I really enjoyed this fast paced thriller. Lots of layers to this one. Mistaken identity? Maybe, but Sara Bhaduri is an excellent character and I really enjoyed her arc. I look forward to more by this author.

I adored Sonya Lalli's A HOLLY JOLLY DIWALI when I read it during the holidays last year, so I was very interested when I heard she branched out into thrillers. ARE YOU SARA? starts out with a great premise: two girls named Sara(h) call Ubers at the same time, but get in the wrong car. When Sara makes it back to her own apartment after being dropped off at Sarah’s house, there are police everywhere: Sarah was killed right outside Sara’s house. The two girls look similar, and Sarah was in a car meant for Sara. Naturally Sara begins to wonder whether she just narrowly escaped death…

Wow, don’t read this review out loud, I guess. It’s a lot easier to keep the Sara(h)s straight when you can see whether or not I’m using the “h”!

From there, the story unfolds via Sara’s POV in present day, interspersed with some journal entries that Sarah wrote before she died. To me it felt like the diary entries were written way earlier, but I kept forgetting that Sarah was a lot younger than Sara.

I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two girls’ backgrounds, and the book was well-paced. The ending was satisfying and not what I expected!

I’ll be keeping an eye out for Sonya Lalli’s next book in either genre.

Saraswati (Sara) Bhaduri is finishing her shift at Gavin's bar when she helps a young drunk Sarah Ellis get a ride share and one for herself. Unaware, Sara realizes that hers takes her to an exclusive neighborhood. When she finally gets back to her place, there are police and an ambulance and she sees that the other Sarah, is dead. As the story unfolds, we get to know the women in flashbacks. Are they hiding secrets? Was one killed by mistake?
A tense thriller getting to know these two women and what leads up to murder.
Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for this e-galley of "Are You Sara?".

This was a really interesting premise for a story. Two Saras meet in a bar bathroom and then each take an Uber home. They end up at each others houses and one if them is found murdered. What was a weak aspect of this story was that the good action and tension in the set up is immediately lost with the shift to the past. I wasn't interested in that and by the end that narrative structure didn't work for me throughout the whole story

Sometimes I enjoy going into a book with a little knowledge of what it’s about, it’s a fun surprise to see what unfolds. Are You Sara? came up on Scene of Crime early reads and I thought I’d give it a try. Thank you William Morrow books for my DRC.

This was an interesting tale centered around two women who inadvertently switch car rides resulting in one being murdered. I liked the premise and the unpacking of each woman’s life. At times I found I struggled with the pacing of the book. However, I did enjoy how the alternating perspectives told the story.

I didn’t exactly like the main character (aka the main Sara) but completely respected that she went after what she wanted with no excuses. A solid mystery that didn’t overwhelm me, but definitely made me curious to try this author again.

Sara is a law student struggling to make ends meet by working in a bar and babysitting for one of her professors. When she helps an incapacitated student named Sarah one night at the bar, they share a brief time together as they wait for the ride shared to take them home. When they get into the wrong cars, one of them isn’t going to make it home that night. Not knowing if she was the intended victim or the act of violence was random, Sara cannot quit thinking about Sarah and soon maneuvers herself into her life. Sara herself has a secret and she wonders if Sarah’s death might just be connected. Lalli keeps the pages turning quickly and the reader guessing until the very end!

I posted my thoughts on Storygraph and Goodreads (with a link to Twitter) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4955272076

I'll post a link on my IG stories soon(ish)

Two women, one named Sara and the other Sarah have a somewhat by chance encounter at a bar. They share a few moments together, and then use an app to order a Rideshare. One lives. One dies. Is it a case of mistaken identity? Wrong place, wrong time or was the right girl killed? This story is told from alternating points of view, with alternating timelines. We learn the backstory of both women and how their lives affect the current situation. I found this to be an interesting tale of the risks of desire and the lengths someone will go to in order to get what they want. I thoroughly enjoyed this read. It pulled me in from the beginning and kept me engaged throughout. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

A very compelling and intriguing read! From the first chapter, I found it hard to put the book down. Two women meet quite by accident. One is passed out in a bar the other works in. The one working is tasked with getting the girl home. They share the name Sara. Sara calls a ride share service to provide rides home for both. Once Sara gets home, she realizes the ride share has mixed up the destination. She walks home due to lack of funds and finds that Sara has been murdered in her front yard. Did the killer get the wrong girl?? Through parallel time lines you find answers and more questions. I would recommend. I was given the opportunity to read an ARC from Net Galley through Scene of the Crime.

This book was very frustrating to read, because not only was the pacing very uneven, but so was the plot. For almost the entire act I found myself completely bored by this book and wishing the author would just get on with whatever she was hinting at already. It’s not that I’m impatient, because I can hang with the suspense folks as well as anyone else when the suspense is worth it, but in this case I felt like we readers were being strung along for no better reason than the author thought it might pay off when in the end I just felt incredibly let down by the whole entire book.

Look, I love a morally gray main character, especially females. “Blood Sugar” by Sascha Rothchild (if you haven’t read it yet, please go do so!) features a fascinating morally gray FMC and is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. Lalli attempts that same feat here, but she doesn’t quite get there because Sara never quite seems as gray as Lalli would like her to be. She cares just a little too much about some things and not enough about others. I couldn’t identify with her and I couldn’t empathize with her, and most of the time I found her annoying. Since main characters are our conduits to the story itself, I found the whole book hard to connect to. I enjoyed the parts where Sara was getting her hands dirty and wanted to snooze when she wasn’t.

In the end, I mostly just wish the book had at least been consistent.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for granting me access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not appear on social media or bookseller websites.

This was such a good thriller! Kept me guessing until the very end and I will defintiely recommend it to all my friends looking for a good thriller beach read.

Saraswaiti Bhaduri (known as Sara), meets Sarah Ellis one night at the bar where she works. When both women call for rides home and mistakenly get into the wrong cars, Sara wakes up on the wrong side of town. She walks back to her home, to find the other Sarah murdered. Scared that she was meant to be the target and haunted by the friend she just met, Sara attempts to find out the truth.

This story was entertaining and full of twists I did not see coming. Told in alternating viewpoints, we get to hear Sara Bhaduri tell her story of her search of the American Dream and Sarah Ellis’ story of trying to find herself. Though exciting and page-turning, I thought this story fell a little short. There was a lot going on and at times, some of it seemed like it was just thrown into the mix to be misleading. I thought Jason was painted almost as a cartoonish villain and Ajay did a complete 180 from the character we initially met. The ending left me kind of shaking my head as well. I did read it in less than 24 hours though, as it was just that exciting.

Thank you to Netgalley, William Morrow and the author for the ARC! This story is out now.

This review will be shared to my Instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) soon!

This was such an addicting book!!! I loved the dual POV and the different timelines. I really didn't know how it would play out. I highly recommend this.

Law student Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri holds down two jobs in order to make her way through school, but it’s still a struggle. She’s had to do things to pay the bills that most people wouldn’t expect from “a nice Indian girl.” It seems like an ordinary busy Tuesday night at the local dive bar until her boss demands Sara deal with a drunk girl in the bathroom.

The two become fast friends. Why? Because they both have the same name. And despite their different circumstances, the two connect. When they both order rideshares home, they tumble in the back of the cars and head out into the night.

But when Sara awakes in her rideshare, she finds she's on the wrong side of town—the rich side—and she realizes: she and Sarah took the wrong cars home.

With no money, Sara walks back to her apartment on the shady side of town only to discover police lights flashing and a body crumpled on her doorstep: Sarah.

Was Sarah Ellis or Sara Bhaduri the target? And why would anyone want either of them dead?

In this smart, twisty novel about ambition, wealth, and dangerous longing, the layers are peeled back on two young women desperate to break out of the expectations placed on them, with devastating results. (Goodreads synopsis)

I have not read a novel by S.C. Lalli before this one.

I did not like the protagonist Sara. She is a liar, and I think she was supposed to be intelligent (she’s in law school) but I just found her whiny and making terrible decisions. She doesn’t think through any of her choices, and gets scared/upset when the consequences are worse.

I didn’t mind the victim Sarah. She reminded me of every girl in high school, who didn’t think of anyone but herself. And I think that was the point of her character. I’m not surprised by the things the police find out about her.

The mystery was lost to the subplot of Sara and Jason. It was a distraction, and made the novel hard to continue. I wish the author had stuck with Sarah Ellis’s murder and the mistaken identity angle, and didn’t add the angsty, cringey Sara Bhaduri angle.

That said, I did like the dual time-lines. Reading from both characters POV, and how they reacted to their decisions made the separation and connection more understandable.

Overall I rate this novel 2 out of 5 stars.

4.5/5 I was pleasantly surprised by this book and the turns it took. Some of the plot was a little unbelievable but if you’re able to look part that, it’s a solid suspense for summer. This also solidifies my fear of Uber 😂 Uber was not a huge part of this book but what if you take the wrong ride and wind up somewhere you don’t want to be? 👻👀👀

Two girls similarly names (Sarah and Sara) meet in a dive bar, connect, and then accidentally get in each other's rideshare. Sara, an Indian law student, makes her way home to find the other Sarah murdered on her doorstep. Was Sara the actual intended target? And if so, why? The story alternates between the viewpoint of Sara as she tried to figure things out and the journal entries of the murdered Sarah. This is a suspenseful story that I enjoyed.

Are You Sara? had the potential to be a strong, suspenseful mystery but the execution fell a little flat for me. Law student Sara Bhaduri meets undergrad Sarah Ellis on a fateful night at a local college bar. Sara, bartending to help her law school tuition, is instructed to help a very drunken Sarah leave the bar by the owner. The two end up getting in the wrong rideshare car. When Sara realizes she's in the affluent neighborhood where Sarah Ellis lives she walks home (far walk) and comes upon the police and Sarah's body on her front porch. Devastated and concerned that she was in fact the intended target (after all, they did switch rideshare rides) we follow an alternating perspective and timeline: the last few years of Sarah Ellis's life told from her journal and present day with Sara Bhaduri. Sarah Ellis's chapters read more like YA which somewhat fits as Sarah is in high school during most of these chapters but it doesn't fit with the overall book itself. Sara Bhaduri, we find out, has some pretty big secrets she's keeping and is worried someone was trying to shut her up the night Sarah Ellis was murdered. Sara Bhaduri is relatively unlikeable which made me less engaged in the story as she makes dumb mistake after dumb mistake. However, there is a little more to the story than meets the eye and some deeper moments with a couple of twists. Rounding up from 2.5 stars to 3.

This is definitely a suspenseful read. Immediately I was sucked into the story. Two girls both in college from very different backgrounds. Sara is a law student struggling and working two jobs. At the end of her bartending shift there’s a girl passed out in the ladies room. The girls quickly bond over their shared name. Rideshares are called. And a Sara ends up dead.

Are You Sara? draws you into the twists quickly. A female bartender tries to help out a young female patron at the end of the night and ends up in the middle of a psychological mystery. I really liked the beginning of the book and how I was immediately sucked into the story. I just felt like the story kind of slowed down and started dragging through the middle. I know the author wants to plant clues and give background but it just seemed like some of it was unnecessary to where the story went. Overall, it was interesting and kept me pretty engaged but I felt like some parts could have been cut out.

Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri and Sarah Ellis meet at the end of the night at a bar, share a joint and hang out and mistakenly take each other’s ride home. Sarah ends up dead but Sara can’t be sure if the ride was for her and if she was supposed to be the victim instead. So begins the timelines to figure out exactly what happened.

Sara is a Bengali woman in law school. She is constantly and consistently aware of how much harder she has it in law school and in life just because she is an Indian woman. Most of her life is dedicated toward working crazy hours just to make ends meet - all while trying to keep up in law school. She is book smart and emotionally intelligent and that emotional intelligence comes into play a lot through her story.

Sarah Ellis is a 20 year old that comes from a rich family and isn’t sure what she wants to do in life.

Both their stories are told in alternating timelines and both women aren’t exactly how they are portrayed in the public part of their lives. They also aren’t the most likable characters.

The end with the murderer was a slight surprise and that was enough to get me to the end of the book. The ending was a different ending than I thought it would go.

The premise of the story is better than the execution. I really wanted to like Saraswati more but I appreciated how she was written if only because it shows how men that are portrayed the same way are considered “powerful” and “strong” and women are not usually considered similar.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this eARC. This book is available now.