Reviews

Friends Like These by Kimberly McCreight

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kbranfield's review

4.0

4.5 stars.

Friends Like These by Kimberly McCreight is a suspense-laden domestic mystery that is fast-paced.

Jonathan Cheung is hosting his longtime college friends for a weekend at his guest house in the Catskills. Although years have passed since graduation, he, Maeve Travis, Stephanie Allen, Derrick Chism and Keith Lazard have remained fairly close. Their weekend is off to an uneasy beginning when art gallery owner Keith brings his star artist Finch Hendrix with him. Then Jonathan’s contractors show up angrily demanding money for unpaid bills. He is in the complete dark about the past due bill since his fiancé Peter has been handling the renovation. By Sunday morning, one of the group is dead and Kaaterskill Detective Julia Scutt is asking uncomfortable questions they would very much rather not answer. Who is the victim? And who is responsible for what might just be murder?

Although one member of their friends died back in college, she is very much a part of the weekend get together. Jonathan, Maeve, Stephanie, Derrick and Keith have been keeping a huge secret about something that occurred while they were college students. Despite what happened back then, most of them have gone on to have lucrative careers. But have any of them truly moved on with their lives?

Over the course of the weekend, the chapters alternate between the various characters' points of view. Jonathan has the best of intentions with the reason for the weekend but Finch’s unexpected appearance disrupts their plans. He is deliberately provoking reactions from everyone, but for what purpose? Everyone is already on edge when their first evening comes to a tense end. It will be up to Detective Scutt to attempt pry the truth out of them about what happened between then and the death of one of their own. Will she be able to uncover the secrets the group is obviously trying to keep hidden?

Friends Like These is an edge of the seat domestic mystery that is impossible to put down. The characters are well-developed but most of them are not easy to like. The chapters alternate between the different characters perspectives which provides interesting insight about each of them. The victim’s identity is kept tightly under wraps which adds an extra layer of stress to an already fraught weekend gathering. With jaw-dropping plot twists, Kimberly McCreight brings this stunning domestic mystery to an absolutely unpredictable conclusion.

myfictionalworld's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This is one of the worst thrillers I've read in a while. This was the first novel that I've read by Kimberly McCreight and I'm quite disappointed. The "Frienemies" trope is one of my favorites within the thriller genre and once I read the synopsis of this story, I was intrigued. This was a snore-fest and I couldn't wait to be done with this book. This book was very lukewarm, there were too many POVs and the ending of this story was horrible. I have a heard a lot of get reviews of other novels she has published so I'm going to give this author another try and hope for the best.

booklvrkat's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

menniemenace's review against another edition

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3.0

of all the ways the 2 cases in the book could be tied together. This is the weirdest.

The book was pretty interesting and really fun to read. The characters didn't inspire any feelings in me, I didn't care about them at all. The plot was fun, though.

This is a good read if you don't mind uninspiring characters, and the plot is SO unexpected.

ms3194's review against another edition

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3.0

I was expecting a lot out of this novel and was ecstatic to get my hands on a copy of it.

But unfortunately it didn't fully live up to its hype. Mostly because the main characters are not likeable. They also seem to lack basic communication skills as most of their problems could be solved if they spoke to each other. The author also likes to 'tell more than show" the likeable things about certain characters which makes the writing heavy-handed.

But the last quarter of the book is my kind of read and I enjoyed the fast pace and twists that came with it.

Overall, a 3 star read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Headline for the e-copy.

missbb2015's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

nwill_reads's review against another edition

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2.0

2 ⭐️

Feeling pretty meh about this one tbh!

I normally love these kind of stories, secrets and lies. Friends not really good friends with secrets and murders. The premise of the book was good tho the execution not so good.

I felt like there was too much going on, too many character pov’s, too many shifts, too many plots, too much back and forth and goings on… just tooo much! It just started to feel too unrealistic, yeah not everyone tells their friends everything, but come onnn!

Like most books of this genre there is a twist that you don’t see coming, why? Cause there is nothing hinted toward it even slightly and even when it happens it’s not an OMG moment that you’d be expecting and looking for. It’s just another MEH moment.

With that being said, this book took me much longer than one of its size normally would, I really struggled to power on with this one and was so close to dnf’n on several occasions. If it was written as just a dual pov it could have been so much better!