*SPOILER ALERT – THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
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The Best of Friends – by Lucinda Berry is one of THE BEST books I have read in a long time. I had never read anything by Lucinda Berry before, but this was amazing and I will definitely be checking out more of her books.
Again, THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS.
This story revolves around three best friends – Dani, Kendra, and Lindsey – and their families. Each woman is experiencing something different in their marriages, and each one is a secret. These secrets eventually come out after one night, when their three teenage sons – Caleb, Sawyer, and Jacob, respectively, are hanging out together at Dani’s house when they get their hands on a gun.
The story takes you through the parents’ woes of trying to piece together what happened that dreaded evening and who shot who. The gun belonged to Bryan and Dani, the parents of Caleb, who swear their son would never shoot or use their gun irresponsibly or recklessly.
BIGGEST SPOILER – The boys were very drunk and high when it occurred. Caleb (Dani’s son) shot Sawyer (Kendra’s son) in the abdomen, killing him. Jacob (Lindsey’s son) took the gun and shot himself in the head, which ultimately made him braindead and killed him by the end of the book.
Throughout trying to figure out how this all happened, Dani experiences domestic violence in her home and finally calls it quits and tells once her husband Bryan physically hurts their daughter, Luna. Lindsey experiences her “perfect husband” emotionally cheating online with a woman he’s never met when they have two children at home and one in the hospital in a coma. Kendra ends up having to admit to her husband after many years that she has been giving her son Reese prescription Adderall for his ADHD even though Paul forbade it due to being against medicating children. This infuriates him as they find out their son Reese has been selling Adderall and possibly taking it on top of the secret dose his mother has been giving him all these years.
Also – who would’ve thought that two of the boys were gay and in love with each other?
A lot of reviewers say the parents seem super clueless in this book, but I find it to be pretty accurate with today’s times! There are plenty of kids that lie to their parents about where they are and what they’re doing and plenty of parents that are unaware. I thought it was perfect. I was on my toes the entire book WITH these characters trying to get down to the bottom of what happened that evening their lives changed forever.
There are so many more spoilers I could give – such as why the other children of the women (Reese and Luna) feel involved in the incident with the boys or what happens to Dani in her escape from Bryan and Lindsey in her battle of learning to let go of both her son and her husband. BUT I am SO not doing that because I want you to READ IT! I read it on my Kindle Paperwhite and I loved every second of it. I could not put it down.
I can’t wait to read more by Lucinda Berry and share my thoughts with you!
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