it was anything but. This was so interesting! Dark, suspenseful, and well-worth the twists and turns.

Charlotte “Charlie” Colbert was a witness to “Scarlet Christmas”, a horrific tragedy that found some of her fellow graduate students dead. That night and her lack of memory of it as well as her lie to the police have always haunted her as she rebuilt her life, rising in the world of journalism to editor-in-chief of an important magazine and engaged to the scion of a wealthy family. Now, as the decennial of that event approaches, another woman who was also present that night wants to make a film about it and “tell what really happened”. Charlie’s life spirals out of control as she desperately tries to recall the events of that night while also attempting everything possible to prevent the film being made.

This book had ups and downs for me. I really liked the first quarter introducing the main character and the plot; I couldn’t wait to get into the story. But then it devolved a bit for me as Charlie frantically tried to control the situation. I felt it was a bit all over the place and some important characters not particularly well developed

While there was a mystery at the heart of this book, it also was a study of PTSD and how guilt can weigh one down. The story is told in two timelines, then and now. There are some twists the reader might not see coming and may or may not like. Despite my reservations about the story, this is a sold debut and I look forward to reading other works by this author.

Charlie Colbert ran from her life. After being part of a college murder, dubbed the Scarlet Christmas, she wanted as far away as possible. Now living her life in New York, editor of a magazine and engaged to a well-known publishing industry darling, Charlie is trying to move on. Some facts from that awful night don't add up, now nearly nine years after the fact, it's all coming back to light. A movie is in the works and Charlie begins to question her involvement. Slowly with the help of her therapist she begins to unravel what really happened. As she does, she will stop anyone who gets in the way.

This was a great book, Charlie is a spotty, unreliable character. She questions herself all along the way. Some really great small clues, lead to something much larger. As a debut author, Jenny Hollander knocked it out of the park. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book.

What a debut! Loved the jokes between gunner and Charlotte. When I know a book is a debut I give the author grace because it won’t be perfect. But I know as the more Jenny writes the better her books will be!

Such a good plot, I didn’t find it predictable. Enjoyed the pacing. Wasn’t in love with the main character but I kind of think it was good she was a little unlikable.

This was such a great, suspenseful thriller! I couldn't put this book down and I would love to read more by this author. You'll never guess the twist at the end!

If you liked Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll (which I loved, by the way), I think you’ll really enjoy this one. The two timelines of Then and Now were done really well and kept me wanting to know how things were going to play out. Charlie was a great MC, one of the best unreliable narrators I’ve read in a while. One of the twists, I definitely saw coming and it was still a good one, but there was one that legitimately surprised me and I loved it. There was a lot of great simmering tension, especially as we get closer to finding out what actually happened on “Scarlet Christmas”. I did enjoy the epilogue, but there were a few things told to us that I would have liked to have seen actually played out, but overall, I did enjoy the ending. I was kind of hoping for one more last minute twist, but that’s just because I was really enjoying the vibes of the book. I think this would make an excellent movie or limited series.
CW: mental illness, violence, stalking, alcohol abuse
Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have to agree with some of the reviews I’ve seen already, this book was a bit of a struggle to get through. I wanted to love it, the premise sounded intriguing and I was expecting so much gruesome murder scene for a crime dubbed “Scarlet Christmas”…and yet you don’t even find out exactly what the crime was until very close to the end.

My biggest problem was that Charlie was just so ALL OVER THE PLACE. It was chapters and chapters of her being confused and running to hide in the shower. I wanted more of the THEN, describing the background and the murder and aftermath, and less of the NOW-confused Charlie.

Overall I did like the book, and I will definitely read future books from this author, I just want to see more juicy content and less filler and running in circles. I really did like the ending and how it played out, adding in more of the past would have helped round that out.

Thanks to Jenny Hollander, St Martins Press/Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing this advance copy for review!

I love when a mystery/thriller can hook me in the first chapter and this book did that. I needed to know what happened and why. Also, when the storyline hinges on the main character not remembering specific pieces of the past due to blackouts, the payoff better be good. This one ended up being a mixed bag. Some things surprised and were worth the wait, others not so much. A good debut, but not a knockout. I will definitely be looking for this author in the future.

Overall, this title keeps the reader intrigued & on edge the whole book through. It's sort of a coming of age story for a graduate student into her mid-adulthood.
Pros:
+ Honey, the emphasis on the importance of therapy & mental health makes this title quite the gem
+ I love how this title exposes how tangled & twisted our own memories can be, which highlights how pertinent it is to process trauma
Cons:
- The pace of this book almost lost me at times
- Switching back between the past & present always annoys & messes with my ADHD
- I still don't know how Dee died. Did Elise fall on top of here or what?

SN: Was I the only one the thought that Cate was the one who went off the rails & started murdering folks?

*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.