In 1989, Louise had the choice between a real friendship or a hollow friendship with acceptance to the cool crowd. She chose the cool crowd and succeeded in making Maria's life hell with cruel pranks. In 2016, Louise is a divorced single mother who works as an independent interior designer and dotes on her son. One day, she receives a friend request from Maria, who has been missing since prom night 1989 and is presumed dead. Threatening messages follow and Louise has to confront her uncomfortable past and the people from it to find out what actually happened to Maria.
Friend Request is a thriller novel about the past coming back to haunt wrongdoers. Louise is pretty insufferable and spends most of her time bemoaning her teenage mistakes and mooning over her ex-husband who replaced her with a younger woman. Right from the beginning, their relationship was creepy because she said they were everything to each other and didn't bother having any friends. The way she spoke, he seemed to tell her (maybe in not so many words) that no one would want her if they knew what she did. She keeps saying how she's changed, but then goes back to those old bad habits and clearly hasn't. Her penchant for lying to police over and over after someone died is really frustrating and does nothing at all to help her.
The novel is told in chapters from 2016 and from 1989, so we get to see first hand just how Louise was as a teenager. I fundamentally don't understand her as she oscillates for real friends and fake popular friends. It's abundantly clear that Sophie, queen bee, only wants Louise as a "friend" to do her dirty work, to make fun of, and to make herself feel better. Maria wanted to be her real friend and support each other, but then Louise would be the target of those same pranks. Maria also had rumors about her swirling around her about what happened at her old school and that she was promiscuous even though she was harassed by a stalker. Louise gets more and more entrenched in the popular crowd until she commits an unforgiveable act.
Friend Request is a frustrating book with a horrible main character. She never seemed to act in her own best interests. I kept reading to find out what the horrible act was in her past and see what other secrets would be revealed. The ending wasn't suprising. I'm surprised I read the whole book and Laura Marshall's next book has to be incredibly intriguing for me to pick it up after this one.
My rating: 1/5 fishmuffins
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