Unhinged. Unreliable narrators. Unforgettable. I tore through this debut. The way this thriller examines mental illness, class and race on the cusp of a child murdered by police is just masterful. It’s dark but emphatic, and twisty.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for the ARC to read in exchange for my honest review.

Reeling from her best friend’s death, which she refuses to believe was a suicide; Elizabeth hires Brianna as her assistant. Instead of distracting her, Brianna helps her investigate the suicide but she has her own motivations.

I didn’t like any of the characters in this story, and I didn’t understand any of them either. I always enjoy a good revenge story, but this one was odd. I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but as the characters’ flaws became more obvious, I became disconnected. It ended on a strange note that left me uncomfortable.. which maybe was the point.

“Maybe I was a broken woman. Maybe I was just striking a pose.”

While We Were Burning comes out 4/16.

While We Were Burning is a propulsive, tense, tale of grief, revenge and the absurdity of victimhood. To say much of anything about the plot would be to give too much away. But rest assured, when you pick up the book, you will not put it down until it's finished and you’re in for a wild ride!

Elizabeth Smith is having a tough time after discovering her friend’s dead body. It’s ruled a homicide but Elizabeth doesn’t buy it. She become obsessed with proving that someone killed her friend but after no proof surfaces from her own investigation her husband convinces her that she’s likely just failing to cope with this properly and needs therapy, meds, and someone to help her get her life back on track. She hires a stunning woman named Brianna to work as her personal assistant. They grown very close and soon she’s convinced Brianna to help with the investigation into her friend’s “suicide”. But as they grow even closer it seems that Brianna may not have become a part of Elizabeth’s life by happenstance. Maybe she put herself there because she’s lost someone and is looking for answers too.

This was a well paced and entertaining read! It kept me engaged the whole way through because it reads like a juicy telenovella. I’m not sure that was what the writer was going for but that’s how it came across to me. The wild plot and overall behaviors of the characters had my eye’s widening and saying “wait whattt?” every other chapter. If the writer was going for something more ominous and emotional I think the mark was missed. It could have benefited from stronger character dev to really make their actions hold more weight and stick to the readers ribs. But if you’re looking for an enjoyable popcorn domestic thriller, this is the one!

This story has two components going on. Elizabeth Smith is an entitled housewife with a husband who works in real estate. Life for Lizzie is good! She works at the Learning Center and her best friend, Patricia, is her right arm sidekick. She was a little excited about meeting her friend for their morning walk, when she happened to notice something strange hanging in the middle of the street. Was that a pair of shoes on the ground? Were those shoes, Patricia’s? Why were they on the ground? When Lizzie looked up, she realized her best friend had killed herself. Why would a woman, who had everything to live for, up and suddenly kill herself?

On the other side of the tracks, Brianna Thompson and her man, Charles, are struggling to make ends meet. With their son, Jay, in tow, Brianna decides she’s going to nursing school to get a decent salary to provide for her family. But, as we all know, life doesn’t always go the way we initially plan.

One fateful evening, while Jay was riding his new bike in an affluent neighborhood, someone got suspicious of the African American boy and decided to call the police to investigate the matter. As a result of the matter, Jay’s life was cut short because someone thought he stole the bike.

Brianna and Charles’ world was turned upside down. The police had shot and killed their son. Jay’s death put a strain on their relationship and Charles felt suffocated and wanted out. Brianna felt the same way but only worse having carried Jay for nine months and mothering him. She’d never get to see her son’s smiling face or hear his laughter. She was robbed from so many things she’d never get to experience Jay doing. Who would call the police on her son and why?

Brianna’s grief was so deep that she became a super sleuth to find out the truth behind her son’s death, and while she was doing so, a job listing came before her that was right up her alley. Since nursing school was now diverted, she decided to become a personal assistant to Mrs. Elizabeth Smith.

As Brianna and Lizzie became closer, Lizzie started to suspect that something wasn’t quite right with her new assistant. Lizzie was still grieving the loss of her best friend, Patricia. She needed a friend and Brianna was it, until they began investigating Patricia’s murder and that’s where our story takes off.

I’m on that dreaded fence with this one. I didn’t love this story, but I certainly didn’t hate it either. There were conversations had between various characters that caused me to wonder why they didn’t ask more questions. Of course, I can’t mention those to you because I do not give spoilers, but after you read it, you’ll have a full understanding of what I mean.

Some situations seemed to have developed a lot faster than I think they should have. Again, there are things the characters were doing that caused me to question their motives and actions. At times, I felt the motives didn’t match their actions. The story seemed to drag a little for me in parts, but not enough that I couldn’t keep tapping the Kindle pages.

Overall, I did like the story. It’s weird and different. I’ve never read this author before, but I credit Koffi for having told a very sensitive subject in the most dignified way possible. She demonstrates enough to get the reader where they need to go to make decisions for themselves.

Gosh. I so wanted to like this one, and while I'm thankful to the publisher, author, and Netgalley, this one wasn't for me.

I failed to connect with any of the characters. None of them seemed to be stable or even established well enough to care about what happened to them. I also failed to fully grasp the plot. It felt like it needed an editor to add a lot of questions in the margins. And, while I am not a person who wants my stories all tied up in little bows at the end, I do want them to make sense. All the "huh?" should be answered. Those are called twists, but they should all be understood by the end. Perhaps it was because the author was trying very hard to include specific issues like racism in policing, unconscious bias, and mental health issues and focused on their inclusion over making all the pieces fit smoothly together? This felt like a good start but I could have used a bit more.

arc review

Wow, I tore through this book! Sara Koffi's writing style and tone clicked with me immediately, and I will absolutely be seeking out more from her in the future.

While We Were Burning is a tense tale about Elizabeth and Brianna. After the death of a friend, Elizabeth's husband suggests she hires an assistant to help keep it together. Brianna is hired, and the two become quick friends. From Brianna's perspective, however, there is much more to the story.

This could be a great fit if you enjoy:
- complex characters & relationships
- social commentary
- domestic/suburban suspense

This book was fast-paced, emotional, and complicated. While the sharp writing style is what I consider fun, nothing about this book is easy. The characters are consumed with hurt and grief as some relationships are cut short while others are past their expiration dates. Their decisions are made based on emotion rather than logic, and we all know how that goes.

I ate this book up! The ending felt a bit rushed, and I was left with a question or two, but my overall reading experience was very enjoyable.

Rating: I reeeeally liked it! (4.5 rounded to a 5)

This book is about two different women, both of whom have vengeance as their agenda. Brianna is avenging the death of her son while Elizabeth believes that her friend's death is murder. Elizabeth has a hard time coping mentally after her friend's death is labeled as suicide. Brianna is hired to be Elizabeth's assistant/companian. I have mixed feelings about this book. At times it was so engrossing. Through-out the book I could not figure out what the end outcome would be for both these women. The book became very intense and by the last 15 minutes I still had not figured it out. Talk about being hung on tenterhooks! I did not like the ending and thus my rating dropped from 4 stars to 3 stars. I am really eager to read other reviews about this book. I received a complimentary copy of the digital ARC from NetGalley and GP Putnam & Sons. This review is my own words.

Holyyyyyyyyy. While We Were Burning was an rollercoaster. If you are like me and enjoy reading stories about awful people, pick this one up. it was impossible to put down with its short chapters, alternating POVs and constant twists. A tale of lies, revenge, racism, and expert manipulation.

Although I wouldn’t say any of the characters *developed* throughout the story, they were fleshed out extremely well. It was very easy to become invested in their story and hooked into needing to know what would happen next. 3.5!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House, G. P. Putnam’s Sons for an advanced digital copy of this book!

The description of While We Were Burning being a twist between Such a Fun Age and Parasite is definitely on the nose in such a great way! I couldn’t put this book down and absolutely devoured it. I literally flew through it to get to the ending in anticipation. The FMC, Elibeth's life begins to spiral out of control after her best friend's death. She hires an assistant, Brianna, who helps her, and Brianna has dilemmas of her own and questions she wants answered. The two blur the lines between co-workers and friends.

The only thing I would have like to have seen was a bit more of Elizabeth's background because there are situations that make me wonder what happened to her (trauma?).

I absolutely recommend this book for the twists and turns that keep coming.

⭐️: 2/5

Needing help after the mysterious death of her friend, Elizabeth Smith hires an assistant to help her with her day to day tasks. Brianna is exactly who Elizabeth needs, and the two quickly surpass their working relationship and become friends. Soon, Brianna is helping Elizabeth look into her friends death, because Brianna needs answers too: answers to what really happened the day the police killed her son.

This book was a mess. I was excited to read this one after reading the synopsis, hoping for a thriller that provided a cutting commentary on race, class, and gentrification, but instead, this was just a heap of one-dimensional, unrealistic, and uninteresting characters with no cohesive plot, direction, or even genre. The dialogue is deeply unrealistic, using buzzwords that I, a liberal human with liberal friends, very rarely hear dropped into casual conversation, especially conversations with someone I just met. The entire plot is really just, for lack of a better word, ridiculous. The characters do things that don’t make sense, have reactions that swing from one end of the emotional totem pole to the other rapidly, in ways that, again, don’t make sense, and the whole book just reads as a deeply disconnected story that is trying to join the conversation about race and police brutality, but absolutely misses the mark on saying anything even close to revelatory, or even making any point at all really. It kind of felt like a bait and switch honestly, promising all these things and not really delivering. It’s a good thing this one was such a short and quick read, or I would have DNF-ed.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for this free eARC!

I liked the concept & the setup a lot, but I felt like the story fell flat for me. I was hoping for a dark revenge story, but it ended up feeling a little... soft?

I think I get the message the author is trying to send (it's hard to hate others up close / we're more similar to each other than we think) but I was going in expecting something with a darker/thriller edge and was left feeling a little disappointed in the direction the story goes.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions remain my own.

A thought provoking page turner!

I was hooked from the first page. With a compelling premise and a strong voice, this was a very easy read. I liked Brianna immediately, understanding her motives and the trauma driving her. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated for her, caught in between a domestic nightmare. I cared the most about her character and was rooting for her till the end. It was interesting to be inside Elizabeth’s headspace, and I can appreciate how the author was exploring the themes of “unlikeable” women, so it’s understandable why she made this woman so annoying. She was the typical privileged white woman who can’t get her shit together, and it’s a theme I enjoy in domestic suspense. The book is definitely plot driven and I found the pace steady, an easy beach read to pick up during the upcoming summer months. I enjoyed exploring the complex relationships between the women, and the darker aspects of their natures.

I would have liked a little more depth added to the supporting characters and bigger twists around the reveals. As enjoyable as it was, I wasn’t surprised by any of the character’s behavior, except Brianna’s. Her romantic choice in the end definitely added some shock value.

3.5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
For readers who enjoy an easy popcorn thriller, female friendships, and dark themes.

Thank you to Putnam's Son Publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.
An intimate look into how racism, overt or internal, impacts everyone involved. Sara Koffi weaves a devastating portrait on how racism can end the life of an innocent child and the aftershocks of such violence. Koffi plays her characters off each other while setting up for a grand reveal that left me reeling. The opening quote has lived in my mind ever since I first read it. In our current cultural climate stories of racial violence, class divide, and gendered roles are more important than ever.

This book was just okay. I wanted so much more from this book and it all fell flat. Pacing was the main issue for me and the climax was not as "high stakes" as it seemed to be.

Slow, slow burn. It took me longer than it should’ve to get through. Just did not hold my interest, unfortunately.

When Elizabeth’s friend is found dead, she is desperate to get answers. She enlists the help of her new assistant, Brianna, but Brianna is busy searching for answers to a different crime.

I loved the concept and the set up here. The first few chapters were great and then it just kind of plateaued. I didn’t necessarily dislike it, but I think there were some pretty big problems that needed addressed.

The dialogue felt incredibly forced. The story jumped all over the place and I never really felt like I had my bearings. The characters were very unlikable and needed a lot more development.

I think my biggest issue though was Brianna. She’s supposed to be doing all of these incredibly vengeful things, but her inner dialogue doesn’t seem like she has any interest in revenge at all. It just really didn’t match the storyline.

I think there was a lot of promise, but it just didn’t get there for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the ARC!

While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi suffers the problem of wanting to be and to say too much. It's a revenge story. It's a race story. It's an equality story.

The summary is as follows: After her best friend's mysterious death, Elizabeth Smith’s picture-perfect life in the Memphis suburbs has spiraled out of control—so much so that she hires a personal assistant to keep her on track. Composed and elegant, Brianna is exactly who she needs—she slides so neatly into Elizabeth’s life it's almost like she belonged there from the start, and proves herself indispensable. Soon, the assistant Elizabeth hired to distract her from her obsession with her friend's death is the same person working with her to uncover the truth behind it.

Because Brianna has questions, too."

So the setup is interesting. Two women work together to find out the truth, however one (Brianna) wants the truth of a different mystery/death. Both women, Elizabeth and Brianna were....deranged. Elizabeth in her obsession with the murder, of her husband, tries to keep all her secrets secret. However, she willingly turned over passwords and information to her new assistant.
Brianna, the assistant, is a smart...conniving woman who is powered by her grief.

Where it fails is in getting me to care about either person and either mystery. While Brianna's story is most up-to-date with today's society - it felt like a pithy plotline to make this story a hot-button issue. There's other ways to tell that story.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book has two dynamic women who both have secrets they want to hide. Poor Elizabeth may not have loved her best friend, but she knows that she didn’t kill herself. Now if only everyone else would believe her. Brianna has a past that she knows somehow is tied to the neighborhood that Elizabeth lives in so when Elizabeth is looking for an assistant, Brianna jumps at the chance to get an inside view. Two lives entangled due to one moment. A moment that changed both of their lives forever.
Overall, this book has some highs and lows. For a thriller it is a slow burn, and at the end I am not quite sure that burn is fully worth the wait. I do feel like the end is probably more realistic than most thrillers, yet still you kind of leave wishing for more. I guess I am not sure if this will be the first book I recommend when I think of this genre.
Thank you so much to Penguin Group Putnam, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.