EVERYTHING WE NEVER SAID by Sloan Harlow definitely reached down deep into my soul. I can’t believe that this is a debut!

Ella Graham returns to north Davis high school in Cedarbrook, Atlanta for her senior year. Her return is not a joyous one as she was driving after drinking, was in an accident, where her best friend, Hayley Miller, was thrown from the vehicle and ended up in the river. Her body was never found, and the search was eventually called off. Ella feels deep regret, sadness, and blames herself for the accident, as the whispers at school follow her in the halls. After his initial anger towards her, Haley‘s boyfriend,Sawyer Hawkins eventually begins to develop a grudging relationship with Haley, which eventually turns romantic. When Haley‘s mother decides that she needs to move out of town after the death of her only child, she asks Ella to clean out Haley‘s bedroom and says she is welcome to take anything she wishes. Ella takes a necklace, some photos, and Haley’s diary, which she would never want Haley’s mother to find, as a diary is a girl’s safe place. When she is overwhelmed with missing Haley, Ella slowly begins to read the diary and learns some very interesting things about others in Haley‘s life. As her relationship with Sawyer progresses, and Ella reads further into the diary, she begins to suspect that people are not quite what they seem. And what they say and what is real may just possibly be two different things.

When Ella seeks council from a trusted school employee, she learns some shocking truths and is eventually able to put the story of Haley‘s last year into different perspective leading to a shocking conclusion where all secrets are revealed.

Miss Harlow’s writing style was smooth and easy, and would interest YA fans of writer such as Colleen Hoover. I could feel my anxiety growing as the story progressed, which led to a propulsive read to get to a final reveal. This is my first Sloan Harlow thriller, but it will not be my last. The characters were very well drawn, and the entire novel was a smooth and easy read.

Thank you to NetGalley and G. P. Putnam’s Sons worth this arc opportunity. All opinions are my own and given voluntarily.

📖 Book Review 📖
Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow
ARC to be released 5/28/24
G.P.’s Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller
4 🌻 🌻🌻🌻 out of 5

First off, let me say thank you to @NetGalley for allowing me to read this book before it’s published in exchange for an honest review.

This was another binge read for me, y’all. I read from the 13% mark in my kindle & could not put it down until I finished it. Soooo soooo good!
This is about a girl named Ella who had a best friend, Hayley, who just passed away due to a seemingly drunk driving accident while Ella was driving the car they were both in one rainy night coming back from a high school party. Also, Sawyer. Who is/was/maybe/maybe not Ella’s best friend and Hayley’s boyfriend.
⚠️ Check your trigger warnings my friend before you read this. ⚠️
Although, I thought this book did a really good job touching on mental health awareness so bravo on that. 👏 I cried.
The whole book you’re trying to find out what’s up with Sawyer and why’s he so angry and closed off the whole time.
And then the ending?? Like a sharp curve straight off a cliff that I had no idea was even there. I just died y’all. I did NOT see that coming.
So when this comes out on 5/28, get it. Reserve it on Libby. Schedule on Kindle. Or however you read your books. You don’t want to miss this one.
#bookstagram #readersofinstagram #arc #kindle #netgalley #everythingweneversaid @sloanharlowauthor #bookstagrammers #lovebooks #lovetoread #ya #mystery #thriller

Let’s begin by saying this is a bit darker and deeper than a YA. Which I didn’t have much issue with for the tone of the story. Be prepared for death , sexual encounters , internal despair really. Teenagers but again book world version. I loved the concept and really was intrigued for the first 35% . I did start to feel myself losing some of what should be love for the Main character , because truthfully she felt a bit woah is me which under the circumstances she can be. She was making some choices that I felt myself rolling my eyes . I don’t like spoilers so you’re not going to get them. Things at time were contradictory, it slowed me a bit others the flow was so good I didn’t realize I made it an entire chapter . It was a good read , The mystery , the darkness , the

This was a roller coaster of a ride!

Every time I thought I knew what was going on, I was wrong.
I did figure it out about 75% in the book but man that was crazy.

I loved trying to figure out who “S” was and had so many theories.
I loved the ominous scenes throughout the book that made me jump with Ella.

I liked having 2 POVs and enjoyed them both.

Overall, this was a quick and fun read for me with some serious content. I had a hard time putting this book down because I had to know what was going on.

I highly recommend if you’re looking for a YA thriller with some LOL moments, FMC and MMC you’re rooting for, and a small mystery.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

For the most part, the story was intriguing and the characterization was well done, but...

There are a few loose spoilers ahead, but mentioned in a way that will not give the ending away. I would also like to say that the author may have changed some things for the better as what I read was an ARC.

However, there were quite a number of things that I found annoying or not true to character.

Let's start with annoying: the numerous make out/sexual scenes between Ella and Sawyer. Too much! It didn't add a thing to the plot, and honestly I couldn't even begin to imagine Ella, a girl who was a good girl would suddenly and with no lapse of time do these things with her best friends boyfriend. The best friend who was killed in a crash in the car Ella was driving.

More unrealistic things: The way one friend used the other--and I do mean totally, abusively used. Would anyone really watch their friend fall apart like that and then to make matters worse set her up in an even more betraying manner so that she ends up beaten, nearly killed and then framed so the other friend can skip off into the sunset? Totally, ridiculous ending!

The characterization doesn't fit in with some of the behaviors mentioned throughout the book.

Ella is starting a new school year after the death of her best friend in a car accident where she was the driver. Ella has been thru a traumatic event and is grieving but this aside she does come off as a bit self absorbed. She seemed to have a truly tight friendship with Hayley but I didn’t really care for how she treats her other female friends. Sawyer and Hayley are much more appealing characters to me. This book had some twists and turns that kept me guessing with a bit of suspense. I did like that part if the story was told through diary entries. Overall a pretty good and suspenseful older YA book.

Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow is so much more than I thought it would be. It's a story full of raw emotion, grief, twisted lies, and deep dark secrets. But are those secrets worth killing for...
Ella is struggling with the guilt from her best friend Hayley's tragic death. Every single day Ella blames herself for causing that accident, but for some reason she can't remember the details from that tragic day. Things really take a drastic turn when Ella finds Hayley's journal while cleaning out her room. She can't help but turn to the pages of that journal hoping it will bring her some peace from all that has happened. Instead, it only opens the door to a very dark and twisted secret that Hayley kept from her. Things aren't so perfect after all.

Unfortunately this one didn't really work for me. It was well written, but for some reason could not hold my attention.

really enjoyed this book! I usually skip over most YA thrillers but this one was SO good. I felt like it was a true reflection on grief and friendship. Sign me up to read any future works of this author. 4 stars out of 5!

This started out as a pleasant YA mystery/romance. The first chapter grabs you with several facts: Ella was driving a car that was involved in an accident which killed her best friend. Our story begins 6 months later, as school resumes and Ella must face her schoolmates who, she imagines, all hate her for killing popular Haley.

It begins losing credibility about a quarter of the way in; the constant angst of Ella, blaming herself and assuming everyone else does too. And almost immediately falling for the dead Haley's former boyfriend, Sawyer. Who, it seems, has also immediately fallen for Ella. There is much to-do about blame, and the family dynamics between Ella and her parents, Sawyer and his single Mom and little brother, whose absent Dad was abusive. Then Ella finds Haleys' journal and we learn more about her; her single Mom, and her absent Dad who was abusive, and her Moms' constant stream of nasty boyfriends.

The domestic violence in this book is unrelenting. Including, as we slowly learn from Haley journal entries, between Haley and her current boyfriend. I would say this is definitely a YA book with lessons to learn about abusive relationships, but some of the sex scenes go a bit far. Sex is ok, but pull it back just a tad, maybe. At one point there are hints of sodomy and other forms of violence during sex. Just so you know.

As we draw near the end, there is a confrontation between Ella and the true person who caused the car accident. It all happens in the blink of an eye, coming and going so fast you might miss it if you are reading too fast. There are other facets of the finale and story wrap-up that verge on unbelievable, but it's not a bad read for spending an afternoon. It just isn't a great read.

I loved loved loved this story. I loved that certain characters were so easy to fall in love with, then hate at the drop of a hat. And then? Just when I thought I had the twist figured out, the twist hits you and all of the pieces fall into place. This book was well written, easy to follow, and all around a great read. Thank you!

Everything We Never Said is the kind of Young Adult thriller that only comes about once in a blue moon. With lush character descriptions and a darker plotline full of twists and turns, readers will find themselves completely immersed in a story that proves not everything is as it seems. For me this was a quick read because the story was intense, but unputdownable. Sloan Harlow is an author that i'm sure will accomplish great things and I look forward to reading more works that they put out!

Ella like most teenagers has a lot of feelings and emotions. However, she has more than most as she was driving the vehicle when she crashed and caused her best friend Hayley's death. This book deals with teen romance, but also a lot of adult issues, such as domestic abuse. Some of the sexual scenes were more than I wanted to read given the ages of the subjects, but for upper YA it is acceptable. It is hard to write abuse scenes without romancing them, but Sloan Harlow did a great job. I could not put this book down and read it in a day. I kept going back and forth on theories and was surprised at the ending. Kept my attention and I neglected all my other duties for the day. Well worth the read.

Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow didn’t make a ton of sense but was a quick page-turner nevertheless. The story is told from Ella’s POV with occasional chapters from Sawyer’s POV and Hayley’s diary.

I can’t possibly list all the different things that don’t make sense or contradict each other so I’ll just go into a few examples that occur early in the book to avoid spoilers as much as possible.

I was a bit confused after the first few chapters of the book because I was slowly realizing that the blurb for this book includes a straight-up lie. It says “Then the school psychologist requires that Hayley’s closest friends join him for a grief counseling group, and Ella and Sawyer are forced together. After a few sessions, they start to grow closer, until Ella realizes something horrifying…” There aren’t “a few sessions,” there is literally one single session contained within a single chapter and then the grief counseling group is never mentioned again. The grief counseling session isn’t even the first time Sawyer and Ella interact in the story.

The grief counseling session is so contrived and becomes just another thing in this book that makes no sense. We’re told that Rachael is one of Hayley’s friends and that Ella is in Latin class with Rachael. Then, Ella is specifically called out of class to attend this grief counseling session. Only Ella (and possibly Sawyer) was forced into attending the grief counseling session and everyone else volunteered to attend. None of Hayley’s other friends were required to attend and none except Scott chose to. The school administration is apparently keenly aware of who was a student’s best friend and who was simply a regular friend and for some reason is only concerned about providing support for Hayley’s best friend and not for all her other friends. Having this scene make sense would require such minimal changes so it’s baffling why it was written like this.

At multiple points in the story, the reader is told something major about a character to further the plot but it is never mentioned again. For example, after the first day of school, Ella and her mom almost get into a fight over Ella’s decision to quit the swim team. This is meant to show Ella’s family dynamic before and after Hayley’s death and reemphasize how much of a stellar student Ella was. Ella is considered good enough to be scouted by top universities but the decision to quit is never brought up again.

The way that Hayley’s diary entries are written is so unbelievable. No one can write down entire conversations that they’ve had verbatim and from memory hours after the conversation occurred. Yet Hayley’s diary entries consist of basically transcripts of entire conversations including incredibly emotional and intense conversations. After the first two entries, I thought that <spoiler> this was a clue that the diary is fake (like in Gone Girl) but no, it turns out that this diary is real and no one (not even the police) doubts the authenticity of the diary.</spoiler>

The biggest issue I had with this book was the narrative framing of Ella’s role in the accident that killed Hayley. We are told from the very first chapter that Ella is wracked by guilt and blames herself for Hayley’s death yet everyone around her (except Scott but we’ll discuss him later) assures Ella that it wasn’t her fault. While Ella believes that her (and Hayley’s) friends are only being nice to her out of pity but secretly dislike her and don’t want her around, the narrative heavily implies to the reader that this isn’t true.

But in the second chapter, we are told that <spoiler>Ella was drinking while underage at a party before driving and crashed the car with Hayley inside, killing her. Ella has no memories of that entire day so the reader is only told that witnesses from the party saw Ella drinking a beer. We have no sense of how much Ella really drank or what her BAC was. </spoiler>There was this extreme cognitive dissonance in how the narrative expects the reader to feel about Ella’s role in Hayley’s death and the facts that are presented to the reader.

The root of the problem is this: <spoiler> The author already knows that Hayley is not dead (and that Ella was thus not responsible for Hayley’s death at all and should not feel guilty) before the reader or Ella knows. So unintentionally, the author does not have the plot treat the idea that Ella caused Hayley’s death seriously even though from the facts available to the reader and to Ella for most of the story, that’s exactly what it looks like. The story takes for a given that the reader agrees that Ella is too hard on herself and that she shouldn’t feel so guilty before the plot twist happens.

The hoops that characters jump through to justify Ella's drinking and driving are wild. In Hayley’s letter to Ella at the end of the book, she says that Ella was just drinking a Natty Light so it’s no big deal.

Literally, the only person to blame Ella for Hayley’s death is Scott and he is described as annoying and mean for doing so. In fact, at the end of the story, he apologizes to Ella for his behavior towards her. No one else even remotely cares that Ella was drinking before getting into a fatal accident.</spoiler>

On a related note, everyone in this book including all the adults (and the police) has a completely blasé attitude towards straight-up crimes up to and including manslaughter. We are explicitly told that Ella <spoiler> has faced zero consequences for the underage drinking and driving that led to a fatal accident. </spoiler>

When the big plot twist at the end of the book reveals that<spoiler> Hayley faked her death with Sawyer’s help, neither of them even consider that Ella could be prosecuted for Hayley’s death. Hayley’s only concern is that Ella will blame herself for killing her, not that Ella might go to jail. Again, the problem is that the author has unintentionally factored the fact that Hayley is not dead into the plot even though only Hayley and Sawyer (and eventually Ella) are supposed to know that.</spoiler>

On a related note, I just have to mention how completely and totally unrealistic the plot twist is. <spoiler> Firstly, the idea that an actual domestic violence shelter is going to commit a felony (obstruction of justice) on your behalf is absurd. A DV shelter can help you disappear from an abusive partner but not literally fake your death like it's witness protection. Secondly, the idea that Mr. Wilkens’ car hit Ella’s car hard enough to send it in through the barriers and this didn’t leave a recognizable dent/impact on Ella’s car for the police to notice is equally absurd. </spoiler>

Let me end this review with something that I actually liked about this book. If you basically turn your brain off, this can be a quick and fun read. The plot goes pretty off the rails going into the climax of the book and I did enjoy <spoiler>the “good for her” Hayley arc </spoiler>

What did I just read?! Although some of the twists didn’t come as much of a surprise and the ending was a bit far fetched, it was without a doubt a wild ride. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives in the book and it was written with a really fast pace. Massive trigger warning for DV (which was relied on much too heavily in this book IMO). 2.5/5 stars.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing this ARC for my voluntary and honest review!

Wow loved this one! The story had a lot of different components to it not just a straight romance, thriller, or whatever. You get the idea. I typically don't relate to YA books as much but there were some more complicated aspects to the plot that held my attention. #EverythingWeNeverSaid #NetGalley

In full transparency I was given a copy of this book via NetGalley early to read and review. WIth that being said overall I wanted to give this book 3.5 stars but since that is not allowed I decided it would learn more towards 4 stars than just 3. I did enjoy this book and it did come with trigger warnings, as it absolutely sure, there were just a few things that took it where it was not a full 4 or 5 star read. for me.

This book was presented to me as a YA thriller/romance/dark romance and I slightly disagree with some of this. I do not like the idea that dark romaance and YA be together. That seems on a level of ick that I am not here for. Without spoiling this book while there is a lot of dark in it I would not say that it is dark romance. Again, I mentioned there are trigger warnings and this is one aspect where it comes into play.

Overall this book is dealing with a high school girl trying to navigate life after a horrible accident where she was behind the wheel of the car and her best friend did not make it out alive. It deals with basic high school life and trying to figure out who one is as well as friendships and romantic relationships all while dealing with grief. There is also domestic violence. stalking, secrets, childhood trauma going on as well. There were some discussions of sexual activites that at first I was like "wait are they not like 16 and 17" then I stopped and thought about it and everything that takes place is very normal for teenage sexual encounters at that age, well almost all. Most everything is vague discussion of it taking place or them almost but not quite getting there. So, again pretty normal but I think that is what makes it not really YA. There is a part of this that is a huge plot point to the story and once you realize that it is still concerning but you see it differently.

The author does leave you wanting more in the sense of wanting to know the how of the whole picture for the main characters in our story. I like that she made it where you thought you knew who was behind things and then you didnt but oh yes you actually did, just with a twist you did not see coming. I think there is the opportunity to have a book 2 for this and if that happens I would love to read it.

Wow, this book had more going on than I realized at face value
Ella is trying to navigate school after the death of her best friend, and her and friends boyfriend find themselves attracted to each other, when Ella turns to her friends diary
Inciting the question do we really know who we know?
I found this book, captured me right away and held me to the last page

While this is considered a YA thriller, I felt it addressed a lot of important subjects and how to (or not to) handle them.
We follow Ella who is struggling with the new school year after the loss of her best friend. Her memories of the accident have slowly started coming back to her while she finds herself spending more time with Sawyer, her best friends boyfriend. Ella is having a hard time with all the emotions she’s experiencing while also trying to piece together what really happened the night of the accident.
While I’m usually pretty good at predicting twists in thrillers, a couple of the ones in this book got me. I enjoyed this book and it was a quick read.

Excellent novel highlighting what should have been said in a relationship. Good characters and exciting writing.