When We Were Worthy by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

                                                         🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:

A win brought them together, but loss may tear them apart.
When the sound of sirens cuts through a cool fall night, the small town of Worthy, Georgia, hurtles from triumph to tragedy. Just hours before, they’d watched the Wildcats score a winning touchdown. Now, they’re faced with the deaths of three cheerleaders—their promising lives cut short in a fatal crash. And the boy in the other car—the only one to survive—is believed to be at fault. As rumors begin to fly and accusations spin, allegiances form and long-kept secrets emerge.
At the center of the whirlwind are four women, each grappling with loss, regret, shame, and lies: Marglyn, a grieving mother; Darcy, whose son had been behind the wheel; Ava, a substitute teacher with a scandalous secret; and Leah, a cheerleader who should have been in the car with her friends, but wasn’t. If the truth comes out, will it bring redemption—or will it be their downfall?

The author did a good job of establishing the small town ideals and the setting of the book in just a few pages. I felt like I had lived in Worthy and experienced what it was like to live in a town with only a few restaurants and nonstop gossip.  It seemed as if the town itself was a point of view because of how the small town mentality affected the main characters. They couldn't do or say anything without someone knowing and talking about it.

I thought that the different points of view were interesting in that they added various views of the crash and how it affected each of them in different ways. I was riveted  by what each of the women had to say. It was interesting that the author put every character's flaws on display so that no person was seen as perfect. As a reader, this helped me to not takes sides on any of the issues that each of the characters were dealing with in their personal lives or with the crash itself. She presented the book in such a way that as readers we understand that there are two sides to every single story.  It felt like the author was allowing me to decide for myself what was right and wrong rather than telling me what to think. 

The author presents many issues in the book that are dealt with on a daily basis in real life and asks to the reader to look at them in a different light. When there is a car crash and the other driver lives, is it murder? Was he aware of what would happen? I appreciated what the author did by posing these types of questions. I also appreciated how she showed the differences in how people approach grief whether they are young or middle aged. This book was written in such a way that it felt very realistic, almost like I was reading someone's biography. I admired the realism of it all and was able to immerse myself in the story.  

This book was solid and the only reason that I didn't give it a higher rating is that it didn't punch me in the gut with emotions. I wanted to feel what the characters were going through along with them but found that I couldn't connect with them as much as I wanted to. I think that if there was more depth to each character that would have helped. I feel that a lot of what I knew about the Marglyn, Darcy, Ava, and Leah dwelled on the surface. I was able to see who they reacted to things but it was at times difficult to understand the emotions that led them to it.