My Readers Guide to We Were Never Friends by Kaira Rouda is QUITE the unhinged story of sorority friendships turned toxic. This guide contains a character list, spoilers and the ending explained. Plus answers to my questions and yours!
Readers Guide to We Were Never Friends
Table of Contents (click to open)
Jen’s Quick Take on We Were Never Friends
Character List for We Were Never Friends
Spoilers for We Were Never Friends and The Ending Explained
Jen’s Quick Take on We Were Never Friends
- You know I love a good Friends With Secrets story, and that’s what this was
- Entertaining, catty, and just a little cheesy, this is a quick read and a brain candy book
- Kaira Rouda loves unhinged characters, as we learned in last year’s Jill Is Not Happy
- Readers who need developed characters and realistic events might want to look elsewhere, but if you are looking for a distracting book, We Were Never Friends could be for you!
- Publication date: February 3, 2026 by Poisoned Pen Press. Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy!
Character List for We Were Never Friends
- Roxy Callahan Gentry: former sorority president hosting a weekend for her sorority besties
- Amelia Dell: rich widow
- Jamie Vale: double-legacy pledge, now a cardiologist
- Beth Harris: scholarship student and former roommate of the late Sunny
- Ryan Gentry: Roxy’s husband
- Zachary Gentry: Roxy and X’s son
- Celeste Harris: Zach’s fiance and Beth’s daughter
- Brett: Amelia’s date for the party weekend
- Greer: Jamie’s husband
My Thoughts on We Were Never Friends
This book was slightly cheesy but fun and reminded me a bit of The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand. This book features an engagement celebration instead of a wedding, but has many of the other elements: a diva mother-in-law to be, a sweet bride-to-be attending with her mom, sorority friends of the grooms parents in attendance, and a dead body floating in the water. Who is it? Who killed them? You’ll have to wait to find out.
Overshadowing the event is the death of the sorority friends’ beautiful and vivacious friend Sunny. Is her mysterious death at the Desert Sunrise, the girls’ spring break getaway during college, connected to the murder in the present?
Secrets are spilled, betrayals and resentments come to the surface, and dark deeds will be revealed.
Go into this with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the ride!
What Was the Ending of We Were Never Friends by Kaira Rouda?
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Ryan dated Sunny in college and was deeply in love with her.
What Happened to Sunny?
- But Roxy also loved Ryan. So she drugged Sunny one night during their college trip to Palm Springs and stole Ryan’s room key so she could lure him to her room.
- Sunny fell into the pool.
- Jamie found her in the pool, but left her to die. Sunny knew about her drug addiction.
- Amelia actively pushed her under, because Sunny was going to get her kicked out of Theta Gamma Mu for unpaid dues.
But Ryan crashed in Beth’s room the night that Sunny died, and they slept together. This made me VERY concerned that Celeste and Zach might be half-siblings. But fortunately not.
A grieving Ryan later slept with Roxy. When Roxy told him she was pregnant, they got married.
Amelia knew that Roxy roofied Sunny and has been blackmailing her ever since.
Decades later, a still-grieving Ryan created Gentry House to resemble the Desert Sunrise, the place Sunny died.
Ryan also has a new girlfriend who looks just like Sunny. He coaches her to pretend to be Sunny to scare the women.
Ryan hated Beth and hated himself for sleeping with her the night of Sunny’s death. Which is why he manipulated his son and Beth’s daughter to meet, so that he could cut Beth out of Celeste’s life.
Who Ends Up Dead in We Were Never Friends?
Besides Sunny, Amelia dies after she crashes her car into a tree.
Jamie murders Brett by poisoning his Gatorade. He’s been her drug dealer since college and she will lose her medical license if he exposes her.