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marci_travels 's review for:
Before You Knew My Name
by Jacqueline Bublitz
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was our June book club read. It's not a book that would normally be on my TBR list, but that's why I love book club. It pushes me to read books that are important to read, even -- or especially -- if they are not ones I would pick up.
The story is reminiscent of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones with a dead girl/ghost as narrator. It also carries vibes of the Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta series -- really, any series where there is a need to have the dead be seen and heard and remembered for their life and not just their gruesome end. Alice Lee, just 18, and Ruby Jones, 36, arrive in New York City on the same day. We follow their parallel lives as they adjust to the city, and try to make sense of the dumpster fire of the lives they left behind.
From page 1, we know that Alice dies. The story is not in the death, but in the lives the two women had before they met, how their lives intersected, and Ruby's future she witnesses some of the dying and all of the aftermath.
Not an easy story to read, but an important one.
The story is reminiscent of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones with a dead girl/ghost as narrator. It also carries vibes of the Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta series -- really, any series where there is a need to have the dead be seen and heard and remembered for their life and not just their gruesome end. Alice Lee, just 18, and Ruby Jones, 36, arrive in New York City on the same day. We follow their parallel lives as they adjust to the city, and try to make sense of the dumpster fire of the lives they left behind.
From page 1, we know that Alice dies. The story is not in the death, but in the lives the two women had before they met, how their lives intersected, and Ruby's future she witnesses some of the dying and all of the aftermath.
Not an easy story to read, but an important one.