Did you read We Were Never Here and need a plot summary? Want to discuss spoilers? What was with the ending of We Were Never Here! If you are looking for info and someone to talk to about the book, you are in the right place! Here’s my Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for We Were Never Here!
Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for We Were Never Here
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CONTENTS OF THIS SPOILER DISCUSSION FOR WE WERE NEVER HERE:
Plot Summary for We Were Never Here
The Ending of We We Were Never Here Explained
Spoiler Discussion for We Were Never Here
Where to find the new Prologue For We Were Never Here – no, it’s not in the book!
Plot Summary for We Were Never Here
Kristen and Emily, who met in college and are now almost thirty, are on a weeklong trip to Chile. Kristen has been living in Australia and Emily in Milwaukee.
Every year the two take a trip to an “exotic” location. Emily is still a little jittery after being attacked on one a past trip to Cambodia by a fellow tourist, Sebastian.
She and Kristen met him in a bar (using the fake names Nicole and Joan). Emily took him back to their room, but he got rough and started assaulting her. Kristen returned to the room and hit Sebastian with a metal floor lamp, killing him.
They weighted the body, threw it in a river, and fled the country. Kristen seems to be unbothered by all this, but Emily is (lol) nervous and anxious.
Emily and Kristen bonded in college.
Kristen tragically lost both her parents in a house fire. Emily is not close to her family and admits to a history of choosing controlling men. But she’s excited about Aaron, a new guy she’s just started dating. He seems different from her usual bad picks.
On the Chile trip, Kristen suggests that Emily quit her job so they can travel together for six months. Emily says no. She’s busy at work and has just started dating Aaron.
On the last night of their trip, Kristen and Emily go out for dinner. When Emily comes back from the bathroom, Kristen is talking to a guy, again pretending to be “Nicole.”
Kristen takes the guy back to their room and Emily waits at the bar. Then Emily realizes her wallet has been stolen. Emily rushes back to the room and finds Kristen with the guy’s body. Kristen says he got rough and when she had to defend herself, she killed him.
Kristen and Emily manage to get the body into the car and drive to a remote spot to bury it. The next morning they each fly home, Emily to Milwaukee and Kristen to Sydney.
Aaron, Emily’s new guy, surprises her at the airport and notices all the dirt under her fingernails.
Emily is still feeling on edge after this second incident. She decides to start therapy even though Kristen discouraged it.
One evening Emily’s doorbell rings. It’s Kristen, in town visiting her grandparents. She’s acting like everything is completely normal, which freaks Emily out.
When Emily drops Kristen off at her grandparents house, Kristen’s grandma insists that she and Emily trade contact information.
For Emily’s 30th birthday, Kristen plans a scavenger hunt and helps Aaron pick out a gift – a wallet that looks exactly like Emily’s stolen one. The scavenger hunt ends with Kristen in an SUV ready to take Emily to her grandparents’ lake house.
Emily begins to wonder if Kristin had convinced her that Emily’s ex-boyfriend Colin was controlling when really the controlling one was …Kristen.
Kristen’s grandma sends Emily an article about Paulo, the guy Kristin killed. His body has been found and his wealthy family has put up a reward.
The next day Emily takes a walk in the woods and sees Kristen’s initials carved into a tree with the initials JR, which have been crossed out.
When they head into town a shopkeeper tells Kristen that Emily resembles Kristen’s childhood friend Jamie. Kristen is evasive about Jamie but reveals that Jamie died in an accident. Kristen also says that her mother wasn’t supposed to be home the night of the house fire that killed her parents.
Emily reflects that five people close to Kristen have died. Also, Kristen said she was “good at building fires.” In a box, Emily finds a school yearbook with Jamie’s face crossed out.
Emily researches a therapist Kristen mentioned seeing as a child and learns that she specializes in working with emotionally disturbed children.
Then Emily discusses Kristen with her therapist and then Kristen shows up in the waiting room. Kristen loves codes and puzzles. Emily finds a clue in her birthday card from Kristen that leads her to an online photo of Emily with Sebastian, the guy Kristen killed in Cambodia. Um, happy birthday?
Kristen finds Emily’s research about Jamie and Kristen’s therapist and confronts her. Kristen insists that she wasn’t the one who killed Sebastian. She says it was Emily.
Freaked out by Kristen’s gaslighting, Emily decides to leave town on a weekend trip to Phoenix with Aaron. She’s horrified to see on the news that a witness account of a girl with brown hair and an American accent who was seen with Paulo.
Kristen then turns up in Phoenix and she and Emily argue. Emily pushes Kristen off a cliff but then helps her up to safely. Kristen then pushes Emily in the path of a car. The car swerves, knocking Kristen off a cliff, the goes over the edge. The driver was Aaron.
What Was the Ending of We Were Never Here? (Spoilers Ahead!)
Jamie’s mother turns up to see Kristen in the hospital. She tells Emily that Jamie was being abused by her coach, who was Kristen’s father. Also, Jamie was the one who started the fire and then killed herself two weeks afterwards.
Kristen dies. Aaron has no memory of the accident. The media and the public harasses Emily but there’s not enough evidence to arrest her for Paulo’s death, or to charge Aaron and Emily in Kristen’s death. In addition, the police found roofies both in Paulo’s system and hidden in Kristen’s suitcase.
Emily decides to do a media interview to help pay Aaron’s medical bills.
Aaron and Emily go on a trip and Emily introduces them as Joan and Dan.
Spoiler Discussion for We Were Never Here
First off, WHOA: there is a prequel to We Were Never Here that you can read!
Thanks to Tayler for pointing out that back in November, a couple months after the book was released, Cosmo magazine published a prequel to the book. You can read the prequel here.
Question: Why were Aaron and Emily calling themselves Joan and Dan?
Possibility A): Emily is afraid of her name being recognized in conjunction with the Paolo incident and decides to use her murder alias, Joan.
Possibility B): Emily is actually the one who killed Sebastian. Maybe she lured Kristen to Phoenix to kill her? Maybe she got a taste for murder and she’s the one who’s the psychopath.
I think either is arguable, and maybe there’s an option C – tell me in comments!
I’m going with option A. Early on, I was hoping that Emily would be a more interesting character who was actually manipulating Kristen. But as I got to know Emily better, I’m not sure that’s possible.
What Did You Think of We Were Never Here?
Was Kristin the evil one, or was Emily? Or were they BOTH?
At the beginning, I thought We Were Never Here had a lot of promise. The middle of the book kind of fizzled for me. The ending left me confused.
Was Kristin a psycho murderer or just a misunderstood and unlucky person who lacks social skills?
Was Emily someone easily taken in by Kristin, or was she the mastermind manipulating Kristin?
At the very beginning, I thought Emily might have hidden depths, and that the twist might be that SHE was the psycho murderer. But it’s hard to have an unreliable narrator in a first person narration. And since the book is from Emily’s POV and we are privy to all her thoughts, I soon abandoned that theory. BUT maybe you disagree?
Maybe the reason Emily was SO slow to realize that Kristin was a controlling weirdo was because Emily was actually the one manipulating Kristin? This would have been a cool twist but the book didn’t set it up at all. UNLESS YOU READ THE PREQUEL and then it all makes a lot more sense.
I hope you read all the comments because some of you have really interesting theories!
Thanks for stopping by my Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for We Were Never Here!
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If you liked this book, you might want to check out The Weekend Away, which has a similar vibe.
If you’v read The Weekend Away and want to talk spoilers, or the book vs. the March 2022 Netflix adaptation, come over to my Spoiler Discussion Post for The Weekend Away!
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I had a theory that maybe Emily used the alias Joan and Dan to sort of honor Kristen in a way since they used to do that together; She probably still missed her best friend!
Ooh, I like your theory!
There were two things that bothered me that (I think) went unanswered. Where did Kristen go in the car that night in Chile when she left Emily randomly in the desert for a half hour to “go down the road”? And why did Kristen kill Palio at all? She just liked to kill people?
Hi Amy – there were a lot of things that bothered me. I guess Kristen was just a psychopath who killed guys and then claimed they had attacked her.But what about that weird ending? Is Emily taking up where Kristen left off? idk this one was just too strange for me…
I think Tessa is right about why Kristen killed Paulo. Emily had just told her that she couldn’t go traveling for 6 months with her and told her she had a boyfriend. Kristen felt like she was no longer needed/wanted by Emily and therefore did whatever she could be needed again. Because she’s a psychopath it didn’t bother her to kill someone in order to get what she wanted. However, I’m unclear why she decided to bring rohypnol in the first place. That makes it seem more premeditated.
I never thought much about where Kristen went in the car. I thought she was just making sure that no one else was near by and could see them. But what Tessa says about being a clear indication of her taking control makes sense.
I think Kristen killed him cause she knew Emily didnt *need* her anymore and was choosing Aaron over her. So she thought if she killed another guy it would break Emily enough to lean on her again(like the previous year after the Sebastián incident.) She needed emily to need her and was psychopathic enough that she didn’t care if she had to take a life to fit her agenda.
I also wondered where she went when she drove off but in hindsight Emily did say something about Kristen “regaining control” so maybe that scene was just thrown in there to show Kristen taking over again?
I was very confused by the ending and have no input on that though. It gave the vibes that they were gonna kill that chick, but it didn’t match up with what we knew of the characters at all. So i kinda just feel like it was a last minute decision the other added to kinda leave things hanging and make people talk.
Ooh that is a good theory. And yes, lately a lot of thrillers are going with the epilogue that leaves things hanging 🙁
I guess it gets people talking but mostly we are saying huh?????
I just finished the book and after thinking about the ending for the last hour I have finally decided what I think it means: Emily is in fact the serial killer.
Here is my reasoning:
I would have believed that the use of the aliases was more innocent if the last scene was simply a tourist introducing herself and Emily and Aaron giving fake names. But the book specifically included details about this woman saying she was traveling alone and hadn’t reserved any rooms in advanced. Now you would expect Emily, given her past travel experiences, would warn this woman that that wasn’t safe. Instead she says “we just love meeting new people.” This line in context comes across menacing. It sounds like something a serial killer would say, like she’s just identified her next target and is now trying to lure her out of the bar.
We were nudged to believe Kristen was a psychopathic serial killer after hearing about how many people around her died. But towards the end we learn that neither her parents’ nor Jamie’s death was her fault. The only two murders she was involved in were of Sebastian and Paulo. And if we now consider that Emily killed these men then Kristen is no longer a serial killer but an unlucky girl with two murderous friends (although that still is quite the coincidence.) Or maybe she was equally psychopathic and Emily turned on her when she worried Kristen would turn her in.
In order for this theory to make sense we also need to then assume that Emily, as the narrator, has been lying to us. At the end we learn that she has done a TV interview, recounting her and Aaron’s entire story and also that she has hired a skilled lawyer. The story she told us throughout the book might not be her internal thoughts but the lie she carefully crafted to tell in the TV interview. The narration then shifts to tell the real story in the last chapter. Why? Maybe because this takes place after the interview occurs therefore not part of the lie or maybe it was just the best way the author could think of to give her twist ending.
So if we now assume that Emily is an unreliable narrator, we can only trust the things that police would be able to determine from sources other than Emily and Aaron (because they may be lying psychopaths) and Kristen (because she’s dead and can’t confirm.) We know that Sebastian and Paulo both died after coming into contact with both Kristen and Emily. We know that Emily’s parent’s and friend Jamie’s death were not caused by her. We know that Aaron’s truck knocked Kristen over the cliff yet Emily was unscathed.
I want to hear what others think! Anything I missed or evidence that indicates otherwise? I’m still trying to make sense of some of the story.
Wow – I love this theory so much! It makes the ending make so much more sense. But I can’t decide if a) that’s what the author intended and she just didn’t make it very clear or b) the author left things really murky and you just made sense of it all.
What about the wallet that went missing? I feel like that could have been a huge twist that never came to fruition. Like, Emily find her missing wallet in Kristen’s belongings or something. I’m so torn on who the real psychopath is here!!
Love reading these theories!
Hi Kayce! If that was explained I also missed it. Was Kristen just trying to make Emily more dependent on her? Did Emily “lose” her wallet on purpose (as I said in my discussion I am open to Emily being the psycho, but also think it’s hard to have a first person narrator lie to the reader unless they have a serious mental illness and can’t distinguish fact from fiction.) What happened to the wallet???
do you think maybe she wanted to look like a victim so she lost it on purpose? Aaron may have been in on it when he bought her a new identical wallet (maybe they pre planned to lose it to make her seem like just an innocent bystander getting a wallet stolen). This of course backs up the theory that Emily is the killer all along. Maybe she planned to lose the wallet and give Kristen more time to roofie Paulo and kill him (because Kristen was manipulated into the whole plan)
Anything is possible. I’m not sure this book really holds together for me.
I agree. I was waiting for the missing wallet to come into the story and it never did.
I took the ending as though Emily had some sort of Stockholm syndrome. Jamie’s mom said Kristen had the ability to make others think they did things since she was a child. I think the end confirmed she did convince Emily that she was the killer even though she wasn’t.
Ooh, interesting observation/theory.
The story Jamie’s mom told didn’t seem believable to me. I thought Kristin killed her parents, planted the diary and had a hand in Jamie’s death. Kristin was committed to the mental hospital, it wasn’t a normal treatment for mental health.
Thanks for the review and theories. I agree with others regarding loose ends that were never followed up: the missing wallet, why Kristen insisted in driving off by herself in Chile, etc. It’s almost like the author planned to have these be plot points but forgot about them.
The ending came out of left field. It makes no sense that Emily and Aaron would be planning to kill the innocent tourist. Let’s say Emily was a psychopath (and unreliable narrator), why would she tempt fate again and somehow Aaron would be fine with it? You’d think she’d count her lucky stars that she met the love of her life and was able to live a semi-normal life once again. I think the author threw the ending together just to get people talking. It worked!
So true. Even if we are taking about it in confusion it did work!!
But she did say their brains were entwined – something she also said about Kristen! Like she’s found her next partner in crime? Im
very confused about the fire. Kristen said her mum wasn’t supposed to be home, like she didn’t know she was. But Jamie’s mum said Kristen wouldn’t have done it if her mum was home. I thought this was proof Kristen did it and was frustrated when this wasn’t followed up!
Ok so there’s an additional prequel chapter that was released in a magazine from the point of view of Kristen in Cambodia. I read the book and then the prequel and here is my theory:
The prequel tells us where Kristen was before she went to the room where Emily and Sebastian and how she was targeted and some other backpackers tried to pickpocket her. She then went to where Emily was and the chapter cuts. I believe she walked in and then Emily did kill Sebastian here. (Because of the Jamie story she convinced herself that Kristen had just made her believe this) She was then afterwards such a good friend to Emily and for the year between the two trips it wore her down and Kristen was so drained she wanted Emily to go through what she went through. Obviously Emily had gone through major trauma and couldn’t be a good friend to Kristen and it hurt Kristen because it reminded her of losing Jamie (Jamie has also gone through a trauma and then did something rash and pulled away I’m sure)
Kristen then had premeditated the Chile murder because she wanted to recreate what happened but switch the roles. That’s why she stole Emily’s wallet, did the exact same fake names and brought Paulo back to her room. She drugged him so that at the exact moment Emily walked in she could murder him. I think when they were hiding the body and she drove away for a minute either it was her freaking out for real – she has just killed someone for the first time – or it was her “not being their” almost in the way Emily wasn’t there for her after Emily killed the first guy. Having the non killer have to clean up after the best friend.
After the second murder, Emily just pushed even further away instead of stepping up for her hurting friend. Kristen didn’t expect this because she though Emily knew how much it hurt having gone through the similar situation. This led her to become even more unhinged and led her to threats and manipulation. She had a problem with control due to her childhood trauma and whenever she felt fear she thought the opposite was power, hence, control.
This explains the mind games and even after all of that Emily was still running away from her. She followed them to Phoenix I assume to hurt Emily. Make her feel the pain she felt. Perhaps she brought the roofies to use on Emily, cause injury, and then convince her that Aaron had hurt her. And maybe she also would have killed Aaron saying he had drugged Emily and hurt her and Kristen had saved her (so that Emily would be in debt to Kristen again).
But it is in this moment that Emily realizes she did kill Sebastian and is a killer and should be regarded as dangerous. This is why she pushed Kristen off the cliff, but the murder was self defence and she realized she didn’t actually want to be a killer, so saves Kristen.
The end bit is where this stumps my theory a little. Since Emily herself was a victim of childhood abuse, physically from her father and neglect from her mother I think the abuse cycle continued. After Kristen’s death she seems to treasure the friendship more than she had in the past year. She was clinging on to it and replaying it in her mind, the bond they shared. Now with her most important relationship, Aaron, she had said she was on more of a friendship level with him. Then they are suddenly on vacation, acting more like lovers but we have no insight into their relationship. I’m assuming Aaron was pulling away a bit. As he suffered in his own right and is reminded of how he accidentally killed Emily’s former best friend who Emily brings up in conversation a lot (the book hinted to this). This whole situation is similar to the dynamic of Kristen and Emily after Cambodia. This then triggers something in Emily, wanting to create that special relationship with Aaron like she had with Kristen. And that would explain the last few sentences of calling herself Joan and saying they love meeting new people.. she plans to create a new trauma bond with Aaron.
— this may have been a stretch but honestly I like my version better. If I’m way off base it’s because I thought this book was a little boring and had to find a way to figure out the end lines
Okay WHOA this theory makes sense as much as anything about this story can make sense, I guess. I’m going to have to read this comment a few times (and the prequel) and absorb. I’ll link to the magazine piece in the post – thanks so much for letting us know about it. Looks like it was published after the book, so maybe either it was left out in editing, or added when the reviews of the book were like huh?!?!?!?
I DO think the whole “Kristin recreating Emily’s murder” thing makes a LOT of sense (in a really messed-up kind of way) but the book would have been so much better if we’d understood that while reading it lol. You DID make the book much more interesting with your theories.
I’m SO glad that made sense to you! I just finished it last night and had the prequel saved because I knew the book was on my list! So at the end of the book I’m like huh? And then the prequel I’m like… huh? Haha. I too found the book rather dragging in the middle.
The prequel thing is strange (I mean publishing a prequel in Cosmo after the book comes out, not the prequel itself). Was it just promo, or because the book wasn’t getting great GR ratings? Books picked by Reese often get (or have) movie deals. I feel like this one is a bit convoluted to be a movie, but you never know…
I think with some more editing and connecting of dots, this could have worked. If you’ve read Reckless Girls, that is (to me) a similar story that makes a bit more sense at the end.
Please ignore my spelling, it is very late and this was a major brain dump to get my thoughts out after finishing this book.
Happy to edit any spelling mistakes though I did not see any 🙂
I enjoyed the book but found the ending REALLY annoying. It just doesn’t fit with anything. To me it doesn’t fit no matter who the actual murderer/psychopath was. Because what the heck would Aaron have to do with anything? And why would it even be okay with Aaron (given his characterization) to be introduced as “Dan?” Aaron as characterized throughout would be more like “whoa” at being falsely introduced than squeezing Emily’s hand. As far as I’m concerned, just some poor choices on the part of the author.
That is a good point. I loved Tayler’s insights from the Cosmo prologue on the weird Emily/Kristen relationship, but why would Aaron be on board for all this? He thinks it’s some kind of spicy role play lolol?!?!?!