We Were Never Here

 Andrea Bartz is the author of We Were Never Here which I listened to via audiobook. The story is about two 39 year old friends. Kristin and Emily met ten years prior in college. They travel the world together seeking experiences in Vietnam, Cambodia and Chile. Emily is quiet and unassertive. She tends to fall for mean men. Kristin is bold and adventurous and assertive. By the end we learn which one of these women is a gaslighter with a toxic personality but the road to get there was much, much longer than it needed to be. Emily says the same things over and over again. One bad memory from Cambodia has her remembering, "Stop, stop, STOP." I heard those three words so often I wanted to quit listening to the story. I kept listening because I was past the halfway mark. I think the plot was good but 75 pages could have been edited out.