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As this friendship drama opens in June 1977, four teens go out on the town to celebrate their recent high school graduation. But only three—Sue, Gail, and Donna—have dreams and goals with a semblance of normalcy. Carol shows her true colors at the bar, stealthily stealing cash and valuables from unwatched bags. Her appalled friends cut off their friendship and don’t see Carol again until 1982. Rumor has it that Carol has found success as a business executive, but the rumor is far from the truth. In the meantime, the tale turns to Carol’s exploits in various jobs, where she embezzles funds by day and steals from unsuspecting men she meets in bars at night, resorting to a lifestyle shored up with the ever-abundant alcohol and cocaine of the era. While Carol’s friends meet the loves of their lives, marry, and have children, Carol’s sociopathic approach to life attracts men on the same level who use and abuse her liberally.
Vallario’s casual prose and the late twentieth-century settings make this an accessible and familiar story. The writing in this debut novella is sometimes a bit uneven, but Carol’s gradual but enthusiastic freefall into criminal behavior, peppered with hot sex scenes, makes for an interesting plot with fascinating character development. The author creates relatability by having Donna eventually experience drug addiction and rehab, too, though under different circumstances, making the character keenly aware of Carol’s burgeoning battle with addiction. True friendship is shown in the narrative as Donna insists that Carol goes to rehab after a death-defying bout with an overdose, and later, in 1989 when Donna also engineers a difficult intervention that may change the young women’s four-way friendship forever. Fans of Vallario’s tale of addiction and consequence will hope to see more fiction from this debut author.