I could not get into this book so I skipped to the end to find out what happened. The pacing was too slow and too much emphasis on swimming. I will admit the ending was pretty good so I gave it a better rating because of the ending. I would probably try to read this author again in the future.

A group of friends attend a memorial service at an island resort. Lissa was a good swimmer; they all were swimmers, but somehow Lissa drowned. Her body was seen, but not recovered, so her fiends are having a hard time getting closure. As the group mourns Lissa’s death, more and more secrets come out that test their sense of closure and their friendship even more. Told through the alternating perspectives of Georgie, Lissa’s best friend and “soul mate,” and Bronwyn, somewhat of a third wheel to Georgie and Lissa, readers slowly begin to understand how Lissa held their group together. As Georgie and Bronwyn have strange and scary experiences on the island, the mystery becomes stranger with every turn of the page. Readers of Lucy Foley and Lisa Gardner will become Lexie Elliott fans with this twisty sinister read.

Georgie wasn't able to go on vacation with her college friends and now her best friend Lissa is dead. Lissa drowned, but the group is swimmers, so Georgie has questions as to how it could have happened. The funeral is at the island resort Lissa owned with her husband and where she drowned. When strange things start happening to the group they question what is really going on in paradise.

Thank you to the publisher for my copy - all opinions are my own.

This book is such a FUN twisting delight of a thriller ride. I honestly wasn't totally sure what I was expecting when I dived in, but what I found was a fast paced, highly suspenseful and uniquely premised mystery that sucked me totally in from page one and was impossible to set down.

I loved the moving POV in the book which kept the anticipation ratcheted up from the start - revealing just a little bit more with each chapter and knowing something crazy is going to blow up, but not knowing what. I loved the characters and I REALLY loved that the central bond to their group was as a swim team. It was such a cool layer to the story and I loved the way that open water swimming played into the story itself.

No spoilers, but this was just such a fun ride from start to stop - exactly what you need for a little escapism and fun.

Lissa, Georgie and Bronwyn are longtime friends since uni and all talented swimmers. When Lissa drowns, her friends reconnect at the memorial, which is at the island resort where Lissa and her husband lived. Georgie does not believe that Lissa would have been out swimming at night, and suspects it wasn't an accident. Then all sorts of questions come up.

Told in alternating chapters between Georgie and Bron's perspectives, with the beginning of each chapter having a different method of how to possibly kill your best friend. I really enjoyed the majority of this book. Some of the detailed parts about swimming were a little hard for me to focus on, but they were short and not a big deal. These are definitely some toxic friendships and I really had no clue who to believe. I saw one part coming, but the very end twist I did not guess and it definitely threw me.

I was drawn to this and requested it based on the title and am so grateful for receiving this ARC! Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for it. I had not heard of this author before but will definitely check out her other work.

Lissa, Georgie, and Bronwyn are best friends and amazing swimmers. When Lissa drowns, her friends gather to memorize her. When they start receiving threatening messages, they become suspicious of each other.

This book was a lot different than my expectations, but I still think many will like it. Readers should be aware that this is not a heart-pounding, exciting thriller, as the name may imply. It is more of a slow-burn mystery, similar to books I’ve read by Jane Harper. You slowly get to know the characters and their past, but there is not much going on until the end. I loved the unique chapters about different methods of murder. It definitely helped build the anticipation.

“The more I look at this, the more I realize how exceedling difficult it is to kill a person- without immediately getting caught I mean.”

How To Kill Your Best Friend comes out 8/17.

Loved this!! Needed a stiff drink afterwards, I'm quite jumpy with thrillers and mysteries anyway and @lexieelliottwrites surprises you a lot in this one! I tried to predict what I thought would happen...got it hopelessly wrong!

First off, it is just so well written. I was absorbed by page 3! I could picture the resort location so clearly and you sense the tension and start to understand the dynamics of the friendship group almost immediately.

The story centres around a group of old friends, who were originally brought together by their love of swimming during their uni years. The story begins as one of the main characters, Georgie, arrives at a resort location for a memorial service for one of the friendship group, Lissa, their strongest swimmer, who has drowned at the resort.

Your mind immediately races about of how and when could this have happened. If she was such a good swimmer, how was it possible? Told from the perspectives of Georgie and another member of the group, Bron, the story unravels in a series of clever, unassuming turns. Like I said, I totally guessed wrong!

Just brilliant. Along with The French Girl and The Missing Years, it's another 5 stars from me! Roll on book 4!

Released on 17th August 2021!

Thank you to @lexieelliottwrites and @berkleypub for the opportunity to review

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I just love Lexie Elliott, and this was my favorite book of hers yet. She’s got an incredible way of drawing you into the story from the first sentence, and not letting go till she’s through with you. On the surface level. How to Kill Your Best Friend might seem like your basic, run of the mill thriller, but give it a shot because it’s so much more. The character development between the (rather large) group of old friends is deep for how short the book is. I did guess the mystery the novel centers around about halfway through, but that didn’t change my enjoyment of the story as a whole as Elliott still managed to throw some surprises in there towards the end.
Thanks so much for the opportunity to read this early! I’m a huge fan of the author and she just keeps getting better and better! 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Exactly what so many have said....Disclaimer: I do not want to kill my best friend....
Now we have that out of the way....
Excellent edge-of-your-seat mystery/thriller beginning on an island and a storm coming, so it's a good thing they wait the storm out because it gets really good towards the end.
There were a lot of conversations with this group of friends that were swimming legends in college and were gathering for a memorial to honor one of their friends that drowned. Lissa was an excellent swimmer so they found it almost impossible to believe she had drowned, but rumors abound about a possible murder or suicide.
At the beginning of each chapter, a method is given how to kill your best friend by an anonymous author. Then each chapter is told in alternating narrators, Bronwyn & Georgie. These two might have been Lissa's best friends, but they were a dysfunctional group..... full of lies and deception. They each have trust issues and it is apparent throughout the book.
There are many side stories going on which carries you through easily with the characters. Each character has something of their own to hide and someone is watching them while leaving threatening notes and near tragedies appealing to fear. With these toxic friends, walking through memories and scare tactics, you will not be disappointed with the ending.
Thank you, NetGalley for this ARC for my honest opinion and review.

Fast-paced and plausible, this is another great thriller from Berkley. A recommended first purchase for collections where the genre is popular.

I really enjoyed the novel, How to Kill Your Best Friend. I thought the characters were for the most part well developed- particularly Georgie and Bron. It would have been nice to have a little more development of Jem. I enjoyed the alternating POV's, sometimes I wanted to skim ahead to get more information about whatever cliffhanger we were left with at the end of certain chapters, however I held myself back! The pace of the novel was nice and the information about the relationships and the past was sprinkled throughout, building up to the ending. I had some suspicions that were accurate but a few things I had not guessed at all. Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! Told from two points of view, this is suspenseful and twisty. It was tense, not knowing who to trust.

"The universe takes a perverse joy in making sure our secrets don’t stay secret for long."


4.75/5 :)

DISCLAIMER!! I did not pick up this book because I wanted to kill my best friend… I promise ;)

Toxic friendships, deaths (and almost-deaths,) lies, this book has it all to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Told from Bron (Bronwyn) and Georgie’s perspective in separate first person pov. I really enjoyed seeing their different opinions and perspective on everyone and everything that has happened and seeing the similarities and differences in their thinking and logic.

I LOVED the methods -of killing your best friend- put in there between chapters (not that I’ll ever use them,) and I thought that was a really creative idea and the way it connects with the events in the chapter before or after it was really clever as well. Also finding out who was writing it and why they were doing so adds to the mysteriousness of everything.

I was literally suspecting everyone in the beginning because I had no idea what to believe and who to trust. Although as the story progresses, I wasn’t sure what I was suspecting them of.

The burb said they were trapped on an island. So why did we find out they were (not really) stranded when the book is almost over?? Ok that’s an exaggeration but the blurb was a huge giveaway. And that was a disappointment for me.

Not knowing what would happen next and what danger awaits them in the future kept me intrigued. Some scenes were obviously going to happen, but it’s what happens after and how everything falls into place and (possibly) gets resolved that’s surprising.

But just when I thought everything had ended, something else popped up. And I was definitely not expecting that.


【IN SHORT; A very intriguing story with dynamic characters.】

02/11/21

I requested “How To Kill Your Best Friend” by Lexie Elliott based on the catchy title and description. The story is told by altering narration of Georgie and Bronwyn, best friends who have gathered to memorialize their best friend Lissa, who was said to have drowned while swimming in an area that may be cursed.

Swimmers might be particularly interested in some of the swimming-focused prose, and I do love a shifting narrator, but this book fell a bit short for me. I didn’t necessarily care about the main characters and kept forgetting whose turn it was narrating. In addition, I didn’t care for the serpent storyline. The ending had a good twist but it just wasn’t enough for me. 2.5/5 stars.

Pour yourself more wine, dunk your hand into your enormous pop corn bucket as you frantically flip your pages just like I’m doing now!

This book is filled with entertaining mind games, surprise, interesting twists you mostly never see them come and hit you in your face so hard! This is wild, wild ride, my friends!

Best swimmer friends gather to celebrate the loss of their friend Lissa who is drowned at Kanu Lake where is filled with mythical creatures like serpentine and the very same haunted place always likes to take and take!

Lissa was smart woman who knew very well how dangerous swimming at this place alone in the night and she’s too skillful swimmer not to get drowned but here we go! She’s dead , isn’t she?

We’re reading two best girlfriends’ narration: Georgie: living at the states, preoccupied, workaholic, cool business woman who was partners in crime with Lissa and Bronwyn seemed like the third wheel of their close connection. But it’s normal when three women form a special bond, always third one finds herself left behind when the other two share more intimate bound.

Bronwyn seems like domestic, protective, loyal mother, efficient accountant who chose to resume peaceful family life on the contrary of Georgie who has connection issues and she hesitates to put a name to her relationship with Adam.

Duncan is the also their other friend who went to same school with Lissa. And Jem is sad widower who already starts flirting with the hotel customers. It seems like he can deal with grief better than Lissa’ friends.

Georgie keeps questioning the death of Lissa because some pieces don’t fit properly and Bronwyn looks agitated, resented. She’s keeping secrets and getting verbal threats ( a threat blaming her about Lissa’s death written on the mirror with lipstick) and Georgie gets papers via courier tells her to follow the money. Does someone play games with them?
And the author starts throwing bombs into our laps because Lissa is not normal person: she may have borderline disorder and she can be really illogical, lethal punisher when things don’t suit her expectations. She can be really batshit crazy! I know Talking Head’s psycho killer start to blast in your head ( okay, it’s just me: because at the most agitated moments of the books I like to play theme songs in my head)
Could one of them kill her because she was way too much dangerous? Who tries to play mind games with them? Definitely, yes, but who?

It seems like the crystal clear water they swim or ultra luxurious villas they stay are not safe anymore. They get attacked at both places. Building high tension and claustrophobic atmosphere make you jumpy and push you turn pages a little faster.

The beginning of the book may be slow burn and the psychological character analysis slowly develops but especially the last third is epic action packed thriller feast and twisty conclusion is amazing.

I’m giving four satisfying, well developed characterization, web of lies, surprising, mysterious thriller stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Wow. What a novel! It took a couple of hours to read. This is a mystery and thriller combined. I was amazed by the characters and the plot. I kept turning the page now on and was excited the suspense kept getting more ominous as I went on. I highly recommend this one it’s going to be a best seller.