1989. When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren't. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends.
2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.
Louise has always known that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything. Her job. Her son. Her freedom. Maria's sudden reappearance threatens it all and forces Louise to reconnect with everyone she'd severed ties with to escape the past. But as she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there's more to the story than she ever knew. To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what's known to Maria - or whoever's pretending to be her - is known to all.
In 1989, Louise was in her last year of high school when Maria transferred to their school during the year. Louise and Maria got along great but Louise always wanted to be part of Sophie's crowd, who are "mean girls". Sophie made it clear Louise couldn't be friends with them both and had to choose and Louise chose the mean girls. On the night of their prom, Maria disappeared and was eventually presumed dead.
Twenty-seven years later, Louise is divorced with a young son and she has a successful interior design business. One day she gets a Facebook friend request from Maria ... but how can that be since Maria has been dead for a long time? She accepts and then starts touching base with some of the people she went to high school with to see if they had too. She discovers there is a high school reunion coming up and debates about going since she hasn't kept in touch with anyone but hopes it will solve the mystery of Maria.
I thought this book had an interesting premise since so many of us use Facebook. Who wouldn't be freaked out to receive a Facebook friend request and messages from a dead schoolmate? It started out okay but quickly went downhill but I kept going because I was curious to see how it was going to end.
It's written in first person perspective in Louise's voice. It jumps back and forth from 1989 to 2016 (the chapters are labeled). I found Louise unlikeable and annoying in both time periods. She was so desperate in high school to be Sophie's friend that she would do anything Sophie asked her to do, no matter how terrible it was. The Louise in present day didn't seemed to have moved on from her high school days and kept dwelling on and on and on how she let Maria down when she stopped being friends with her in high school and the part she may have played in Maria's disappearance. It took a long time for the author so long to reveal what happened. The book could have been tighter as I found it was draggy and repetitive. When the endings came, I thought they were ridiculous (one came out of nowhere) and wasn't buying them.
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