Never Have I Ever: A Novel

I LOVED this <b>4.5 Star</b> psychological thriller! It was a total cat and mouse game which kept me on the edge of my seat, reading way past my bedtime.<b>SUMMARY</b>Amy Way loves her life! It's a fairly simple one; she's a dive instructor in Pensacola, FL, very happily married, step mom to spirited15 year old Maddie and mom to eight month old Oliver. She lives in a middle class, family centric neighborhood and has many mom-friends. She has a very tight bond with her BFF, Char, who is one of her favorite people in the world.Life is pretty nearly perfect except for a secret Amy has kept buried in her past. It is both her hidden shame and biggest regret. Although it happened more than 25 years ago, she still thinks about it almost every day.One evening, a beautiful stranger, who has moved into the one and only neighborhood VRBO, shows up for Char's book club meeting. This stranger, Roux, manages to hijack the meeting, get everyone to drink too much and then, after most of the women leave, she convinces the remaining drinkers to play a version of <i>I Never</i>. Amy finds this very unsettling. Although she works hard to avoid answering any questions, she feels she has been singled out by this game. Maybe it's just guilt over her secret, but Amy feels Roux trying to corner her. Additionally, she finds out a few things about her neighbors that she really would rather not know. Pretty soon it becomes clear that Roux is not what she seems.Told from Amy's POV, the story flips back and forth between the past, recounting Amy's secret, and the present as she and Roux face off against each other in a battle for everything Amy holds dear.<b>WHAT I LOVED</b>I really loved Amy! She was the kind of main character you wanted to see win in the end. As an overweight, marginalized teenager with an unrequited crush on her handsome BFF, it was so darn easy to sympathize with her. I desperately wanted her to find moments of happiness and of course I wanted the BFF, Tig, to love her back as more than a friend. Their personalities just clicked, it could have been great! Then, as the adult Amy; the one who had lost the weight, found herself and found the real love of her life, I wanted her to be able to hold on to this life. I loved how she managed to match wits with slippery Roux and hold her own. I loved how fiercely she loved not only her own baby, Oliver, but also her step daughter, husband and BFF Char. I completely admire that type of loyalty and the ability to love fully. She has definitely made a HUGE irreversible mistake or two in her life, but she knew it, she lived with it and suffered deeply from it. She really did try to set things right. It was one horrible mistake in an otherwise quite decent life.I also loved Maddy. She was a spunky fifteen year old girl who called her step mom her "step monster" or just "monster" for short and it was truly a term of affection. I have an admiration for spirited girls both in literature and real life. They are just more fun.The next best part of the book was the suspense. I kept thinking it was close to being done but then another twist would come along and I would realize there was more to come. I actually had to force myself to stop reading one night / morning when I realized it was 5 a.m.! I kept waiting for a good stopping point and never found one. I could not stop!! The ending was not at all what I expected!!! It took me by surprise!<b>WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE</b>There was one part near the very end that was pretty disturbing. I could have been just fine not having that in my head. Yuck. I don't want to say anything else about that because it leads to a big twist and it would be a huge spoiler.<b>OVERALL</b>Minus the part I mentioned above, this was a great story. It would make a fantastic book club selection; so many themes, moral and ethical grey areas to discuss and the characters would be so fun to dissect.

I'm torn on how to rate this book. It started off with a bang. Amy is a dive instructor and a suburban mom living the good life when a new woman in her neighborhood shows up unexpectedly at book club night. From there, things spiral into a drunken game of "never have I ever" with long reaching consequences.Both Amy and Roux (the interloper) have nasty secrets buried in their past. When Roux turns to blackmailer, Amy is forced to go to extremes if she wants to keep her happy life. The cat and mouse and one-upmanship between these two is exceptional, with twists and turns bouncing off the walls. Midway through the book there is a major bombshell that had me struggling to pick my jaw off the floor.The narrative moves at a brisk pace and the plot is well-crafted. When all is revealed at the end, the subject matter left me a little....erm, less enamored of the story, but it was all so well-executed that it comes down to a matter of personal taste.I'm going to go with 4 stars because of my personal feelings on the big reveal, but my guess is that most will rate this a 5-star read. I would definitely read this author again.

An OK story about a Suburban Mom with a tragic history she is desperate to keep hidden. In walks a mysterious new-comer to their safe little enclave of Mommies, book clubs and petty rivalries. Inevitably, the Mysterious Stranger (of course) brings trouble and mayhem in her wake.And that’s the fundamental flaw embedded in “Never Have I Ever” - as a reader we’re expected to swallow a LOT of pretty improbable coincidences. The main one being that a random con artist who makes a living blackmailing people just HAPPENS to connect with our Heroine’s old flame who was the reason for her tragic past actions who also just HAPPENS to track down her old lawyer (and steal his car) and find out that our Heroine has a massive trust fund. Meanwhile our Heroine just HAPPENS to be BESTIES with someone who just HAPPENS to also be part of that tragic past history... it’s all a bit much. Not to mention a sub-plot about both spousal and sexual abuse.And that’s my other problem with “Never Have I Ever” - women in this book are all-good (meaning married, chaste , loving and pregnant or breast-feeding) or all-bad (meaning single, sexy man-eaters who end up being child molesters with vague lesbian undertones).So, in the twisted logic of this Stepford world - it’s not OK to call the police if you think a woman has kidnapped her son so she can take him overseas as part of a custody battle - but it IS OK to kill her if you discover she’s not really the kid’s mother and she’s having what appears to be consensual sex with him.Women who have affairs are bad (nearly kissing someone is NOT bad but ACTUALLY kissing someone is VERY BAD) Women who chastely long for their old high-school boyfriend and call him in the middle of the night and text him all day are NOT BAD. They are, in fact, VERY GOOD if they eventually block the old boyfriend’s number and stop late-night texting him, especially after they make a very nice speech about much they love their husband and new baby.Sigh. There’s also some pretty serious homophobia here that was had to read - characters literally recoiling when being touched by someone of the same sex (followed by frantic speeches about how much they like men) - and a lot of snide remarks about someone’s husband who is “just too pretty” . Bleah.It all ends up more Lifetime movie material than a serious thriller.

This book started slow, but eventually heated up with plot. I physically became anxious reading it.You can't put it down.

I love this author and have read almost all her books; however, with "Never Have I Ever" she's changed genres and this books is a lot darker than the others lacks substance. Hopefully her other newer books are better. I certainly won't give up on her as she is one of the best fiction writers I've come across.

Este será o primeiro thriller que lerei em inglês e estou muito animada. Vi várias pessoas falando sobre e o booktube também me influenciou bastante. Amei a edição.

Das Buch ist klebrig und dreckig. Mehrere Eselsohren sind auf verschiedenen Seiten. Ausserdem isind viele Seiten wellig, als ob es im Wasser gelegen hat. Das Deckblatt hat unten rechts auch ein Eselsohr. Ich habe mich wirklich geekelt und finde es prima, dass ich das Buch nicht zurückschicken muss und mein Geld zurückbekomme.

4.5 stars. Wow. If you think you know what this book's about, trust me, you don't.It all started with a bunch of women getting together for a monthly book club. There were all the usual suspects; all mothers who gather for book club but are really there to get away from their kids for a few hours. The only exception is newcomer Roux who has a teenager and no desire to read. Every one is taken with her and they quickly begin playing her favourite game, Never Have I Ever. At first, all I could think about was how far away their lives were from my own. But then, Roux silently unveiled Amy's big secret, the one she's been hiding for twenty years.At this point, I thought this story was going in the direction of domestic thriller. I was thinking Desperate Housewives, with a pretty suburban street full of secrets. This was so much more. There were twists and turns coming out of everywhere, many I didn't see coming. Jackson's writing was bordering Hitchcock. Turns out I didn't know Amy, or Roux, or her son, or Amy's friends. Literally everyone had a massive secret. The only innocent (and mildly boring character) was Davis, Amy's husband.Amy Whey was a typical housewife on the outside, content on cleaning her home and playing with a baby all day. Inside, she was strong and controlled when it came down to it. Instead of panicking and bowing down to a blackmailing criminal, she decides to blackmail back. Every time I was convinced there was no way out of her situation, she found a illegitimate way. When I thought she had won, the tables turned again. Finally, a thriller with teeth.The only thing that kept the book from full marks was the length. There was an awful lot of filler paragraphs which basically involved Amy thinking. She rehashed how much she was going to loose if her big secret came out over and over again. She fretted about her stepdaughter becoming a hoe over and over again. Thankfully, the author finished up with a nail-biting ending that was very satisfying. This would make a great TV series, with each little tidbit coming out with each episode. I really hope this gets picked up.Borderline perfect. Recommended.

This was an excellent thriller. Written very tautly and has wonderful character development. There were many twists and turns that kept you guessing. Disturbing part in the ending.