Girls’ Night Out: A Novel

After reading Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke’s book The Good Widow, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of Girls’ Night Out. Although I found the story to be entertaining and suspenseful at first, I quickly lost interest because it seemed as if the same facts were being repeated over and over again. The story is written from the perspectives of the three main characters: best friends Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, who have had a major falling out and who decide to take a girls’ trip to Tulum, Mexico, to relax and rekindle their friendships. The reader is given before and after points of views and is written around an incident in which Ashley disappears. Natalie wakes up on the beach not remembering what happened the previous night. Lauren had left Ashley and Natalie at the bar and had gone back to the hotel that night. So where was Ashley and why wasn’t she answering her phone? From there, the pieces of the story are given to the reader through the eyes of the characters. A new character, Marco, is thrown into the mix as a mysterious local character as well. Do we trust him as a spiritual guide or is he a scam artist? I found each of the characters to be well described, and each had his or her own distinct personality. Each one also had an interesting and realistic backstory. I felt the story could have used more twists instead of ending the way it did.