Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - More Than You'll Ever Know

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

More Than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez

15 reviews

readsbyhope's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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just_one_more_paige's review

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emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I was looking to mix things up a little bit with my reading... This has been kind of a strange year for me, as far as reading moods go. I've been learning light and magical, but throwing in some heavy nonfiction, and all of a sudden, I just wanted something totally different. So, I grabbed this sort of mystery/thriller. It seemed like it would fit the bill of "outside my normal genre," but with an interesting and unique kind of twist (a woman leading a double life), and with a scary-level that didn't seem like it would keep me up all night (a low bar, tbh). And it turned out I was very right.

Cassie Bowman is trying to get her writing career off the ground, scouring the internet for ever more unbelievable true crime stories and that she is nominally paid to blog about. During a search one day, she stumbles on an article about Lore Rivera, who was married to two men at once (one in Texas, one in Mexico City), until she was found out and one of her husband's shot and killed the other. Cassie cannot get Lore out of her mind: How did she balance both lives? What was the weight of the secrets and lies? Why did she do it? So, Cassie reaches out. She suggests to Lore than she'll write a book about her experience, but do it from her perspective, so that Lore can tell her own story, in her own way. To her surprise, Lore agrees. And as Lore's history unfolds for cassie in their nightly calls, Cassie finds herself opening up to Lore in ways that she never has with anyone before. And together they reckon with their pasts and find it in themselves to finally face their truths.

Like I said, I was right. This had just enough mystery/thriller tension and secrets and a few final twists to keep me flipping pages to see where things would go, but not so much that it ever felt breakneck. And, it kept the plot moving and interesting while never sacrificing the development of the characters, especially Cassie and Lore. Because oh my goodness, I loved their development as it unfolded alongside the "true crime" aspects. How the characters each got to that point of drama and loss at the end, through all the tiny decisions and big decisions and avoidance of truths and pretending things are different and not knowing what to do and knowing it will end with pain but moving forwards anyways... They were so real - fully dimensional in ways that were messy and nuanced and real. It was great to see them "allowed" to be whoever they were, in all their complexities and soft spots and flaws; to own their darker parts and still be worthy of redemption and success, to deserve consideration and to tell their stories for themselves.

For Cassie, confronting her past, her memories and guilt over the decisions she made, allowed her to accept herself, and show who she really was to the people closest to her (finally), without secrets or holding back. And though I truly loathed some of the victim blaming when it happened (that is *exactly* why no one feels safe/able to talk about what’s happening to them), it does reflect reality. And the way things worked out after that felt like the "right" ending: cutting free in some places, with unclear futures in other places, but with much less suppression and compromise for Cassie herself. So, I felt better about it. For Lore, oh what a phenomenal commentary on how womanhood can be, IS, more than just motherhood. And that should be, IS, ok. While in retrospect one can see the slippery slope of her decisions and how they led to such a tragic outcome (she definitely allowed herself a few blind spots), and watching the unfolding of this story as the tension rises to a crescendo and starts to break was super stressful, there is also a clear message about how empathy - and different societal norms - may have prevented the need she felt for such dramatic choices.

Truly, I loved the way this book examined how love can encompass so much more than the typical socially acceptable patterns/expectations. And past that, how that expansion can allow a person to expand and explore (parts of) themselves in one life that they couldn’t find space for in another life. I found this read to be much more emotional than I had expected, to a level that really surprised me. I think Cassie and Lore, separately and in relation to each other, really did that. But then, the family dynamics as well, all of them, were so good. Not always happy/positive, but so well written. And that, in combination with a final twist that I really didn't see coming until right before it happened, made this a much deeper and more compelling read than anticipated.

“What happens when two people, for one night, close a great distance, and want to do it again?”

“The thing about a spontaneous act, is that the consequences are long lasting.”

“Because people aren’t just murdered in moments; they're murdered in all the moments leading up to that final act. That's what makes true crom so addictive. Godlike, you're allowed to see the intricate chain of events leading to the end of someone's life. You realize that everything you do, every decision you make, might bring you, too, closer to the abyss. Briefly, your own life feels precious.”

"It was a different kind of yearning. A nameless suspicion that there was more to herself than she'd ever accessed, and only by falling in love could she discover it, for only then do we become new to ourselves again.”

"That perhaps not every affair is about lack in the primary relationship; perhaps some are about a complement. Perhaps multiple relationships can illuminate different parts of the self, like a prism turned first this way, then that, toward the light. Perhaps to love and allow love from only one person at a time is to trap the self into a single, frozen version, and it's this that makes us look elsewhere."

“But that was all of us, wasn't it? Facades upon facades, only some were more damaging to believe than others.”

“We should be able to stop ourselves from destroying the people we love. Love itself should not be a destructive force. But I'd been reading true crime all my life: love was the most destructive force.”

“Truth is a malleable thing.”

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bootsmom3's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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dev921's review

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dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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lisasilv's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Strong female leads, some unpredictable twists, nothing too gruesome. A good read by a new-to-me author.

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onmalsshelf's review

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I got this one for my shelves right after it came out because it seemed right up my alley and finding out the my favorite bookish podcast, Sarah's Bookshelves Live, was going to have the author on as a guest pushed me to pick it up.

Overall, I'm so confused. I waited to write my review until after I listened to the interview because I was hoping for some clarity on how this was marketed. However, it didn't help. The author said she and the publishers team talked about how this is not a mystery or a thriller, but more of a literary suspense (as noted on the cover). However, it's marked as a mystery and thriller on both Goodreads and StoryGraph, which of course makes zero sense. It's also not suspenseful at all.

This is literary drama plain and simple. I'd even say at times this reminded me of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo just because it's a reporter interviewing a woman with some sort of significance and digging into details of the women's past while the reporter has questionable intentions.

Moving on, this dragged. A lot. I think this was a victim of the 2022 release curse that I've talked about in a lot of reviews - not enough editing. If this had been cleaned up just a little bit more, I think this would've been more successful for me. (Note a successful rating is 3.5 stars for me.)

I think the overall idea of the plot was genius. What leads a woman with twin sons, a successful career, and a loving husband to fall in love with and marry another man?

We all know there are many men that chose to lead secret lives with secret wives and there's maybe only one woman we know of at least in the United States that has done the same. After reading some 1-2 star reviews, it seems that many women are judging Lore has a horrible mother and wife, and I can't help but wonder if those women have judged men for doing the same thing just as harsh?

For me, Lore's story should've had more space to grow in here. What happened to her right after the murder? The time between the murder and Cassie coming to interview her? Cassie's story really didn't add that much besides showing that women can have secrets and pasts of many kinds. Plus Cassie's story did get Lore to divulge more information, but at what cost to Cassie?

I also enjoyed that this addressed the problems behind true crime writing - that it can glamorize the murderer and hurt the victim's family all over again.

The ending was probably the most suspenseful part of this one and it really shows how far family will go to keep one another safe. I loved the ending.

Overall, I'm giving this a 3.25 stars. The entire time I read this one, I was on the verge of DNFing it and that does make me feel conflicted on my rating.

Additionally, apparently the author does read reviews even if she's not tagged in them so reviewer beware.

Reviews are for readers.

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