Everyone Knows How Much I Love You

by Kyle McCarthy

At age thirty, Rose is fierce and smart, both self-aware and singularly blind to her power over others. When she moves to New York, she is unexpectedly swallowed up by her past, reuniting with Lacie, the former best friend she betrayed in high school. Captivated once again by her old friend's strange charisma, Rose convinces Lacie to let her move in and the two, now roommates, fall into an intense, uneasy friendship.

While tutoring the offspring of Manhattan's wealthy elite, Rose works on a novel she keeps secret -- because it stars Lacie, and details the betrayal that almost turned deadly. But the difference between fiction and fact, past and present, begins to blur, and soon Rose finds herself increasingly drawn to Lacie's boyfriend, exerting a sexual power she barely understands she has, and playing a risky game that threatens to repeat the worst moments of her and Lacie's lives.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook, Friendship

269 pages, Hardcover

First published June 23, 2020

About the author

Kyle McCarthy is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, American Short Fiction, and the Harvard Review, and she has received support and grants from the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Lighthouse Works, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toxic rivalry and obsessed relationship dynamics between girlfriends: Single White Female meets Roommate.

The plot line is a little familiar and I think so many authors lately picked up this kind of obsession stories and turned them into girls’ cat fight, blended with cheating, lies and secrets. And of course it gets dirtier at each page!
This book’s strengths are author’s writing style keeps your attention alive, intact and you never lose your interest. The opening was intriguing and ending is also fascinating. I just got my Arc yesterday and as soon as I finished my other book, I dived into and finished a few seats and coffee-munchies- Pinot Noir breaks later!

The weakest part is unlikable heroine Rose ( of course she is the obsessed one! It’s really hard to root for Jennifer Jason Leigh when you watch Single White Female who turns into a sociopath!) But when you read the narration of Rose and get tours inside her head, at least you wish to understand her motives and you deserve to be given specific reason why she is batshit crazy and why she is so focused on her dear friend Lacie and everything she has in her life because even though she considers herself unlucky, she comes from wealthy family and as far as I saw she doesn’t have a traumatic experience and she insists she is broke but she has no proper job financially supports her! (And she is freaking 30! Not in her twenties and have no idea what she is going to do with her future!)

The story starts with Rose’s moving to NY and bumping into her old friend Lacie At Bryant Park. She betrayed her friend and they got estranged. But slowly Rose gains her trust again and Lacie offers her to share her house. In their early relationship at high school, you may guess Rose is the intelligent but shy one as Lacie attracts full attention and hangs with popular groups. Her strong charisma is Rose’s kryptonite and right now nothing has changed.

Rose starts tutoring a wealthy elite’s child and starts working on her novel. And of course it is about Lacie and her boyfriend. But those novel parts confused the hell of me because it was really hard to differentiate between reality and fiction.

Overall: As I mentioned before, I enjoyed the conclusion. Familiar plot is well-written: Its pace slow down and got blurry at Rose’s novel parts but at least it reached somewhere logical. I went back and forth between 3 and 4 stars because heroine irritated me so much but I decided with 3.5 rounded up 4 stars as usual because as a debut novel: it was better than more stories I’ve read lately. And even though most of the authors picked this subject, I always enjoy the dark obsession and stalker stories.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House publishing/Ballantine Books for sharing this ARC with me in exchange my honest review.

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[MarilynW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone Knows How Much I Love You stars Rose, a woman who thinks nobody notices her. She's awkward, weird (but I think the weirdness is almost forced because she thinks so much of herself, all the time), extremely intelligent, and a high achiever in so many areas, while thinking she is a loser. The thing is, she throws away opportunities and brushes off the big, good things that happen to her, in order to indulge in her obsession with her best friend, Lacie. 

Best friends since the age of ten, Rose has always been jealous of Lacie. Lacie is the one boys noticed, even if they were teasing her in their younger years. One way to become "closer" to Lacie is through Lacie's boyfriends, in the way that betrays Lacie the most. But Rose has no guilt over what she does to Lacie and Lacie's things...she'll go through all of Lacie's belongings, invade Lacie's life in every way possible, sleep with Lacie's boyfriend and more. Because of what happened with Rose and Lacie's high school boyfriend, they don't see each other for twelve years. I don't understand why Lacie would let Rose enter her life again, at the age of thirty, especially when it seems stalkerish that they run into each other twice in a short time. But Lacie lets Rose live in her apartment, shares her things with Rose and seems oblivious to Rose overstepping boundaries, right and left. 

There is a book within a book aspect to the story since Rose is writing a book about Lacie and their life, from the time they were ten. I personally think it will be a boring book since Rose is boring to me. Lacie is fine but I'm sure that only Rose thinks this book needs to be written but that's the thing, Rose is really writing this book for herself, everything is about Rose when you come down to it. Rose is a wrecking ball of obsession and destruction and a boring one at that. 

Published June 23, 2020

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and NetGalley for this ARC.

[Michelle]

I'm going to set this one aside.

Listen, I love love love stories about toxic female friendships. Social Creature and Necessary People being two of my favorites so I was excited to check this book out. Sadly, from page one, I knew this wasn't going to be for me. I just couldn't get a handle on Rose or Lacie. Talk about two boring women.

Funny that in this book Rose is writing a novel and that novel is about what went down between her and Lacie. When she is discussing her draft with her agent her agent has this to say:

"I just don't understand the stakes of the story. I don't get the why of it. Why does this book need to be written?"

And that's exactly how I felt as I was reading this. DNF @ 25% - no rating.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine book for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Katie B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the most satisfying novel I have ever read. Whatever point(s) the author was trying to make went completely over my head. My 3 stars is probably a little generous in terms of how much I truly enjoyed reading this book.

Thirty year old Rose has just moved to NYC. She is writing a novel but to pay the bills she is tutoring privileged kids of the city's hoity toity folk. Much to her delight, she has reunited with her childhood best friend, Lacie, after years of estrangement. You see Rose did something bad while they were in high school. Even though Lacie appears a bit apprehensive about rekindling their friendship, they become roommates. Aww, isn't it great when you get a second chance?

The author got to work early on giving the reader some pieces of the puzzle when it came to Rose. So I was getting a feel for her and that's what led me to start asking the question, where is the author taking me? Well, the answer is nowhere, at least in my view. Again, I feel like I didn't pick up on the author's intent when it came to the story and character.

There are some thriller and suspense elements to the story but I think the book best belongs in the fiction or literary fiction category. It's a character driven novel which normally I like, but Rose didn't do much for me. This might not make sense to anyone but myself, but I would describe Rose as being somewhat interesting but not fascinating. Might have to look and see if the author has given some interviews discussing the book because I would welcome more insight.

I would be open to trying another book by this author even though this wasn't a great read for me.

I won a free copy of this book in a giveaway by LibraryThing and the publisher. All thoughts expressed are my honest opinion.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

***NO SPOILERS***

Everyone Knows How Much I Love You contains some of the best writing I've ever read, but I nevertheless didn't love the book so much as admire it. The genre is literary fiction, but many details seem to indicate it's auto-fiction. Writers are frequently advised to "write what you know," sensible advice but one I believe should be interpreted as, "Use your own life as inspiration."

Because this debut by Kyle McCarthy appears to contain many autobiographical details, I was distracted trying to decide what was true and what wasn't and was unable to picture the main character as anyone other than McCarthy. It was therefore impossible for me to be immersed in or really comfortable with Everyone Knows How Much I Love You despite being swept away by the masterful writing.

The narrator is Rose, a mentally unstable woman obsessed with her childhood friend, Lacie, and Lacie's boyfriend, who's their mutual friend. This isn't the first time she's been obsessed with one of Lacie's boyfriends, as shown in a few flashbacks to the girls' childhood. The women's adult relationship is tense and a little shy but amiable overall.

As the story unfolds, it comments on feminism both subtly, in this main story of Rose and her obsessions, and directly, in a few of Rose's exasperated comments about a student she tutors. I was impressed by McCarthy's light touch with this theme; the commentary is never very obvious but not so hidden as to be missed entirely. This is a fine balance many authors fail to achieve.

This character-driven story is unusual, and the simple plot is tight, not a word out of place, not a single extraneous scene or irrelevant sub-plot. The cast of characters is small and fully developed. McCarthy is a master with words, her beautiful sentences flowing smoothly into the next, metaphors and similes imaginative and totally effortless.

Everyone Knows How Much I Love You only needed some feeling. Although Rose endures a lot, McCarthy never made me feel her struggle. I was a passive observer, sympathetic and intrigued but not moved. To become beloved in my eyes, a story needs to be both exceptionally written and strike some emotional chord. Nevertheless, I'll likely read McCarthy's future work. She's obviously remarkably skilled, a writer who approaches writing as an art, not just a way to make money and get famous. I expect her future work will only get stronger.

NOTE: I received this as an Advanced Reader Copy from LibraryThing in August 2020. As always with ARCs, this did not influence my review in any way.

[DeAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Now available *
3 toxic friendship stars

Picture our main character, Rose, she’s 30, a Harvard graduate, winner of several writing prizes, working with an editor on a book, and living in New York. Sounds like a super successful young woman, right? However, she is obsessed with her childhood friend Lacie, they’ve been estranged for years, but Rose has just met up with her again in New York. It seems that Rose is so obsessed that she wants to BE Lacie, she’s writing about her in the book, she cons her way into moving into Lacie’s apartment, she wears her clothes, and goes after her boyfriends.

I was hoping for a dual perspective story here, it would have been interesting to get the take from Lacie’s point of view. I just wasn’t completely sucked into Rose as a character, in fact I found her very unlikeable, and this one left me wanting more. The books I read don’t all have to enlighten me, but this one didn’t seem to have much of a message for me. There’s a bit of a mystery with what happened in high school to Lacie’s boyfriend, but that is glossed over.

The ending seemed a little flat, so I have to say that overall, I was disappointed in this one. As this is a debut novel, I hope that the next book from this author is more compelling.

Thank you to Kyle McCarthy, NetGalley, and Random House/Ballantine for an early copy of this one to read.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

We have an abundance of novels right now about complex female relationships, from friendships to mentorships and everything in between. Most of these books are about some kind of unspoken obsession, the one plain one being pulled into the orbit of the charismatic and beautiful one. There are so many of them now that it might as well be its own genre. Which means there are plenty of good ones and plenty of bad ones and you don't really know what you'll get. But the bigger the genre gets, the higher the bar is for a book like this to be considered "good." Because the competition gets steeper and the tropes start to feel more and more played out. I probably would have liked this book much better if I'd read it 5 years ago. Now it feels too much like one of many for me to really enjoy it.

At first, this book acts like it is one of the extra-dark entries in this genre, one of the ones where we push past the edge and go straight on into violence and copious self-destruction. But it only ever flirts with that line. Yes, things went wrong between Rose and Lacie as teenagers, but instead of finding out details that make it even more than we suspected, it ends up being even less. A prologue like this one, where a violent act is dangled in front of us, should lead us to find the full details are even juicier than we thought once we're fully invested in the story. Instead it is a letdown, something that is often the case, the prologue being there more to get your attention than something that really makes sense in the narrative structure. (This happens SO MUCH now that I almost feel bad calling it out in this book specifically. I am incredibly tired of the dangled-violence prologue as a way to make a slower narrative seem more interesting.)

The book exists in what I think of as Not Real New York City. It isn't fantasy, really, this version of the city does exist, it's just that it only works this way for a very small number of people. People who have large condos where they never worry about making rent, people whose circle of friends are made up of artists and writers who work at The New Yorker, people who get into impressive residencies and fellowships, people who went to fancy colleges. Our protagonist is one of these people though she doesn't think she is one. Despite having no real income she never worries about money in a realistic way (like many of the people without money in these Not Real NYC novels, she vaguely alludes to maxed out credit cards at one point, but otherwise she seems to move through a money-less world). Everything just seems to work out to her in a way that feels dubious and unreal, especially for someone who's 30 rather than 20. She makes general statements that are so far off reality I couldn't tell if it was the narrator who didn't understand the world or the author. (For example: notes her friend is a rare single woman who can cook (????) and notes her parents are the rare boomers who don't just throw money at their children (??????).) This type of Not Real NYC novel is not uncommon, but I lose more and more patience with it in each one I encounter. Especially since we do occasionally see a glimpse of reality poking through, a recent example would be HEX by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight, the first NYC book in a very long time that felt like it took place in the real NYC. (It is also a complex/obsessive female relationships novel. Like I said, there's a lot of them.) If we'd had a better sense of reality I think it would have brought the book to life a little more.

We need something to bring it to life because the dynamic where the narrator is obsessed with a more interesting person is one that comes with so many built-in flaws that it rarely succeeds. It is hard to describe what makes another person charismatic. McCarthy is better at this than most, she may not get the reader to believe that Lacie is interesting, but she gets us to believe that Rose thinks she is interesting. It is also hard to have a protagonist whose sole motivation is this more interesting person. While it appears that Rose has other motivations (romantic and career-oriented ones) these are actually false motivations, they are just extensions of her obsession with Lacie. It leaves Rose feeling very flat, and her actions become so extreme that we need something more to latch on to, to feel propelled forward with her. To get pulled into her obsession and motivation. Instead she becomes more distant and more unlikable the more time that passes.

What I liked. One thing I appreciated is allowing the usual subtext of obsession as actually being a form of romantic love or lust and making it text. The subtext version is boring and can even verge on queerphobia when you make something so similar to love or lust without ever letting it be that. The prose is sometimes incredibly sharp, though it doesn't always hit its mark. I also found that the idea that Rose is more interesting than she realizes is a good way to turn the trope on its head, though I don't think she fully sees it through. I would certainly be interested in reading more from McCarthy, she is able to propel you forward, build momentum in a notable way. (Otherwise I wouldn't have finished the book!) I just want to see her take on more interesting and unique material instead of something that feels like a retread.

A lot of my complaints here are complaints I have about many many books. It isn't really this book's fault, it isn't doing any of these things more egregiously than is already very common. It just happens to have several of them all coming together, which only makes the whole thing snowball.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone Knows How Much I Love You by Kyle McCarthy is a peculiar book that looks deep into female friendships while also touching on the lives of the wealthy people of New York. It's on the short side at under 300 pages but it was a slower read for me and I don't know exactly how I feel about it.

One thing that can be said is that I couldn't tear myself away from this book. I found that I only wanted to read this until I finished it (I usually read more than one book at a time), and Rose is such a vile creature that it was a little like a train wreck. I didn't find her likable at all and because of the writing, I wasn't a huge fan of Lacie either. I loved that the present intertwines with the past, and you also get a bit of a coming-of-age story in the pages. It is told entirely in the head of Rose and I honestly don't know if this made me like her more or less. Overall I thought she was awful, but there is just something about her that also makes you feel sorry for her.

I think that Everyone Knows How Much I Love You can definitely be considered a slow burn, and it was in the vein of Necessary People which is a book I really enjoyed. The vibe of this book is different, but the overall themes I saw were female friendships and obsession. Obsession books don't always work for me which could be why I got settled on a 3/5 for this one.

For a debut I thought Everyone Knows How Much I Love You was pretty impressive, and McCarthy definitely has a very unique writing style. Even though I didn't love it, I definitely want to read more from her, and I will make sure to grab her next book when it comes out. I will be recommending this to people that I think it will be a good fit for, and you should check it out if it sounds appealing to you!

Thank you to the publisher for my advance review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

[Terry ~ Huntress of Erudition · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awkward, almost cringe-worthy, is the way Rose, our protagonist, inserts herself back into the life of her former best friend and adolescrent girl crush, Lacie.
She not only loves Lacie, she wants to BE Lacie.
Rose falls into a pattern of writing a play / writing a novel which repeats the past - developing a crush on a certain boy / man and having a more or less platonic relationship with him, then actively pursuing him, once Lacie is involved with the same boy / man, to the point of dangerous obsession.
Rose is a Harvard graduate and works as a tutor for students looking to get into Ivy League schools. However, she has low self esteem and proves to be a rather unreliable narrator - she is a loner and sees herself as a perpetual outsider and loser, while others find her extremely smart, talented and attractive.

I like the narrative, it is a little depressing, but very realistic. It is interesting because we only see events from Rose's perspective, then towards th middle of the book, you think "Hey, wait a minute, this is getting really wierd" and realize that maybe Rose's view of the world is not altogether sane.....

Recommended for those who like psychological drama, but are tired of thrillers.

[Jan]

DNF

This was an ARC from the publisher, so I feel bad, but this one just isn’t for me. I haven’t even made it to the second chapter yet, but I’m not clicking with this writing style.

Take a look at the paragraph below. This is actually only 2 sentences believe it or not. Looking ahead, I can see that this is how the whole book will read out, so I’m going to save myself some time and frustration.

“Reading this, I decided to doctor my SAT scores, carefully inserting into my cover letter, “While I don’t precisely recall my SATs from more than a decade ago, I believe I scored somewhere in the high 700s for both math and reading,” knowing full well that I did not break 700 on the math, knowing, too, that I could say whatever I wanted, that my lie would not only be believed, but that it would confirm the whole set of assumptions already operating around me, that I came so fully outfitted in the trappings of success—Harvard, Iowa—that embellishment to cover any gaps was practically obligatory. Then, interview scheduled, address received, I nearly blew it: 9:07 the morning after meeting Lacie found me racing from my cousin’s living room to bathroom, from bathroom to front hall to couch, not quite late, but becoming increasingly dependent, with each passing minute, on the good karma of the F train, and then 9:57 found me run-walking, and then flat-out sprinting, down Eighty-Fifth Street toward Third Avenue, having spent the previous train ride staring straight ahead, my gut churning, too full of self-recriminations to read or even think about what I might say to Griffin Chin, founder and director of Ivy Prep, Harvard-trained lawyer, and “educational consultant” who regularly Board itself sought their consultation.”

ARC provided by NetGalley

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review coming soon.

[Cyndi Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kyle Mccarthy delivers a debut novel that is simply stunning. Her writing is exemplary; poetic, descriptive, and thought-provoking. Also, the story is very well-plotted. But, at about 20% in I almost gave up on it. I'm glad I persevered as the ending is sublime.

But, why did I contemplate giving up on it? Frankly, it's a bit of an uncomfortable read. See, our lead character, Rose, is a genius. Maybe because of this, she's always felt like an outsider, and this shapes her approach to people and life. Being in her head is at times troubling, and at times simply fascinating. That's what makes it an addictive read.

Rose is obsessed with the past and the present, but mostly obsessed with her best friend from high school, Lacie, the one she drove away. There is definitely a "single, White, Female" vibe to it, minus the knives. Nearly a dozen years after high school, after the fall-out in their junior year, Rose manages to insinuate herself into Lacie's life. This is eerie because Rose is writing her debut novel, and Lacie is her main character. Rose recognizes the twist of fate, but her drive to succeed at the delivery of her novel overrules logic:

"Living with Lacie while writing about her had gone from deeply bizarre to completely normal in a remarkably short amount of time. After all, I wasn’t writing about the real Lacie, but the cipher in my mind. It seemed simple enough to hold them apart, though every so often I plucked a detail from her life. No harm in that. But now Portia wanted me to get into her head"

But getting in Lacie's head is harder then she thinks. She reflects that "Lacie had always worked by implication and discretion, high-stakes negotiations conveyed through metaphor." It's a block and Rose feels nothing of her way around that. At times she's very judgemental of others, but she fails to see her actions as anything but okay. And her feelings about Lacie are beyond complicated and evolving. There's a new element to it, or is it? New that is. Her feelings, her actions, are always just a measure or two emotionally removed, as though she's a voyeur of her own life.

Rose is such a contradiction - she's disconnected but with her IQ, highly contemplative. This is HER a study in character, in the human psyche, and how Rose shows love. The book is rightly categorized as "Friendship Fiction" and "Psychological Fiction" and also evoking the "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (a personal favorite). If any of those appeals to you, do not give up on this book.
5 Stars and recommendation!

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

[Aga Durka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just don’t know how I feel about this book. I loved some parts and I did not enjoy others. I am a sucker for a female friendship dynamics theme in a book and I was so excited to dive into this story. However, I was left wanting more and there were many questions at the end of the book that I never got any answer to.

Rose was a perfect protagonist, with her obsessive and unpredictable behavior, even though I am still confused about her motives to act the way she did. On the other hand, we have Lacie, who was such a weak and uninspiring female character but at the same time had a strong influence on Roses’ life. With these two polar opposite characters, the story became a convoluted and strangely addictive mix of power struggles, lies, secrets, and erratic actions which often left me cringing and dumbfounded.

What I liked the most about this book is the writing style and Rose’s though process. One of my favorite quotes is:

“It’s odd, the power we give strangers over our lives, how readily we believe they see the truth of us. It’s as if the burden of knowing ourselves is so great that we lay it down happily, easily, without complaint; as if we think our friends and family are blind, but strangers, random indifferent strangers, possess judgments as arbitrary and definite as God’s”

Thank you NetGalley, Ballantine publisher, and the author for providing me with an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Karen R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rekindling a once toxic female relationship, with plenty of backstabbing, obsession and lies.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this because I love books about female friendships--especially toxic ones. But this was a heartbreaking story and often very depressing because of the anguish that Rose causes in her "best" friend, Lacie's life. They'd been friends since grade school and then when Rose seduces Lacie's boyfriend in high school, of course they have a falling-out. Fast forward to their 30's when Rose insinuates herself back in unsuspecting Lacie's life, even moving in with her although she doesn't have money for rent. Working on her first novel, Rose is planning to relate the story of their friendship and Lacie--who is always forgiving and friendly--has no idea how devious Rose really is. So yes, it's often hard to read as there are some cringe-worthy scenes but ultimately it's a really interesting story of a friendship and how often we hurt the ones we love and admire.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

[jessiah marielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5

( my book review in video )

When first picking this up and reading the first few chapters, I got the impression that this was a WLW story-- How Rose, the MC, had loved Lacie for so long that she had been obsessed with her and had gotten jealous of Lacie's boyfriend. I was only partly right.

This book is about a self-absorbed and unreliable narrator, Rose, who is also all the more obsessed with her ex-best friend, Lacie. In this book, history repeats itself. Except this time around, Rose gets what she deserves at the end (Thank God).

"You would hurt her to get closer to her."

Lines are blurred between love and hurt, fantasy and reality, past and present. Rose is frustrating yet interesting to read. She constantly excuses herself, saying that her actions are a separate entity from her, and things just happen to her rather than her being the primary destructive force. E.g. When she's going through Lacie's clothes, she says, "This happened to me more often now".

Later we learn that it's because her parents have never truly given her consequences for her actions. They never punish her for crossing boundaries. The extent of the punishment is always a conversation. And so, Rose grows to be what some would call a stalker, as well as an attention-seeking hypocrite. She gets mad at others for mirroring her very same actions.

If I were to describe this book in three words, it would be, "It's giving 'YOU'..." Except that Rose is living in the same apartment as Lacie, wearing her clothes (including her underwear), and f---ing her boyfriend.

SOME CONTENT WARNINGS:
If you decide to read this book, mind that there's a part in the book where Rose shits on asexual people, saying they don't exist. (Yup, I hated that as much as you do right now. I really thought I couldn't dislike her more.) She also says that, "God no longer has the habit of striking people dead", and that "even liars like dinner". This perspective is obviously stemming from a place of privilege, disregarding all the other people in the world who suffer from natural disasters and famine. (My eyes are rolling, too.)

And can we talk about the cover for a second? Gorgeous. Plus, it's extremely smart how there are five tears into the book, just like five fingers. One hand made this destruction. Ahem... Lacie when she found out the book was about her.... The "A Novel" was cancelled out, suggesting that the book is in progress... Yeah. I just really like the cover.

Overall, I gave this book 2.5 stars because at some point I realised that a lot of words were reused but structured differently to describe various scenes. It got a little repetitive for me. I was also confused over the ending... Did she die at the end? It was an interesting read that had me shitting on the main character every minute I read, so if you're looking for a story with loveable characters...... This isn't it.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Who is this woman “writer”? Does she have female friends? Is she an anti-feminist? Did she watch Single White Female one too many times? This whole book was a self-centered portrait of a sad, gross millennial girl. Zero character development or plot resolution. Is this what we want to teach young women in the time of #metoo and post-Trump?

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

EVERYONE KNOWS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU
BY KYLE MCCARTHY

I found the writing of this novel to be very vivid in all of its depictions. The setting for the majority of this narrative of twisted friendship takes place in New York City. There isn't anything about this plot that moves forward in a linear line. It moves back and forth in time told by Rose who has moved to NYC where she runs into an old best friend that dates back to when they were ten years old. Lacie's everything that Rose wants to be. So much so that after Lacie considers offering Rose a bedroom in her apartment, Rose tries on Lacie's clothes including her bra. Rose breaks the golden rule about snooping by breaching Lacie's bedroom while she is at work and rifles through her closet and underwear drawer. She is even caught by Lacie wearing Lacie's distinct clothing which in this case happens to be a one of a kind ethnic dress. As Rose ruminates about their shared past Rose muses over how in High School Rose purposefully causes a car accident injuring Lacie's boyfriend Leo. Rose is intelligent but not as popular and confident as Lacie is/was. Rose produced a play about Adam and Eve by which Lacie and Leo play the only two roles.

Rose is writing a novel about Lacie and Leo secretly while she sneaks off and betrays Lacie by sleeping with her adult boyfriend who is an artist. Rose was an undergraduate from Harvard and I got the feeling that she took advantage of Lacie's kindness. The lines really do blur between reality and what perceptions Rose thinks about by thinking that Lacie knows about her sexual relationship with Lacie's long term boyfriend in the present. Rose has one student that she tutors for writing an entrance exam to get into her student Isabel's first choice of College. Isabel drafts many entries but her father isn't satisfied with any of them. He has absolutely no faith in Isabel's ability to write her own essay and her father keeps hinting at Rose writing Isabel's essay. Her father doesn't believe Isabel has the same IQ as her sister.

The ending really saved this novel for me as a reader albeit a sad and sick ending. I felt that their wasn't a strong plot but an excellent depiction of characterization. Both Rose and Lacie are very different people. I suppose the point the author was trying to make was that they had nothing in common with each other. I did like and empathize with Lacie for including a friendless Rose into her social circle. I didn't like anything Rose did. I thought she took advantage of Lacie's kind gestures and I thought that Rose wanted to usurp her life. For those who like their storytelling to move and meander with more of a quicker pace, then this novel isn't for you. I really think the ending gives the reader a chance to discover where the author is going with the majority of the novel. I kept reading waiting for some coherence into why Rose did the things that she did. The writing was well above average and although disturbing it is a excellent work of literary fiction. This was haunting and I am sure I will never forget this brilliant portrait of the many different facets of love.

Publication Date: June 23, 2020

Thank you to Net Galley, Kyle McCarthy and Random House/Ballantine Publishing for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinion's are my own and not biased and in no way requiring me to write a positive review.

#EveryoneKnowsHowMuchILoveYou #KyleMcCarthy #NetGalley #RandomHouseandBallantinePublishing

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like thrillers with interesting characters, good plot twists, and unique writing. Unfortunately, this book didn't have any of those things. It's not bad, it's just not for me.

[Bookaholic__Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone Knows How Much I Love You" was a pretty impressive and intense debut novel. After reading it I am definetely an instant McCarthy fan and I am eager to read more from her. This novel ticks off so many things from my guilty pleasure checklist; Dark secrets, raunchy sex scenes, toxic female friendships, obsession and murder just to name a few.
In "Everyone knows how much I love you" you follow the storyline of two women, Rose and Lacie, who have known each other since they were ten. Rose has been jealous and obsessed with Lacie since highschool going so far as to sabatoge Lacies highschool relationship. The two women have a major falling out and do not speak for 12 years. Fast forward and Rose can not help but to reinsert herself into her former bestfriends life, honestly through actions that are borderline stalkerish. Surprisingly enough Lacie lets her back in, not only into her life but also her home. Rose’s obsession with Lacie ruined their friendship in high school and now it seems that history is bound to repeat itself.
"Everyone knows how much I love you" is told soley from Rose's perspective. As the reader you get a deep glance inside her head and it makes it really difficult to like her. She is at her core a truly awful person and yet I found myself repeatedly pittying her. I wish I could say that I cared more for Lacies character but I would be lying. Their friendship was like the train wreck that I simply could not peel my eyes from.
I recieved a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Caroline Leavitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stunningly literate narrative about the dark side of female friendship. About Rose at thirty, in NYC, who reunites with an old friend Lacie--a woman she just happened to have betrayed in high school. The two become roommates, but then things get darker, lines begin to blur. (This is NOT Single White Female, by any stretch, just saying. It's much more interesting!) Rose is working on a novel that has Lacie in it--and she's starting to like Lacie's boyfriend, too.

This is one wickedly smart, deeply readable novel about art, love, and friendship.

[Dawnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rose moves to New York City, where she runs into her high school friend Lacie. Their past history isn't good. Rose works her way into Lacie's life, apartment, clothes and whatever else she can. Her goal is the book she is secretly writing, featuring Lacie. Wow, talk about a deep dark twisted friendship! This is crazy twisted. Not the fast page Turner I expected but it was a wild ride.

Dawnny
Novels N Latte
Hudson Valley NY

[Inkslinger]

ARC provided by Penguin Random House/Ballantine Books and Kyle McCarthy via NetGalley. All opinions are mine and freely given.

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"Everyone knows how much I love you.
All your gestures have become my gestures.
Have become my gestures."

06-29: 'Everyone Knows How Much I Love You' by Kyle McCarthy follows a thirty year old writer named Rose as she navigates parallels between her past and present with the best friend she betrayed in high school.

After moving to New York, she ends up reconnecting with that former friend, Lacie at the suggestion of someone they both know. When she's as drawn to Lacie during their meeting as she'd been in school, Rose manages to convince Lacie to let her move in.

Though the pair have an unpleasant history, they grow close again and at least on Lacie's end.. things seem to be almost like they were before. Almost. Though it's questionable as to whether or not that's ideal.


"I did swerve. But it wasn't a flinch. It wasn't a mistake. There was a column of rage in me, a crackle of blue flame, clarifying."


Soon after moving into Lacie's home, Rose takes a job tutoring wealthy kids on their SAT scores. Her spare time is spent working on her novel, a story about the details of the betrayal all those years ago. Enamored with the friend they share, Lacie's boyfriend.. the past and present begin to merge.

Rose is an intelligent, introspective character. She's artistic, but seems to struggle constantly with her self-image.. and that plays a huge role in her ability to understand those around her. It's ironic, that she envisions Lacie as being this woman who moves through life having such impact on the people she comes into contact with and never realizing it, when Rose herself carries that same sort of mysterious charisma. The behaviors differ, but the results are similar.


"Home. I wanted so badly to believe in the myth of us, in the myth of all female friendships, the deep ones, the lasting ones: that they were more true than romance, more fun than children. That they were a place to live: home."


I really enjoyed the external conflicts between the characters in play, but even more.. I enjoyed the 'appearance' of inner conflict. I say 'appearance'.. because its actual existence is extremely questionable. There's definitely the comprehension of right and wrong, but often a lack of investment in those feelings and it's interesting to watch evolve.

All the characters we really spend any quality time with know how to wield their skills to manipulate others. Some do so almost benevolently, while others are just careless with them. Putting things in motion without thought of the outcome, only to be unhappy or upset when they do inevitably lead to some sort of collision in their personal lives.
There are also those who know exactly what they're doing. They enjoy the feeling of power it gives them and they like to think they don't mean for things to play out in certain ways, but they still have the urges to do it all over again.


"A man who is involved with a woman who burns is not interested in nice or trust, no matter what he says, no matter if he writes I don't understand."


As a behavioral study, their social circle is fascinating and despite some less realistic consequences, I hate to admit their actions are not so uncommon. I could see people I've known.. relationships I've witnessed.. in this novel. And it's hard not to say at the end of the day, that most things probably turned out as they should have, knowing everything that took place along the way.

If you enjoy thought provoking stories that delve into the complexities of relationships of all kinds, particularly where envy and longing plays a role in the machinations from all sides.. you should give this novel a read.


PURCHASE LINKS: AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSAMILLION | GOOGLEPLAY BOOKS | KOBO | PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

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06-28: Review to come, very intriguing story!

06-27: Starting this today, such an interesting premise.

[Patricia Pelayo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rose is a narcissist, the end.

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

~1.7 (While there were some good parts I would not recommend this to anyone)

I meant to review this a while ago, then felt like I couldn’t be bothered, but I got re-incensed about it yesterday, so here are my thoughts:

I pretty much only finished this book so I could voice all my concerns about it in good conscience… I’d basically chosen to read this because my sister introduced me to a site that’s an aggregator of book reviews. I saw this novel while browsing that site, thought the title and premise was interesting. I also saw it had mainly positive reviews.

Now, for the first couple of pages or so, I was rather enjoying it…First red flag was that classic “I’m gonna describe myself” paragraph, which read a little bit off, but I let it slide. I shouldn’t have let it slide.
It reads as follows:

“What do I look like? I am a girl, a girl who can look many different ways. When I want I can put on a nice professional, demure dress, and brush my hair so it is soft and luxuriant and smooth, and wear my grandmother’s pearl earrings and a tiny gold watch; I can look utterly familiar, utterly unremarkable, except, perhaps, for my stained teeth. I am slender, with a long pale face that blushes easily, and strawberry-blond hair from which I pluck the occasional strand of gray. When I was young I looked much more unusual because I didn’t give a f**k. I thought that’s what you did if you didn’t want to get trapped. Now I had convinced myself that freedom lay on the other side”

Okay, so slightly “I’m not like other girls” and maybe veering a little close to what would be found on Reddit’s r/menwritingwomen, but I was willing to forgive a minor transgression like that. Plus, mostly positive reviews!

At first the protagonist (Rose) was unlikeable and a little lame, but you felt sorry for her. She’s lonely! She’s strapped for cash. She’s trying to write a novel. She’s trying to reconnect with a friend (Lacie) that she regrets losing. I can sympathise with that. We get a story from her childhood about something she regrets which is compelling. Then Rose became so desperately unlikeable, so vile that I just couldn’t stand her.

And it’s not that I can’t read a novel from a villain’s point of view. It’s just that Rose became simultaneously more vile and more unbelievable. I think it’s a deliberate act of the author for you to start questioning if the narrator is a good person. But the thoughts this protagonist shares from this first-person point of view…I can’t imagine anyone thinking like that. "Is this how the author imagines women think?" was something I wondered several times during the commute in which I more or less finished this novel (while trying not to groan aloud at some of the garbage I read). I sincerely hope this is not what they think the inner machinations of the average woman’s mind are composed of. They are so judgemental and deeply misogynistic that I wonder how they even came up with them.

Here’s a portion of a charming anti-feminist rant that goes on for a page or two:

“I watched the women with their leather jackets, their delicate boots and gold-chained purses, and thought more about Isabel’s shoes. Her f**k-me heels. God, but how I longed for the days when the terms of the war had been absolute and unforgiving, when feminism hadn’t reclaimed sex and all its accessories: high heels, short skirts, lace. Who cared about femme? It bored me. I couldn’t do it.
Pop culture too. Hadn’t anyone noticed that pop culture was bad? I was tired of people being proud of their guilty pleasures, tired of these guilty pleasures founding nonprofits and ending up in the news. Everyone should go back to being ashamed. Everyone should go back to sneaking their TV on the sly, so that people like me, basic genetic abnormalities unfit to live in the modern age, people like me, whose preferred form of leisure involved reading a paragraph and then staring into space, people like me, who liked the opera and liked even more zoning out at the opera, could again be part of public discourse.”

Oh and I mustn’t forget to include this absolute doozy which made me really wonder what people Kyle was interacting with that made them think that this is something anyone might think:

“To be honest, I was never that great at depression, though I did try.”

As if people are depressed by choice, like it’s a fashion statement. I mean, the protagonist at least seems to think that. I personally am confused at how anyone could think that, but I digress.

Other examples include our character describing why one of her male friends is attractive, which broke my brain:

“He smiled distantly. He was so big and blond; his effusions of hair and skin, his broadness, his maleness, delighted me, so rank and hairy and even slightly repellant, so corporeal. ”

…What? Apparently women like men because they’re manly. They’re so manly it’s repulsive! But we love it!

I’m looking through my highlights of this book and one reads, “I keep forgetting she’s THIRTY because she sounds like a poorly constructed teen.” This is another issue with the characterisation. For most of the novel she’s presenting what adults are doing or saying, but these people act like teenagers.

Throughout the story, the protagonist goes on to do some invasive (going through her friend’s things and trying on her clothes…) and then some quite frankly perverted things which…yeah. I didn’t enjoy that. After one such sequence we get the following paragraph:

“I was hungover from jealousy and wine, and weirded out by what I had done, but as I drank my coffee and soaked my toast in gold yolk, all the blood vessels in my brain relaxed.”

Under this I wrote: Kindly, what? . I still think it’s an awful sentence. I could’ve given the whole book up there, but I was now compelled to finish it out of spite. It would not best me.

This is probably a good point to say I don’t know if Rose is meant to be romantically attracted to Lacie, because her motivations make zero sense. I almost see those undertones, but then she sleeps with her boyfriend and I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a power play, or what? I feel like it’s more that she’s so intensely jealous of everything Lacie has that she wants to be Lacie, but I…I don’t know. It was unclear.

For the sake of brevity I won’t give more examples, but there’s another lovely one where the protagonist wishes her friend would cuss out a teenage girl…? I…anyway.

There were occasionally embers of a good story here. The portions relating to Rose and Lacie’s relationship as teens were relatively compelling and well written. One of these, (I think the start of part three) was then followed by another incredibly uncomfortable sequence…it was basically smut.

At this point I was racing to finish this book, just hoping that the end would have some redeeming factor that I might’ve missed. I knew I said I wouldn’t provide more examples of the writing that made me want to scream and throw my phone on public transport, but this one’s too good to pass up:

“All this is to say that by the time I transferred at Union Square—the transfer not an indescribable horror like a genocide but an indescribable horror nonetheless—and another cheery silver can had chugged over the Manhattan Bridge and stalled in the tunnel right before DeKalb, I was very late. Saving some train disaster on Lacie’s part, she had definitely beat me home.”

…Once again I was confused and bewildered. Who thinks like this?

Mercifully, after several more pages, the book reached it’s conclusion. In this conclusion the author seems to make some ridiculous power play… Okay, so a reminder that Rose is writing a book in this novel. And the book finally gets published at the end. To me, Kyle basically uses the reviews of Rose’s own (semi-autobiographical) work as some strange sort of meta, where she’s like, “I know my character’s delusional and her motives are confusing! I know she’s emotionally blind!” I mean..that’s still no excuse for her feeling unrealistic. That’s no excuse for some of your own clunky prose. It just feels like such a blanket over your work, such a silly defense, to argue any mistakes could be intentional. At this point I realised I haven’t had luck with novels about characters who are authors. Maybe I hate when things are too meta. Intention is important to me. And if I can't tell what your intention was, it makes it difficult for me to enjoy your work.

The very end is also so absolutely dismal, so dire and depressing that…yeah. I really didn’t enjoy Everyone Knows How Much I Love You. And it’s frustrating because occasionally I see embers of something very good, it’s just Kyle never transforms them into a fire. In future I’ll be more discerning about where the good reviews for a novel have come from, because that might’ve been the problem here. Oh, and cross-check with the Goodreads reviews too.

P.S: This was thematically similar to Genuine Fraud which I read earlier this year. I wasn’t too thrilled with that one either, but it’s miles ahead of what I’ve just read.

[Maya]

Last night I dreamed that I finished this book and reviewed it on goodreads and tonight it came true

[Deborah Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say this but, this book was just very, very…bland. Between the writing, and the characters, I had a lot of trouble with it from the start.

The synopsis made this book sound very much like my cup of tea (better yet, cup of coffee, because I love and drink coffee even more so than tea) and everything about it sounded very much right up my alley: toxic rivalry, obsessed relationship dynamic between female friends, betrayals, cheating, lies, etc, etc!

But while it seemingly had all the right ingredients, the story itself ended up falling very flat for me, and was definitely not my cup of tea, nor my cup of coffee.

I had quite a bit of trouble making it through this book, as much as I wanted to like it. In fact, I almost ended up Dnfing it at several points. It never ending up hooking me from the very beginning, and I had a hard time getting invested or caring about the story at all. It was missing that certain something.

The writing style, for one, wasn’t for me, as it never ended up captivating me at any point and pulling me into the story and making me want to read more.

I found the main heroine, Rose, to be extremely unlikeable, and while that doesn’t always make for an unlikeable story or book, that just didn’t work in this particular book’s favor, and only added to the list of reasons why I wasn’t fond of this story.

I didn’t care for the character Lacie either, and didn’t understand Rose’s obsession with her, making their entire toxic “friendship” a drag to read about, instead of the twisted, heady intoxicating dramatic unfolding that I was hoping it would be.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to care about either of them or the dark betrayal that was dangled and promised in the prologue.

This book will definitely work for some, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me.

***an early copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

really loved this - reading this gave me a similar feeling to watching the show Fleabag for the first time

[Blair]

This sounded like exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy – 'a singularly dark entry into the canon of psychologically rich novels of friendship [and] compulsive behaviour' – but alas, it didn't measure up to others of its type. The main character is awful, which I think is intentional (though, having just reread the blurb, I'm not 100% sure), but that doesn't have to be a problem; what is a problem is that the book is doing nothing to make me understand her. I have no idea why she is being so pushy and intrusive towards her former friend. If the reason is something that will be revealed later... well, I don't have the patience to stick around that long. There are simply so many superior versions of this story out there – see Necessary People, Looker, Social Creature, The Paper Wasp, etc.

Review copy via Edelweiss.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale of a toxic female friendship was simultaneously riveting and hard to read. I kept turning pages, wanting to cover my eyes because I knew something terrible was going to happen. The narrator is so dark and disturbing, yet I felt empathetic to her. This was a train wreck you can’t stop watching as it builds to the final conclusion. You know it’s going to end badly but you can’t stop watching. I was pleased by the ending and I enjoyed the read. My thanks to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.