The Best Friend by Shalini Boland
Published by Adrenalin Books
Ebook
Published 20 October 2016
233 pages
ARC
They say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer . . . Wrong.
Louisa's new best friend has it all - the house, the status, the money - but she's also hiding a dark secret. And, as Louisa is drawn deeper into her friend's life, events take a chilling turn...
OPENINGIt's him again. And I'm pretty sure he's following me. I mean, I can't be a hundred percent sure, but I've seen him here three times already this week, and he was there at the corner shop on Monday, and yesterday at the garage.
WHAT I THOUGHTThe Best Friend started off a bit slow for me and I wasn't sure I was going to like it. In the end, the book started getting better and better and I found myself hooked. The characters are developed really well. I was on Louisa's side from the get-go and knew there was something off about Darcy. Darcy is perfect and flawless which immediately made me suspicious. I dislike suspiciously perfect people on general principal - there's usually something rotten underneath. Darcy comes across as the kind of perfect person I want to smash in the face with a heavy object. The Best Friend is the kind of novel where the author messes with your head until you don't know what the hell is going on. Is Louisa right about Darcy's sinister intentions? Does something dark lurk behind Darcy's perfect smile? Is Louisa imagining things? I loved the twist in The Best Friend. I never saw it coming and am glad the author did something original than a lot of clichés in thriller fiction. The Best Friend contains flashbacks of the unhappy childhood of two characters who don't seem to be related to the main storyline. You find out at the end who these kids are what their link is to Darcy and Louise. I'm impressed the author managed to keep the suspense back until the last moment. The Best Friend is a great thriller for people tired of reading books with girl in the title and want something refreshing.
