She Started It by Sian Gilbert
Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe are best friends - or were, as children. They drifted apart in adulthood, but shared secrets have kept them bonded for better or worse, even as their childhood dreams haven’t quite turned out as they’d hoped. Then one day they receive a wholly unexpected invitation from another old friend. Poppy Greer has invited them all to her extravagant bachelorette party: three days of white sand, cocktails, and relaxation on a luxe private island in the Bahamas.
None of them has spoken to Poppy in years. But Poppy’s Instagram pics show that the girl they used to consider the weakest link in their group has definitely made good - and made money. Curiosity gets the better of them. Besides, who can turn down a posh all-expenses-paid vacation on a Caribbean island?
The first-class flight and the island’s accommodations are just as opulent as expected… even if the scenic island proves more remote than they’d anticipated. Quite remote, in fact, with no cell service and no other guests. The women quickly discover they’ve underestimated Poppy - and each other. As their darkest secrets are revealed, the tropical adventure morphs into a terrifying nightmare.
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As a bachelorette party thriller on a private island I can say this book ended up taking a few unique turns. I went into it thinking I knew exactly what to expect and I was right, for the most part, but even knowing that I probably wouldn’t be too surprised by the end result I did really appreciate the twisty journey I was taken on. I did not, however, love the fact that we’re in the minds of the “mean girls”. It was interesting to be in the minds of what I seen as the antagonists but it was also a little unbearable at times. Connecting with characters that have zero empathy is a difficult task for the reader. I also felt this book should have had trigger warnings in the front as I’m sure a lot of readers could relate to the bullying in one way or another and it could be triggering for some.
We spend the book bouncing around in points of view from Annabel (the ring leader), Chloe (the socialite follower), Tanya (the hanger-on), and Esther (the outlier). They were the mean girls back in high school and Poppy was their target. They’re fishy about the invite as Poppy has no reason to include them in her special day but can’t pass up the opportunity to live large on an island at her expense. Overcoming their own common sense they all go even having encountered various red flags on their journey there and in-fighting amongst their group before they even left. It becomes a strange, boozy, nightmare while they’re on the island with tons of backstabbing, spilled secrets, and of course, murder.
I did find it interesting being in their viewpoints at first but only seeing from the minds of mean and un-empathetic characters for the entire book got tiring fast. I also found the girls’ inner monologues to be too similar and had to continue checking the chapter title to remember which girls point of view I was currently reading from. I think the could have been make a lot more different to make the jumping around less confusing. I also feel the mystery could have built more if we were only in one or two points of view as opposed to four.
The mystery wasn’t too hard to discern. I feel like the synopsis itself explains most of what we expect to happen. There are a few interesting twists along the way that I did enjoy but I felt it was a little too obvious what was going to happen. Four girls get invited to an island by their former victim? We all knew where this was going. I do like the journey that we took to get there however. I’m all for catty/mean characters meeting Karma.
My biggest problem with this book was that it was a lot more triggering than you’d expect in terms of bullying, depression, mental health, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. It was not handled with care at all in my opinion and, having had experience with high school bullies of all kinds, I find it highly unlikely that not a single girl in that group grew up or had empathy or regrets for what they’d done. There’s a big difference between childhood bullying and psychopathic cruelty and the author seemed to mix those two up a bit. There were also flashbacks in the form of journal entries of Poppy and what these girls did to her and as heartbreaking as they were, it was extremely unrealistic in its context. No one writes journal entries with full dialogue script. As much as I enjoyed the glimpse into the past, these should have just been flashbacks, not journal entries.
Overall, not my favourite thriller and I actually came out of it feeling pretty low given how poorly some of the triggering topics were handled. I gave this one 3 starts for the interesting twists but took stars off for the predictable ending and the character portrayals.