My rating: 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ this was great, fun, I could not put it down!!!

Charlotte Colbert witnessed the horrific event that the tabloids called Scarlet Christmas. It was the event that changed her life. It has defined her life, and she has spent her whole life trying to avoid the black holes that the trauma has left…

Until now… 9 years later, the event she can never bring herself to think about is going to be turned into a feature film and Charlotte is terrified that the events of that night are going to get out, the ones that she didn’t tell anyone, the ones that no one knows about (or do they)… not even Charlotte herself…

She will be fighting against the clock to remember the events of that Christmas Eve before someone else can tell the story first, how hard and how far will she go to keep this secret?

First of all let me say, congratulations to the author was an amazing debut book. I am not going to lie (why would I), I requested this, it sounded juicy AF, but I wasn’t holding out much hope… its always a bit hit and miss on NG. BUT HOT DAMN this sucked me in… and held my attention into the wee hours of the morning…. That is what I want…

So no spoilers because I am gonna recommend the crap out of this one… go read it… But I will tell you what I liked.

I loved the story style, its all told from Charlotte’s (Charlie’s) POV, there are Then and Now sections and we know that I am a sucker for a now and then or a multi timeline POV so I was there for that… I love the confusion as well.. so perhaps I should say this… do not expect this story to immediately make sense. You are building up to the reveal.. you know something has happened but you aren’t going to know the full story until the story is done… thats why you read it all right?

But if you are one of those people who get lost easy in multi-timelines, and you hate feeling a little bit lost… you may not like this… I personally think this is an art. Where the author can bring you along for a full blown ride… you get in and the doors lock and you turn around in the opposite direction and are like WTF is happening… and then bit by bit, km by km (or mile by mile) you get to your destination… and then you are WOW THAT WAS SO WORTH IT…

This is like that… I felt lost in some points… I like that though I like to feel like I want to keep reading cause I HAVE to know what is happening… and I loved the dry wit and humour throughout this. Charlie’s inner monologue is not a whiny little bitch…she’s a bit of a badass but shes also sassy AF. She means business and shes gonna get her way… but she has a softness to her… you just gotta wait a minute for that.

Her gal pal Cate is a trip… shes outrageous and everything that Charlie isn’t and you love her and you hate her… but well… thats all on Cate.

There are a lot of other characters for you to meet and they all tell a piece of the puzzle and this is a puzzle… you wont have the final piece until the very end…

It wasn’t without its little things… its not perfect but I am not even going to bother mentioning the little things that blipped… it was great. I loved it and I recommended it and I would do it again…

Overall, yes read this… if you can handle all the things I said above… its great fun, its suspenseful and its tense… I was on edge!!! I loved the confusion and the unfolding of the mystery… I wanted Charlie to win… I wanted her to get through it… I could feel the pain and anguish in her panic attacks… I was there with her… I could feel her exhaustion… that is everything I want in a story… Thank you to Jenny Hollander I can’t wait for your next book already… I am here for it!!! Goodreads besties… go get this on NetGalley… (unless you don’t like the things I mentioned above then perhaps get Room for Rent, that one might be more suited - no shade only recs)!!! Happy Reading!!!
Huge thank you to Jenny Hollander (FANTASTIC debut), Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!!!

The premise of Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead, Jenny Hollander's first novel, reminded me of recent literary thrillers by Rebecca Makkai (I Have Some Questions For You) and Jessica Knoll (Bright Young Women), but this one definitely falls more on the 'thriller' than the 'literary' side. Charlie is now a successful magazine editor, but she's haunted by the events of 'Scarlet Christmas', when three fellow students died at her journalism school nine years ago. Struggling with trauma-induced panic attacks, she's well aware there are 'black holes' in her memory, and is terrified of what exploring them might reveal. When fellow student Steph announces that she is making a movie about that night, Charlie is desperate to stop it.

As a thriller, this definitely delivers, especially in the clever way Hollander withholds the exact details of Scarlet Christmas from the reader until the very end, leaving us to make our own assumptions about what happened. Charlie's PTSD is effectively explored, and I liked how her own uncertainty about what she might have done in the past fed into her shaky morals in the present - there's a sense that if she's already 'bad', she might as well do whatever she wants now. The secondary cast, especially Cate, Tripp and Gunner, were also much more fleshed out than is usually the case in thrillers. The final twist is both guessable and boring, and this is nowhere near as thought-provoking as either the Makkai or the Knoll - but I'd recommend this to fans of Andrea Bartz's The Lost Night.

#Everyonewhocanforgivemeisdead #NetGalley
Fun read.
What if everything you know about the worst night of your life turns out not to be true? Nine years ago, with the world's eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a "witness" to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve—events known to the public as "Scarlet Christmas"—though Charlie knows she was much more than that. Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She's the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie's former classmates threatens to shatter everything she's worked for, Charlie realizes how much she's changed in nine years. Now, she's not going to let anything—not even the people she once loved most—get in her way.
Loved it so much.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown Books UK Constable for giving me an advance copy.