A review by sarahmatthews
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander

tense fast-paced

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by

Jenny Hollander

Read on audio

Narrator:  Marisa Calin   Macmillan Audio

Pub. 2024, 292pp

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I heard about this book in the days when I was still getting recommendations from #BookTwitter and couldn’t resist the mix of murder mystery and the magazine industry! It’s been sitting on my list for a while and when it came to choosing a new read this title jumped out. I wasn’t feeling too well and was in the mood for something fast paced and twisty to get lost in for a day or two. 

It’s about Charlie, who was involved in a traumatic incident in college where 3 people died and has put it all behind her and started a successful career as an editor in New York. Secrets are bound to be uncovered about her past…

I found this to be overall a good read though I had a few moments when I felt I knew the kind of reveals that were coming. I didn’t mind too much as the story zipped along and the characters were interesting enough to keep me reading. Charlie was a classic unreliable narrator and so I just immersed myself in the audiobook (slightly speeded up which added to the feeling of thoughts racing!) and let it all wash over me. I’d definitely recommend reading this in a short space of time as there’s so much going on and the writing is designed to be disorientating and claustrophobic. The dual timeline worked effectively but if I’d stopped reading for a bit and returned to it I think I’d have felt a bit lost.

I found the depiction of someone wrestling with their traumatic past, trying to uncover details through therapy that their brain has hidden from them for self preservation, very gripping to read for the most part. The sense of Charlie spiralling out of control was handled well.    

My main criticism is the ending which wrapped it all up a little conveniently, as if the writer wasn’t quite sure how to get to a resolution and wrote what they’d like to happen to leave all the characters in a good place in their lives, which didn’t quite fit with the rest of the book for me. A great premise that didn’t quite deliver.