A great easy summer read to get lost in. Well written and great characters! Thank you #netgalley for an advanced copy.

This is my first book to read by Ella Berman and what a book!. Very moving and emotional but very well written. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you as always to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book ahead of its release!

Before We Were Innocent is a really interesting drama with a touch of a thriller element to it, exploring friendships and secrets. I enjoyed it overall, but in some parts found it slow and confusing and the characters annoyed me.. Nevertheless, it's dark, twisty, and kept me interested in what secrets were being hidden.

3.5 stars!

A tense and suspense-filled novel, Before We Were Innocent is both a gripping thriller and a reflection on teenage friendship. In terms of pacing, it started off quite slowly, but soon picked up and became an incredibly addictive read. Bess and Joni’s relationship made this for me, with their toxic behaviour and lack of trust making this incredibly compelling. The effect their shared history had was clear from the offset, despite the mystery surrounding it, and I loved the tension that was created through their previous experiences.

Despite being teenagers, both girls have their lives turned upside-down by the media coverage of Evangeline’s death, leaving Bess spending ten years hiding from life to avoid her past, and Joni embracing her infamy to become an influencer and motivational speaker. The way this was handled was shocking, with the novel dealing with the mental impact that relentless criticism and public shaming can have, especially at such a young age. It’s a chilling take on the lasting consequences of our actions, particularly in the modern world where everything can be shared and commented on.

The only thing I didn't love was the ending, which I felt was left a little bit too open. I just wanted to know EVERYTHING!

An engaging and memorable thriller, with toxic friendships, shocking secrets, and plenty of mystery to get stuck in to. Thank you so much to Aria & Aries and NetGalley for this review copy!

A complex and evocative literary mystery with a keen focus on toxic friendships and how actions and events in youth can shape a person's future life. Told in two timelines, the story has believably complex but essentially unlikeable characters. There is a mystery to be uncovered in each timeline and echoes of the past illuminate the present, but will the main players behave differently with maturity? The characterisation is good with lyrical prose and good use of sensory imagery. It is an immersive read.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

This is one of those 'can't put it down' books. I was hooked from the beginning with such a great story about three friends. Bess, Joni & Evangaline who are friends from school, they go away to Greece together. It was a graduation present from Evangaline's parents for them to stay at the family home in Tinos. All expenses paid & first class flights for ten weeks.
The book goes back & fore from 2018 to 2008 & it tells us about the holiday & the consequences for their & their families lives. Twists & turns throughout that keep you gripped. A recommended read!

Ten years ago, Bess, Joni and Evangeline, three best friends from high school, decide spend the Summer in Greece. However, only two of them return. The story is dual timeline, flicking between what happened ten years ago, and the present day, where Bess opens her front door to find Joni on her doorstep. Joni is involved in another disappearance and she needs Bess to be her alibi.

This book is perfect for summer reading. It has beautifully described locations in Greece where the trio spend their summer and it had me wishing I was abroad, soaking up the sun. I think this book it would make an amazing to show!!

It’s a thriller and I did find it gripping in relation to the disappearances and crime aspect of the story. However, I was much more hooked on the focus on the toxicity of the trios friendships and how the girls navigated the complexities of their friendship.

If you like the sound of this then I would also recommend Penance by Eliza Clark as this book slightly reminded me of that book and they are both very enjoyable!

Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy of this book!

This book feels perfect for adaption to television; such an enjoyable read and great characters that were really fun to get to know! Loved the exploration of the meaning of friendship and trust. Thanks for sharing.

👙 REVIEW 👙

Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Publishing Date: 13th July 2023

Evangeline, Joni and Bess were best friends through their final years of high school, before taking a long summer trip to Greece to live out their final weeks together before heading to different colleges. But what should have been a summer of sun and friendship can quickly turn sour, as tensions bubble under the surface, leading to the fateful night where only two of the girls return. 10 years later, despite growing apart, Joni and Bess can’t help but find themselves in all too familiar situation…

The story unfolds in a dual timeline, flicking between 2008 and 2018, reliving the summer in Greece, and the events leading up to Evangeline’s death and the lives of Bess and Joni as they come back together. One thing I think this book does really well is portray the intricacies of young female friendships, and how things can quickly turn toxic, especially in a group of three. Although I found some of the choices made by 28 year old Bess to be somewhat unrealistic and naive, I still enjoyed the unfolding of the story, which isn’t typical of me when it comes to mysteries. It was quite a slow burn, and very easy to read so maybe that helped. Overall I’d say I enjoyed this book more than I expected, and would recommend for people who like slower burn mysteries and stories of intricate female friendships.

Wow, what can I say, read this to find out what happened and how the lives of these girls worked out. I am sure you will enjoy this as I have done. 5stars

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for this ARC

Depictions of friendships between teenage girls always fascinate me, especially when, as in this novel, they are able to capture the power struggles, self-esteem battles, sharp cruelties and shifting loyalties, alongside the mundanity, naïveté and insecurities. There is so much self-consciousness and jealousy in these friendships, so many raw feelings, but also so much love and fierce loyalty. In ‘Before We Were Innocent’, the author manages to capture all of the fluctuations and conflicts that shape a teenage friendship group, and the way that you can only gain clarity in your understanding of these relationships with the distance that growing older brings. There is something so tender in the central friendship, despite the darkness.

The darkness comes from the death of one of the friends and the accusations directed towards the remaining two friends over the circumstances of her death. My favourite feature of the novel was the way the media were portrayed, particularly their treatment of the two teenage girls who were found guilty of partying too much, being too sexually active, having an uncouth sense of humour and generally failing to be ‘polite’ and ‘modest’ in the way that young woman are expected to be. They were not appropriate incarnations of young womanhood and so their private lives and characters were made fair game to the press and to the public, even if they were found not guilty of murder, they were still condemned.

Split between the past and the present ten years later, I found myself much more engaged with the parts of the novel set when they were teenagers. Their adult selves were interesting explorations of how to shape a life after trauma and infamy, and bittersweet reflections on youth and adolescent friendships, but the plot was slightly lacking for me. That being said, I love unique studies of characters and relationships, and this definitely delivered on that front.

Privileged and carefree, freshly graduated from high school and ready to take on the world, best friends Bess, Joni and Evangeline can't wait to spend their final summer before college on an idyllic Greek island. It isn’t long, however, before fissures begin to appear in their friendship, and by the final weeks of their holiday the girls are barely talking. Then Evangeline dies tragically, and Bess and Joni find their deteriorating relationship being reframed as a motive for wanting their friend dead.

Ten years on, Bess is still struggling to put her life back together after everything that happened in Greece when Joni, who has made a career off of their infamy, suddenly reappears in her life. Is she really determined to pull Bess out of her slump or does her reappearance have a much more sinister motivation?

Ella Berman's novel is a readable coming-of-age thriller, which held my interest and, at times, painted a chillingly accurate picture of what it was to be a girl on the cusp of adulthood in the 00s.

The 2008 narrative is by far the more compelling. Eighteen-year-old Bess feels like an authentic teenager, driven by lust, ennui and the battle to navigate the conflicting expectations of her friends, her parents, and the wider world. This shines through in the descriptions of the highs and lows of the girls' holiday, and the author captures vividly the dangerous power of friendship between teenage girls, when your friends love you so much that they have everything they need to utterly destroy you if they choose.

In contrast, I found it much harder to engage with the 2018 timeline, and to empathise with adult Bess. I know the author wanted to establish the two very different paths Bess and Joni's lives have taken over the past decade, but, by making Bess a ghost of her former self, the author also creates a far less compelling character and narrator. Joni, in both timelines, suffers from having her character constantly described and defined by Bess's narration; since much of this is contradictory, it would have been easier to get a clear sense of who she was and what her motivation was if we had been left to infer this from her actions for ourselves. As it is, I never quite got a sense of Joni's true nature and why Bess felt so strongly bonded to her.

Some of the dialogue is overwritten and clichéd, which took me out of the moment, especially in scenes which were clearly intended to be particularly romantic or poignant. Furthermore, the work the author does to build tension feels wasted, as it ultimately dissipates to a fairly lacklustre ending rather than a truly thrilling denouement.

The story has obvious parallels with the Meredith Kercher/Amanda Knox case - everything from the European setting to the time period to the dichotomising of the girls into madonna and whore tropes and the innately misogynistic media coverage - and it was interesting to read a fictionalised take on these elements, although one which felt depressingly realistic for the time in which it is set. The long-term impact of what happened on Bess's family doesn't get much page time, but was one of the most poignant elements of the story.

Ultimately, though I found the book as a whole underwhelming, there is enough about Before We Were Innocent that I enjoyed that I will look out for Ella Berman's next novel with interest.

Thank you to NetGalley and Aria and Aries for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

It's a sort of souffle: it started in a great way and then - POUF - it dragged a lot in the last part
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

some of the more interesting things fail to resolve themselves in any kind of meaningful way, which is probably the point but you're sort of reading a murder mystery? it would be useful if the atmosphere was tighter, more contained. but as a story about teenage girls tumbling into adulthood, loss, the world's heightened perception, friendship etc, it works super well.

Three girls, Joni, Evangaline and Bess living in a wealthy gated community in California. Evangaline (Ev) is given a trip to Greece as a graduation present and Joni and Bess accompany her. Tragedy strikes during the time they are there.
This is a compelling read. It not only contains a murder and mystery, but also the reader gets to see the complex relationships between the three girls. Moving between past and present, Bess now lives a quiet life where she moderates complaints on a dating site. Her life is basic. She is happy. And then Bess turns up out of the blue with a request that leads her back into a similar situation she experienced that summer in Greece.
The weave of 2008 and present day is an interesting one. Initially, I did not like Joni’s character. Since Ev’s death she has made a name for herself as a life coach, with podcasts and TV appearances. Arriving unannounced at Bess’s, she’s clearly not impressed with her friend’s situation – living under the radar, working from home with very little social interaction. All the same, she is expecting help. And Bess agrees.
Switching to the events in Greece enables us to get under the skin of each girl and understand their personalities more. When the unthinkable happens, it also says a lot about media manipulation and how it can influence public perception.. The ‘then’ part of the book became the most interesting part, but as the story progressed my interest in the ‘now’ deepened.
All in all, this is a well written and powerful read which held my interest from page one until the very end.
I would like to thank Ella Berman, Head of Zeus and Netgalley for an ARC of Before We Were Innocent in exchange for an honest review.

After the tragic death on a Summer trip to Greece, two friends are bound together and later separated by events. Ten years later, they are reunited when another mysterious event brings them back together.

Three young women on the brink of bright futures, Before We Were Innocent, is a story tinged with nostalgia and contrasted with the modern digital age. I loved how the timeless feel of a sentimental summer interplayed with the new world of dating apps and a fascination for true crime.

The novel takes place over two time periods with the reader learning about the events and characters as each period progresses. I love how Bess, Joni and Evangeline are as characters. Certainly flawed, as they complement and aggravate each other as the author depicts the complexity of friendships between young women. As a reader I was constantly asking myself which version of them I trusted: Bess as the narrator, the views of other characters expressed through her interactions with them, or depictions in the press that are encountered throughout the book. I feel the book is written to foster mistrust of even Bess as the narrator, which I think adds an extra dimension.

I think the challenge Ella Berman took on, of mixing the tones, could have easily gone wrong if not executed properly. For me the contrast in tones and characters worked out and the risk paid off. I would definitely recommend for those who love a bit of nostalgia (especially around 2008) and/or true crime.

A gripping and revealing read about a summer that ended up in tragedy for three teenage girls and the aftermath of how that summer changed everything.
I particularly was enthralled by the descriptions of each of the characters and the analysis of how intense friendships are at that stage of life and how mistakes and actions of the young are reframed when tragedy strikes to manipulate and build up personas that are too simplified.

Before We Were Innocent catches up with Bess a decade after the death of one of her best friends, Evangeline. Desperate to separate herself from the tragedy, she tries to hide away from the world. This had worked, kind of, until a figure from her past turns up at her door.

Before We Were Innocent is for readers who love unlikeable characters, a twisting plot line and a coming-of-age tale all rolled into one. This story tackles themes of grief and guilt and depicts those sorts of teenage friendships that feel so instrumental in forming your identity.

However, despite being a mystery thriller, I feel Before We Were Innocent lacks that fast pace that I craved from a story like this. Although there were moments that gripped me, overall it had that absence of momentum I needed to keep reaching for it.

I did love the atmosphere Berman created and the friendships between the girls were very reminiscent of the ones I had when I was that age - flawed but beloved. Although I felt this novel had some imperfections, I am intrigued to give Ella Berman’s other novel a try.

Compellingly Executed..
Toxic friendships, a lifelong bond. A coming of age tale transcending timelines in this beautifully written, succinct tale of flawed friends and a mystery within. A slow burn but nicely done and compellingly executed. There is no real tension here, no thriller, no grand reveal but rather a drama of lives, feelings and emotions. We can never bury the past.

I really enjoyed reading this book. We begin by meeting Joni who reappears at old school friend Bess' door nearly ten years after last seeing her asking to use her as an alibi when her current girlfriend goes missing.

The story flicks between past and present when 3 friends Joni, Bess and Ev go on holiday to the Greek islands as teenagers and something terrible happens.

The book is a story of friendships, adolescence and a fun summer turned bad.

I loved how Ella built each character up. I really enjoyed her writing style and the story was real, raw and believable. The book covered topics of youth, guilt , manipulation, jealousy but also love.

I will be recommending this book and looking out for others by this author.