Incredibly captivating and help me turning the page and wanting more. I hate I have to wait so long to shout this book from the rooftops and have friends buy, because everyone needs to read it.

Special thanks to Putnam Books for the ARC. I enjoyed this one and it doesn’t come out until my Birthday next year.

The writing was really good and a fast read!

While We Were Burning follows two women, Elizabeth and Brianna. Elizabeth has found the body of her best friend hanging; she knows that this isn’t a suicide despite what everyone around her says. Her life starts to pull apart at the seams, so she hires Brianna as an assistant to keep herself organized. Brianna is also dealing with her own trauma: the death of her son at the hands of the police in Elizabeth’s neighborhood. She doesn’t know what happened, but she wants answers. In order to get those answers, Brianna does everything she can to learn as much as possible by being around Elizabeth.

The characters in this novel are very well-fleshed out; I found myself both loving and hating Elizabeth and Brianna at different points throughout the story. Koffi makes both women painfully human and both just enough off their rockers that they never feel unbelievable.

This novel also addresses a ton of important social issues in a seamless way. Nothing felt too meta or was addressed in a way that took you out of the story, and in the end still provided great food for thought.

I did worry that the twist was given away too early on in the book but was pleasantly surprised with how the story continued to develop after. There were some elements that felt a little predictable and clichéd- namely when it’s overtly noted that Brianna and David have some unspoken tension going on and their subsequent affair. I think Brianna using her affair with David as a kind of escape would have been a bit more impactful if there’d been fewer lingering gazes and moments where they’re standing too close. That aside, there’s still plenty of enjoyable drama to be read.

Overall, I thought While We Were Burning was a decent domestic thriller, and definitely not a bad choice if you’re into that subgenre in particular.

What a debut! Powerful writing and an interesting book. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Four stars. I loved the Memphis setting and how Koffi told the character's stories.