Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review. Opinions shared are mine. Affiliate links are included in this post. If you make a purchase, I may earn commission.

Many moons ago, I taught 6th grade language arts. A frequent trope in my students’ creative writing was “the bad dream.” As in, all this stuff happens, then you find out it was all a bad dream. That’s funny, like, maybe once. After that, it’s old. That’s NOT what happens in Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead, but I felt like it did.

After spending all this time reading it, the end was a let down. What I *thought* was going to happen (and what I thought was the big mystery) was so much less than it really was. Also, the twists took forever. When the big reveal happened, I felt like I’d misread the whole first half of the book. It wasn’t a thriller at all. I wasn’t even sure it was a murder mystery until the very end.

It wasn’t all bad. I liked the main characters for the most part. The reminiscing of times with college buds was fun, and I loved that Olivia was such a good friend to Charlie over her whole life. Tripp seemed like a decent guy, even if his mom was a big bag of poo. I was invested in learning exactly what happened on Scarlet Christmas. Knowing this is a debut novel, I think I’d read the next book by the author. She had a solid story and it was interesting for the most part. Maybe I’m just not the right reader for this book.