We Were Never Here

We Were Never Here, published in 2021, is Andrea Bartz’s third novel in the thriller genre. Her novels came out in quick succession; the first, The Lost Night, was published in 2019, and the second, The Herd, in 2020. In 2021, Netflix picked up We Were Never Here for a film adaptation, and the novel was selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club.

Although the novel begins as a thriller about a murder committed in self-defense, it quickly morphs into a story about the obsessive Kristen Czarnecki’s attempt to maintain control over her long-time best friend, Emily Donovan. As the twisted story unfolds, Emily is forced to interrogate her ideas about friendship, gender norms, sexual assault, and memory, all while attempting to evade a criminal investigation and Kristen’s increasingly myopic—and dangerous—attention.

Plot Summary

Emily Donovan and Kristen Czarnecki, best friends for a decade, are enjoying their final day of a vacation in Chile when the novel opens. A year previously, they met with disaster on a trip to Cambodia: A fellow traveler named Sebastian attempted to rape Emily and was only stopped when Kristen suddenly came in the hotel room and hit him over the head before kicking him repeatedly until he died. Then, afraid of dealing with unfamiliar international law enforcement, the two friends snuck the body out of the hotel and tossed it into a river. Although Kristen now lives in Australia, she diligently called Emily on a daily basis when the two went back to their everyday lives, allowing Emily to talk through her trauma and fear of being caught.

By the time the pair arrives in Chile a year later, Emily’s mental health is on the upswing, and she is almost back to her old self. She is taken by surprise, however, when Kristen suggests that the two take six months off for an epic multi-continent backpacking adventure. Emily politely declines, citing her desire for stability and her new relationship with a man named Aaron. That night, Kristen begins flirting with a stranger, Paolo, at a bar and takes him back to the hotel room. Emily gives them some time to be alone, but when she returns to the hotel room, she finds Kristen crying on the floor, with Paolo lying dead in a pool of blood behind her.

Kristen explains that Paolo tried to rape her and she was forced to hit him over the head with a bottle of wine to save herself. The blow killed him. Emily, stunned that history has repeated itself so soon and so exactly, collects herself and helps Kristen haul the body to the trunk of the rental car, dig a grave in a remote desert-like area, and carry Paolo’s body to it. When the women return to their respective homes, Emily is a bundle of anxiety, but Kristen seems bizarrely cheerful and unbothered in texts and calls.

Emily attempts to return to her job and her relationship with Aaron as if nothing is wrong, but she struggles to keep up the façade when Kristen suddenly arrives on her doorstep mere weeks after their return from Chile. Kristen explains that she was fired from her job in Australia and that she now stays with her grandparents, who were her legal guardians ever since her parents died in a house fire when she was 12. Kristen soon meets Aaron and expresses approval of him, but she interrupts Emily’s time with him on multiple occasions. All the while, she continues to act as if nothing happened in Chile while Emily struggles to hide her guilt and fear.

Kristen’s intrusions escalate on Emily’s birthday, when she plans a complex scavenger hunt that culminates in a surprise trip for the two of them to her grandparents’ lake house. This getaway weekend leads to a series of alarming revelations. First, Emily learns that Kristen’s childhood best friend, Jamie, died when the girls were 12. Kristen describes the death as an “accident,” but Emily finds out that it was a suicide—and that it occurred not even a month after Kristen’s parents died. By the end of the weekend, Emily has begun to suspect that Kristen was involved in both her parents’ and Jamie’s deaths and that Paolo’s death might not have been self-defense after all.

Meanwhile, Chilean authorities have found Paolo’s body and are investigating his death with the aid of American law enforcement, as Paolo was American. The growing tension between the friends increases when Kristen reveals she has a photo of Emily and Sebastian together and threatens to send it to authorities whenever Emily refuses to see her or take her calls. When Kristen finds out that Emily has been investigating her past, Emily knows she has to get away from Kristen’s anger and accusations. She and Aaron plan for a brief trip to Phoenix.

Emily and Aaron have just settled in Phoenix when Kristen shows up in their hotel lobby. The women begin arguing, and Aaron excuses himself to give them privacy. They walk outside the hotel to a nearby cliff’s edge. As the conversation gradually makes clear that Kristen will do whatever it takes to keep Emily under her thumb, Emily suddenly shoves her off the cliff. Kristen survives by grabbing onto some shrubbery on the cliff’s edge, and Emily helps pull her back up. In retaliation for the push, Kristen shoves Emily into the nearby road just as a car approaches, but the driver turns out to be Aaron, who swerves when he sees Emily, leading him to hit Kristen and careen off the cliff.

Jamie’s parents show up at the hospital where Emily is waiting for doctors to give her news on Kristen and Aaron. When Jamie’s mother gets a vague idea of the dynamic between Kristen and Emily, she tells Emily about Kristen’s past: Kristen’s father repeatedly sexually abused Jamie, so Jamie tried to kill him by setting fire to the Czarnecki house on a night she thought both Kristen and her mother would be gone. The two were home, though, and Kristen’s mother died while Kristen saw Jamie at the scene. Jamie died by suicide shortly after, and Kristen went to a mental health facility for children.

Back at the hospital, Emily learns that Aaron will survive and recover with physical therapy, but Kristen died. She confesses everything to Aaron, who connects her with a lawyer his family knows. The police are already investigating Kristen and Emily’s connection to Paolo, and Emily’s lawyer crafts a statement explaining that Paolo’s death was solely Kristen’s doing. The media picks up the story and makes Emily’s and Aaron’s lives a nightmare of press attention for several months, but eventually Emily learns that she will not be charged for Paolo’s or Kristen’s death. She and Aaron take a trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, to celebrate. In the final lines of the book, they meet a solo backpacker, and Emily introduces herself with the same fake name she and Kristen gave to both Sebastian and Paolo.