REVIEW: The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz
The Lost Night
by Andrea Bartz
Thank you to Crown Publishing and Astoria Bookshop for this free copy.
Publisher: Crown
Publish Date: February 26, 2019
Hardcover
320 Pages
Standalone
Genres: Thriller, Mystery
What really happened the night Edie died? Ten years later, her best friend Lindsay will learn how unprepared she is for the truth.
In 2009, Edie had New York’s social world in her thrall. Mercurial and beguiling, she was the shining star of a group of recent graduates living in a Brooklyn loft and treating the city like their playground. When Edie’s body was found near a suicide note at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could believe it. Grief, shock, and resentment scattered the group and brought the era to an abrupt end.
A decade later, Lindsay has come a long way from the drug-addled world of Calhoun Lofts. She has devoted best friends, a cozy apartment, and a thriving career as a magazine’s head fact-checker. But when a chance reunion leads Lindsay to discover an unsettling video from that hazy night, she starts to wonder if Edie was actually murdered—and, worse, if she herself was involved. As she rifles through those months in 2009—combing through case files, old technology, and her fractured memories—Lindsay is forced to confront the demons of her own violent history to bring the truth to light.
In 2009, Edie had New York’s social world in her thrall. Mercurial and beguiling, she was the shining star of a group of recent graduates living in a Brooklyn loft and treating the city like their playground. When Edie’s body was found near a suicide note at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could believe it. Grief, shock, and resentment scattered the group and brought the era to an abrupt end.
A decade later, Lindsay has come a long way from the drug-addled world of Calhoun Lofts. She has devoted best friends, a cozy apartment, and a thriving career as a magazine’s head fact-checker. But when a chance reunion leads Lindsay to discover an unsettling video from that hazy night, she starts to wonder if Edie was actually murdered—and, worse, if she herself was involved. As she rifles through those months in 2009—combing through case files, old technology, and her fractured memories—Lindsay is forced to confront the demons of her own violent history to bring the truth to light.
My Review:
While I appreciate what this book tried to do, it unfortunately fell a bit flat for me. I found the main character to be extremely irritating and not in the "I love to hate characters" kind of way. I knew exactly what the twist was going to be very quickly and that only made it all the more annoying when all my fears became true.
I appreciated the small chapters from other perspectives more than I did Lyndsay's and while she was an unreliable narrator, she was just plain unreliable and I have to agree with one of the characters when they question how Lyndsay even made it this far in life.
I feel that this is going to be a divisive read amongst thriller lovers. It gives off a bad Lifetime movie type of feel (and these are guilty pleasures for me), highly predictable and full of selfish people. I think those who like the lighter side of thrillers or are new to the genre may appreciate this read.
Sometimes it's just better to let the dead be dead. Searching into the past usually yields terrible results. Lessons learned here: always be kind to all your friends, do not take drugs, never dig into the past and for goodness sake, don't leave a loaded gun lying around.
★★
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