This wasn't the best in the series. Stories 1,2, and 3, with 3 being my absolute favorite were the best in my opinion.
This and the mermaid one were the least favorite for me.
However, this one was interesting and hekd my attention right up until the woods at the end. It is deeper than it appears, however.
We have sympathy for Lauren who's treated horribly by her drunken mother, who just seems to hate her just like some parents seem to hate their children or pick a favorite one and abuses the other. So there's that.
No one can really blame her for wanting a different life. She seems passive and her friend is abusive as well. She does stand up for herself (yay!) at one point and then caves for her manipulative frenemy.
Does she go into the haunted woods? We don't know until later. And we never know what really happened as two versions appear to be fantasies of someone's overactive imagination
Does Lauren steal Elena's life or is it really like what she said - Elena wasn't there anymore so she just took it over and who could blame her?
But the ending changes our empathy toward Lauren when we get a glimpse of the real her and all our empathy vanishes.
I think, also, we can infer that Elena had feelings beyond friendship for Lauren, which may explain why she dumped her two best friends to hang out with the emo, plain Jane "weird" (according to one jealous and suspicious, meangirl ex bestie) Lauren.
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