I Know You Know
By: Gilly Macmillan
“You have to ask yourself:
how much can one human being take before they break?”
So, this was a long
read for me. It took me a few weeks to get through, but I want to qualify that
statement and let you know that it wasn’t due to the quality of the writing. This
was a tough subject to read. I mean, how often do you read about two little
boys getting brutally murdered?... Right, so I had to make my way through this one
with a little more ease than usual.
Hopefully, I haven’t scared
you off, because Gilly Macmillan handled this story beautifully.
I Know You Know is a dual timeline story that investigates the
murders of two little boys, Charlie and Scott. The investigation was closed
twenty years ago, but Cody Swift, the surviving third best friend, doesn’t
believe the right man has been put behind bars—and he’s back with a podcast to try
and prove that. Meanwhile, in the other timeline, a body has been discovered that
may be linked to the murders from twenty years ago.
“Have you thought
about what you’re doing, digging up the past? People might not like it. They
might have learned to live with their feelings by now, but the feelings haven’t
gone away. They never will. Be careful what you stir up.”
It turns out the
characters in this novel are hiding an entire cemetery full of skeletons in
their closets. For real. At the beginning of the story I was taken by Detective
Fletcher. He was the one that found the boys twenty years ago, and he held one
of them as they took their last breaths. But, it wasn’t long before I started
questioning, well, everything about him.
At this point I wasn’t
just questioning Fletcher, but literally everyone in this book. Macmillan was
laying these juicy clues in the scenes from the past that forced me to
reevaluate everything I thought was true in the present.
The real treats in
this book were the characters. I could go on about each and every one of them,
but instead I will say this: it is incredibly hard to successfully portray a
sociopath in writing, and Macmillan did it wonderfully.
No, I won't tell you
who it is. You have to read and find out.
“He feels a pulse of
contempt for Cody Swift for trying to overturn stones that should be left as
they are, settling quietly into the landscape until they look as if they’ve always
been part of it.”
Finally, I want to
talk about the ending. I was momentarily let down because I thought it was
going to end on this anticlimactic note. BUT THEN, Macmillan swooped in and
blew. my. mind.
There is the juiciest
of twists, and I beg you to read this through to the end to get there!
I want to thank Gilly
Macmillan, Edelweiss, & HarperCollins for the ARC!
Post a Comment