Book Review: The False Friend

Summary from GoodReads: From the bestselling author of Bee Season comes an astonishingly complex psychological drama with a simple setup: two  eleven-year-old girls, best friends and fierce rivals, go into the woods. Only one comes out . . . 

Leaders of a mercurial clique of girls, Celia and Djuna reigned mercilessly over their three followers. One after noon, they decided to walk home along a forbidden road. Djuna disappeared, and for twenty years Celia blocked out how it happened. 

The lie Celia told to conceal her misdeed became the accepted truth: everyone assumed Djuna had been abducted, though neither she nor her abductor was ever found. Celia’s unconscious avoidance of this has meant that while she and her longtime boyfriend, Huck, are professionally successful, they’ve been unable to move forward, their relationship falling into a rut that threatens to bury them both. 

Celia returns to her hometown to confess the truth, but her family and childhood friends don’t believe her. Huck wants to be supportive, but his love can’t blind him to all that contra dicts Celia’s version of the past. 

Celia’s desperate search to understand what happened to Djuna has powerful consequences. A deeply resonant and emotionally charged story, The False Friend explores the adults that children become—leading us to question the truths that we accept or reject, as well as the lies to which we succumb. 

My Review: What happened to Djuna? Can it be fixed 20 years later? Not all memories are good ones. How do you undo a possible wrong? 


This book was a wonderful read. You can't wait to turn the page to see what's next for Celia and those around her. Was a seemingly simply kidnapping all that happened to Djuna? Celia knows. Another wonderful addition to this book is the showing of the effects that are still present years later on those who have bullied others. We're always reading and hearing about how someone's life turned this way or another due to being bullied by someone else in school. What happens later in life when you were that bully?


There's also a surprising *fix* for this book. You'll be shocked.


Ready to pick up your copy? It's in bookstores today. But, why not try to won one of the 2 copies I have available to share? Check out my giveaway post.

RATING: ♥♥♥♥

Pages: 252

Hardcover

Review copy of this book provided by the author/publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. In no way did the provision of the book affect the outcome of my review.