The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Burman, Ella. Before We Were innocent. Penguin Random House, 2023.

Before We Were Innocent is a work of contemporary fiction set primarily in the years of 2018 and 2008. Prior to 2008, a teenage girl, Bess, moves to Calabasas, CA with her parents and her brother. They had been living in England but moved to America so Bess’s mother could take a professorship. Bess and her brother, Steven, worry that they will not fit in. Bess eventually befriends two privileged girls named Evangeline and Joni, and the three form a close bond. All three worry about what will happen to their friendship after high school, and this is part of the reason why the three decide to all go to Greece together the summer before college.

While in Greece, the friendship between the three starts to sour. Evangeline becomes incredibly controlling, and Joni and Bess respond with contempt. They are all having an awful time. Bess starts to enjoy herself more when Evangeline’s brother, Theo, and his friends come because she has feelings for Theo. Theo and Bess decide to leave the island together and go on a trip in two weeks. Evangeline does not like Bess and Theo together because she feels like she has nobody in life besides Theo, and she thinks that Bess is trying to take him away from her.

One night Joni tells Evangeline about Theo and Bess’s plan to leave the island, and Evangeline leaves the villa where they all have been drinking heavily. Bess follows her, and the two argue. Bess leaves. Shortly after she realizes that Evangeline has fallen to her death. She runs to her friend. She does not know this, but Joni had been with Evangeline when she fell. Joni tells Bess that she will help her out by saying that all three of them were there when Evangeline fell, but really it is herself she is helping because if they were all together, then she was not alone on the cliff with Evangeline.

The press finds out what happens, and they paint Bess and Joni in a very negative light making them appear to be promiscuous, cruel, and heavy partiers. This is part of what convinces the Greek judicial system to hold the two for murder. Bess and Joni are held in a notorious Greek prison for months until the judicial system decides there is not enough evidence to prosecute the girls, and they are sent home.

Once home, Bess begins to withdraw from the world, eventually moving out of her parents house to live her life in seclusion. Joni, meanwhile, builds a public name for herself giving motivational talks about how to move on from traumas. She tries to help Bess, but she is unable to.

Almost ten years later, Joni shows up on Bess’s doorstep asking Bess to lie about the two of them spending time together on a night when Joni’s girlfriend, Willa, disappeared. Joni lies to Bess and tells her that she had been cheating on Willa. In reality, it was Willa who was having the affair. Joni assures Bess that Willa disappears at times to stir up drama but that she always returns. Bess lies to the police for Joni, and eventually Willa’s dead body is found.

Joni and Bess do not become close friends again, but they do both live temporarily in Joni’s house as the press circles them. Eventually Bess begins to wonder whether Joni killed Willa. She is not charged because there is no real evidence against her. There is suspicion that Willa’s lover, Lucien, may have killed Willa. Eventually Joni goes missing, and Bess does not know what happened to her. She thinks she may have left on her paddleboat to leave Bess to live her life in peace, but she questions whether Joni could ever actually disappear like that. There is speculation that Joni could have been killed by Lucien as well. The novel ends without the reader knowing the fate of Joni.