I Trust Her Completely

by Christine Henneberg

Josie is a queer, single, quietly observant writer in San Francisco who is committed to creating a family--alone, if necessary. When she’s reunited with her old college friend Radhika—an abortion doctor, mother of twins, and newly successful writer—the two women rapidly form a bond around intentional motherhood and shared ambition. Enthralled by her friend’s brilliant self-assurance, Josie grows hungry for Radhika’s approval and praise. But Radhika harbors her own troubling convictions about autonomy and sacrifice—and the more Josie trusts her, the more she risks being devastated by her friend’s bold and dangerous choices.


From physician and award-winning memoirist Christine Henneberg, I Trust Her Completely is a smart, provocative, suspenseful debut novel exploring female friendship, abortion, ambition, and radical choice. For readers of Sally Rooney, Anne Patchett and Carmen Maria Machado, I Trust Her Completely is the Mother’s Day novel for this moment.

274 pages, Paperback

Published April 22, 2025

About the author

Christine Henneberg is a writer and a physician who practices women’s health and family planning. She earned a BA in English and Creative Writing at Pomona College and an MD/MS from the UC Berkeley - UCSF Joint Medical Program. Her essays have been published in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Boston Review, Slate, and elsewhere. She lives in California.

Reviews

[Sophie Schott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in one sitting. The characters felt so alive and I had to know what happened next. The author has a brilliant grip on women, mothers, and daughters—and their relationships with each other and their bodies. Would read again.

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, well written and thought provoking book about women’s friendship, motherhood and choice. I will be digesting and thinking about the characters and story for a while. Also love that it was set in San Francisco

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is moving and thought-provoking, taking readers into the lives of several women, each of whom offers a different model for how to make family, and how to make oneself. A book about motherhood, friendship, the search for validation, and the necessity of making hard decisions, I Trust Her Completely pulls you into its main character’s journey and makes you consider the trajectory of your own. Recommend!

[Joseph Pfeffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Trust Her Completely is a subtle, nuanced, quietly paced novel centering on women's choice. Not just the choice of whether to carry a pregnancy to term, but the choice of how to live, of what to do with their talents, dreams, and ambitions, of how to relate to each other, whether to involve themselves with children at all. Christine Henneberg has made her reputation with articles and reviews in publications like The Atlantic and The New York Review of Books. You might have expected her first novel to be a thinly disguised screed for reproductive freedom in the time of anti-abortion backlash centering on the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

I Trust Her Completely is nothing of the sort. Christine Henneberg, herself a gynecologist specializing in problem pregnancies of both the physical and emotional kind, writes with extraordinary empathy and compassion about women's complex feelings toward he children they conceive, carry, and either bear or miscarry. Her narrator and protagonist, a thirty-year-old lesbian named Josie, is determined to have a child through artificial insemination - IVF or IOI - and raise the child on her own. Josie's best friend is Radikha, a college classmate who has become a gynecologist not unlike Christine Henneberg.

Like Henneberg, Radikha believes almost militantly in women's right to choose. At the same time, she is devoted to and at the same time annoyed by her own fraternal twin children. And Radikha has secrets, which become painfully clear by the end of the book. She and Josie meet by chance more than a decade after college graduation, and the supremely accomplished and confident Radikha becomes a kind of mentor to the troublingly indecisive Josie. Partially through Radikaha's intervention, Josie ends the book more sure of herself and what she wants to do, though at near cataclysmic cost to both women. Along the way, Josie develops an intimate relationship with Radikha's nanny Mercy, who offers to share in the raising of the daughter Josie will give birth to.

The point here is not to rehearse the compex plot and continually changing interactions among Josie, Radikha, Mercy and the other women in I Trust Her Completely. The point is rather to highlight the extraordinary and emotionally resonant impact of Henneberg's writing, her rounded, three-dimensional presentation of characters that seem real and human, her fairness and even apparent bias to those who hold opposite views on reproductive rights from Henneberg, at least in her published writing. If the book has a weakness, it's that it has no male characters of anything like the depth of the women. But that's not the kind of book Henneberg is writing, and it doesn't feel like a defect as the women's relationships become deeper and more fraught with contradictory emotion.

I Trust Her Completely is a book to read with love and wonder. Christine Henneberg never serves up easy solutions, even when the reader might wish for them. Instead, she leads us to think and feel deeply and, like her characters, make choices we can make only on our own.

[Atlas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Trust Her Completely by Christine Henneberg
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5/5)
💌 Huge thanks to the lovely author, Christine Henneberg, for the complimentary copy! 💌

Okay so... this book? Ate. Like, truly devoured me whole and left me laying on my floor whispering “what just happened.” 😭📖

At first glance, I Trust Her Completely feels like a quiet literary novel—two women reconnecting, sharing big ambitions and bigger feelings—but underneath? It’s intense. It’s messy. It’s bold. And it lowkey shook me in ways I’m still trying to process.

💭 Quick Vibe Check:

• Josie: Single, queer, trying to build a life that matters. She's a writer who feels so real it hurts. Like, I’ve journaled her thoughts before.

• Radhika: Abortion doctor, mom of twins, glam chaos in a brainy package. I’d fall for her too, Josie. That’s on being hypnotized by confidence.

• Their friendship? Obsessive. Inspiring. Uncomfortable. Complicated AF. 🌀

What I LOVED:

• The raw honesty. This isn’t one of those polished, sanitized stories about female friendship. It’s real. It’s unbalanced. It’s uncomfortable in all the right ways.

• The writing??? SO good. Like sit-in-your-feelings-on-a-bench-in-SF-and-question-your-life good.

• Reproductive freedom & choice. It handles abortion and motherhood with nuance and guts and doesn’t flinch.

• San Francisco as a mood. Like, this book is walking the Great Highway barefoot at golden hour while crying and pretending you're in an indie film.

TROPES / THEMES:

• Queer female friendship

• Obsession disguised as admiration

• Fertility, autonomy, and the choices we actually get to make

• Artists vs. academics

• Motherhood, on purpose and in theory

• “Am I in love with her or do I just want to be her?” (yes.)

Final Thoughts:

This book had me spiraling in the best way. It’s about wanting things—people, babies, praise, control—and realizing how little of it we ever really get. It’s about women making impossible choices in a world that demands they do it all. And it’s about the kind of friendships that feel like fate but might actually be just another form of longing.

If you’re into complicated women, morally blurry vibes, and gorgeous writing that punches you gently in the face? Read. This. Book.

✨ Bring tissues. And maybe sunscreen. You’ll wanna cry-read it by the ocean. 🥹🌊

[Kiana Mastelloto · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Life isn’t something that just happens to you. You have to make a life. You have to deliberately shape it and construct it.”

I Trust Her Completely by Christine Henneberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Josie, an aspiring writer and mother, faces the challenges of choosing to become a single mother. On the other hand, Radhika, a mother of two, faces the challenges of balancing parenthood and her ambitious goals. Their paths intertwine and unravel a heartbreaking and touching journey.

This book is for all the mothers, moms-to-be, and moms with babies in heaven. The story will bring tears to your eyes and make you appreciate the little moments in life. Some of the tropes include motherhood, single parenthood, facing difficult life choices, and queer love.

Thank you to the author Christine Henneberg for the gifted copy!

[Crysta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very real exploration of female relationships. Motherhood, daughters, friends, lovers, and the complicated fissures that form between the self and those you love and want to be there for. This novel is a tribute to hope, loss, grief, and the potential and possibility life is paved with. It asks the characters how they navigate these aspects of their lives and begs us to ask the same question of our own lives and the decisions we've made to get where we are. I am glad to have picked this up, especially at the time in my life that I did. Definitely recommend.

[Susan Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. I loved Josie and could also see myself falling under the spell of Radhika. The writing is beautiful and I felt instantly transported to familiar spots in San Francisco. I’d love to take a walk along the Great Highway then sink into a beach chair and read it all over again!

[Anne Evans]

A beautifully written story about a powerful but unequal friendship between two talented
women--one balancing medicine and family--and the other a writing career and desire
to have a family. Captures perfectly the dilemmas faced by young women today as they
try to carve out a meaningful life. Anne Matlack Evans

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this short novel about two adult friends navigating parenting, pregnancy, and love. It's very well written, provides deep nuanced insights into pregnancy and abortion, and has compelling characters. It also nicely captured parenting fears during the pandemic. All in all, great read!

[Rachel Fleishman · Rating 5 out of 5]

People say fiction is the lie that tells the truth. This beautiful nuanced book offers compelling stories of women's health through a realistically fraught friendship between imperfectly human women.

[Jana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, nuanced story of motherhood, agency, friendship, and the decisions we do and don't get to make in life.

[Jordan Douglass · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book i typically go for but I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it. It was beautifully written. #GoodreadsGiveaway

[Malika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book through a giveaway. It is not my usual genre but I enjoyed it! It's very relatable as a woman and as a mother. I recommend it and it's a quick read as well.

[Sonal · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting read
keeps your attention
so a little disappointing in the end

[Christine Henneberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

:)

[Niklas Braun · Rating 5 out of 5]

fuck Rad, what an asshole

After everything, looking back, I'm not really sure what Rad was trying to accomplish with Josie. Obviously get her to finish her novel, but she was a terrible friend. She was almost trying to mother Josie herself!

She's a bad mom imo. Reasoning be damned

I'm confused about the ending. Cancer comes back and they go straight to comfort care, not trying to fight it?

Struggling to think about Mercy's goals in the end. It does kind of feel like she's floating and "playing house"

I really liked this book.