"Friends with Secrets"

Friends with Secrets by Lauren Thoman

Amazon First Reads July 2024

Pages: 392 Genre: mystery/thriller

Rating: 2 Star

Kindle Highlights

Ainsley and Nikki are unlikely friends. Sure, their children play together at their private school, but that's where the similarities end. Ainsley is married to the heir of a chocolate bar empire who is running for governor, giving her the perfect life as a wife and a mother. Nikki is a mess, barely making it anywhere on time and with herself and her kids fully intact. But that's their lives now. Ainsley lives with anxiety that people will learn who is and where she came from, and Nikki once had a thriving career as a news broadcaster before she was fired in favor of a younger, prettier model. The women are brought together when a dangerous man from Ainsley's past shows up at the kids' school, and Ainsley is forced to confide in Nikki so they can take him down and protect their children.

Sometimes I struggle with reviewing books because it's hard to give what feels like a worthwhile opinion when I know that I would've liked it more if I were in the target audience. Unfortunately, this is one of those books. If I were a mother in my 30s-40s, I probably could've connected to the characters more and, by extension, enjoyed my reading experience more. I don't think that makes my thoughts any less valid, but it worth acknowledging. This book might be perfect for people who do fit into that demographic, but it still fell flat for me in a lot of ways.

Friends with Secrets was competent enough in its ability to put together a story. While I wasn't in love with the plot, I also wasn't fully bored. It was tedious at points, but it hit all the important points that a mystery/thriller should have. It was somewhat obvious (a better thriller than mystery), which made some parts a bit tedious. There were a couple effective red herrings, but in general the book would've benefitted from a more subtle delivery.

The stakes were never very clear to me. I mean, there are certainly some victims involved in the main storyline that I did feel for, but on a smaller scale, I was never really worried for Ainsley and Nikki. Without spoiling it, the fallout from Ainsley's big secret never felt consequential enough for me to care about it as much as she did. The fate of Ainsley's husband's governor campaign was meant to be one of the main stakes in the plot, but I was never given enough information to actually care about him being elected. What's his political affiliation? What are some of his platforms and why are they a big deal for his would-be constituents? Being vague and perfectly centrist ensures that the author doesn't accidentally and immediately alienate half of her readers, but that also means there's nothing in there for me to actually care about. Therefore, I don't care when his political aspirations are threatened either.

Actually, the vagueness of the ideologies of the book was one of my biggest problems with this book. It feels like the characters waltzed out of an early 2000s book — everything felt just kind of outdated and the characters felt a little clueless for the modern day. This may be a slight spoiler, but there's a big discussion about sex work, and I was never really clear how I was meant to feel. Friends with Secrets almost seems to take the stance that sex work is immoral unless you do it for a valid reason, which I just don't love. Going to a strip club is almost treated with more seriousness than being a literal pedophile and rapist (which, regardless of how you feel about sex work, you must admit are not always synonymous). I don't need the author to make a clear declaration of her political opinions, but I would like the book to feel like it has a spine (pun only partly intended). You can't make a book that is built off of tackling tough topics and then also shy away from standing behind an opinion on them.

I just ultimately didn't care about this book. It was fine, technically, but nothing grabbed my attention enough to make it memorable. I was confused about the characters' opinions, they seemed to care too much about little things and not care about things that felt really important, and the mystery wasn't engaging on its own. I can't even say if I would recommend this book in the future, because I just doubt I'll be thinking about it much after this review. Hopefully other people have a better experience with it.