Lena’s Reviews > Don't Believe Her > Status Update

This story focuses on Ellie, who was dating a man named Nick, and she has a daughter named Carly. The couple and the child are living with Nick‘s mom named Marjorie. Ellie‘s best friend growing up’s name was Carla, and she disappeared late in the night one night and was never to be seen again. Allegedly however, the mother did receive a postcard from her daughter from Paris. And allegedly the police spoke with Carla after she disappeared, and because she was of age at the time they could not bring her back home.

Nick states that he hired a private detective who was able to track Carla down, and brought her back home. There are a lot of weird things that happen, and Ellie is convinced that this is not the real Carla but somebody pretending to be her.

She basically goes around telling everyone that this is not the Real Carla, as this was her childhood best friend and she knows her extremely well. Nick and Marjorie basically go around town convincing everybody that Ellie has lost her mind.

Basically, after a lot of drama, Ellie goes to the attic of their family’s home and finds the necklace of Nick‘s ex-girlfriend who disappeared. She confronts him with it, and he admits that he killed her and also killed his sister Carla. She hit him on the head with a dumbbell and runs away. The mom then takes Ellie to the well to show her something, and ends up, pushing her in.

It actually turns out that Marjorie helped Nick cover for the death of his first girlfriend, and also helped cover for the death of his sister. After dark when Ellie‘s trying to get out of the well, the woman who was pretending to be Carla shows up and proves that she was the real Carla. Nick had seen her in a hotel and thought she looked just like his sister, and had paid her to come to the house to prove to Ellie that Carla was still alive. The real Carla then tells Ellie how to escape the well by some tunnel underneath it. This was the same well where Nick’s first girlfriend was also disposed of.

Once Ellie escapes the well, her and the Real Carla have a beautiful reunion. Then they decide to formulate a plan. We basically Carla is gonna pretend to be a ghost and get her mother to confess to the murders and what happened while recording it on her cell phone. It turns out, however, that while this was happening, Nick, who actually was alive, went to go get Ellie‘s daughter Carly, from where she was and brought her to the house. He locked her utility closet. And it turns out that Marjorie, Carla, Nick, and Ellie all got into a huge scuffle upstairs in Marjorie’s room. Nick ends up, hitting his head during the scuffle, and Marjorie is able to get control of the knife, but Ellie drags her and the knife over to where Nick is and she forces Marjorie to stab Nick so he dies. The police end up coming to the house because the woman that was babysitting. Carly thought that something was wrong and called the police. They end up arresting Marjorie and taking Nick‘s body. After the scene happens, the book fast forward six months where a bunch of people attend the funeral of Nick‘s first girlfriend who was murdered by him. After this point, Carly and Ellie remain very good friends, and both of their daughters end up being close as well. Carla gets married to the man that she was dating that was the father of her daughter. And basically it’s happily ever after. The one caveat to this is that the police inspector talks to Ellie and basically says that Marjorie stated that Ellie forced her to stab Nick. So upcoming charges might happen.

Overall, the book was very annoying, particularly because of the fact that the main character Ellie handled herself so poorly, and clearly was of no intelligence at all. The way that she acted was almost like how a child would act in a similar situation. The end of the story was also hard to follow particularly the scenes between Marjorie and who she thought was the ghost of her daughter Carla. Also, Nick coming back from the dead after having no pulse was super confusing. The author should’ve just let the story end on a happy note without Marjorie trying to blame Ellie for stabbing Nick. Overall would definitely not recommend.