Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Wiener

Weiner’s latest is an unabashed beach read with surprising substance in its beautifully drawn characters. Addie Downs is in her mid-thirties, living alone in her dead parents’ house, caring for her disabled brother. She has just skipped her high school reunion to go on yet another failed blind date. After a long, miserable night, she hears a knock on her door: it’s her ex-best-friend Valerie, who betrayed her in a particularly vicious way in their last year of high school, leaving Addie with deep emotional scars fifteen years later. Valerie is in trouble, having enacted vigilante justice on their mutual high-school tormentor at their reunion, and she’s looking for help. Despite Addie’s reservations she and Val take off on a Thelma and Louise-style road trip across the country, running from a broken-hearted, quirky cop who has no idea what he has gotten himself into. In a series of long flashbacks, we see what brought these very different women together, and the tragic events that drove them apart. While the story itself is lighthearted fun, Weiner’s deep understanding of grief, regret and redemption makes Best Friends Forever a compelling and rewarding read.

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Recommended by Sara D.