dfwsusie's review against another edition
5.0
Woman-centric Friendship Novels are tricky to pull off. The choice becomes picking a realistic or romantic narrative, and inevitably people seeking the former will be unhappy reading the latter.
Personally, I like gritty, messy, vicious, beautiful, painful, or powerful representations of relationships. Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is a novel about female friendship in NYC, to a point. However, this isn't a romanticized post-Sex In the City vision of sisters out there empowering each other and clinking martinis.
Time and the passage of years fundamentally alters all relationships. Just like matter, friendships are subject to entropy and become more complicated as the collective history piles up.
The book rolls out in four non-linear phases, occuring in 1999, 2012, sometime in 2015-2016, and 2020. Even though there were plenty of clues, I didn't realize until the very end that the 2012 sections were not the narrator's current time. The whole story is told while looking in the rearview mirror. Given the influence of the Arrow of Time in our memories, it makes sense why all the chaotic actions of previous days seem so ordered and sensible to Rose.
Usually the reader isn't privy to the inner dialogue of the bad girl. Even when toxic friendships are told so perfectly, like in [b:The Robber Bride|17650|The Robber Bride|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388263287l/17650._SY75_.jpg|1119196] by [a:Margaret Atwood|3472|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282859073p2/3472.jpg] what makes the terrible friend tick isn't the focus. Here we see and hear Rose's motivations for consistently putting everyone on a collision course with annihilation. I never cheered Rose on, but there were points where I could see how she justified her own terrible actions.
I saw Rose described a few places as an unreliable narrator. Everyone telling a story about their past is unreliable, so that's perhaps misleading. The only way unreliable fits is if Rose herself willfully abandoned or warped the facts for a better story.
This is possible, as her editor kept urging her to punch up the details, create a character with a mental map, etc. Perhaps she did that and we are simply reading a work of fiction about a work of fiction. Going down that road may be a little out there, but technically the Lacie/Ian roommate situation was predicated on a ton of coincidence. It's possible only the 1999 section is based in anything real.
Many summaries centered on the "envy" and "jealousy" aspects of Rose and Lacie. But to be envious is to want what someone else has for your own. Rose's real desire appears to be complete dominion over Lacie. She wanted, consciously or not, to leave her with nowhere else to turn for comfort, emotional connection, and sexual release.
Rose isn't the stereotypic jealous girlfriend either. She's a power-hungry annihilator. Even in 2020, remorse is absent. Instead, Rose believes she protected Lacie from betrayal and abandonment at each turn.
Neither does Rose seem particularly angry at Ian for his emotional rejection after intense sexual connection. She's really angry at Lacie for reconnecting with a guy who cheats. That overarching lack of impulse control halts Rose from having a healthy relationship with anyone, and also puts the people closest to her in a ring of fire.
In the end, this distinction is what hooked me. McCarthy doesn't give us an easy Mean Girls II story. Instead, we get to peek inside the mind of a brilliant, damaged, obsessive woman for a while. One who has motives likely hidden even to herself. Unlike many of the books I read where the author very clearly spells out all the answers, the beauty here is in the ambiguity.
Personally, I like gritty, messy, vicious, beautiful, painful, or powerful representations of relationships. Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is a novel about female friendship in NYC, to a point. However, this isn't a romanticized post-Sex In the City vision of sisters out there empowering each other and clinking martinis.
Time and the passage of years fundamentally alters all relationships. Just like matter, friendships are subject to entropy and become more complicated as the collective history piles up.
The book rolls out in four non-linear phases, occuring in 1999, 2012, sometime in 2015-2016, and 2020. Even though there were plenty of clues, I didn't realize until the very end that the 2012 sections were not the narrator's current time. The whole story is told while looking in the rearview mirror. Given the influence of the Arrow of Time in our memories, it makes sense why all the chaotic actions of previous days seem so ordered and sensible to Rose.
Usually the reader isn't privy to the inner dialogue of the bad girl. Even when toxic friendships are told so perfectly, like in [b:The Robber Bride|17650|The Robber Bride|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388263287l/17650._SY75_.jpg|1119196] by [a:Margaret Atwood|3472|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282859073p2/3472.jpg] what makes the terrible friend tick isn't the focus. Here we see and hear Rose's motivations for consistently putting everyone on a collision course with annihilation. I never cheered Rose on, but there were points where I could see how she justified her own terrible actions.
I saw Rose described a few places as an unreliable narrator. Everyone telling a story about their past is unreliable, so that's perhaps misleading. The only way unreliable fits is if Rose herself willfully abandoned or warped the facts for a better story.
This is possible, as her editor kept urging her to punch up the details, create a character with a mental map, etc. Perhaps she did that and we are simply reading a work of fiction about a work of fiction. Going down that road may be a little out there, but technically the Lacie/Ian roommate situation was predicated on a ton of coincidence. It's possible only the 1999 section is based in anything real.
Many summaries centered on the "envy" and "jealousy" aspects of Rose and Lacie. But to be envious is to want what someone else has for your own. Rose's real desire appears to be complete dominion over Lacie. She wanted, consciously or not, to leave her with nowhere else to turn for comfort, emotional connection, and sexual release.
Rose isn't the stereotypic jealous girlfriend either. She's a power-hungry annihilator. Even in 2020, remorse is absent. Instead, Rose believes she protected Lacie from betrayal and abandonment at each turn.
Neither does Rose seem particularly angry at Ian for his emotional rejection after intense sexual connection. She's really angry at Lacie for reconnecting with a guy who cheats. That overarching lack of impulse control halts Rose from having a healthy relationship with anyone, and also puts the people closest to her in a ring of fire.
In the end, this distinction is what hooked me. McCarthy doesn't give us an easy Mean Girls II story. Instead, we get to peek inside the mind of a brilliant, damaged, obsessive woman for a while. One who has motives likely hidden even to herself. Unlike many of the books I read where the author very clearly spells out all the answers, the beauty here is in the ambiguity.
nahyee's review against another edition
3.0
See my full review of this title on my blog: Books Under the Blanket (with a flashlight):
https://booksundertheblanket.com/hell-hath-no-fury/
https://booksundertheblanket.com/hell-hath-no-fury/
pikasqueaks's review against another edition
kyle mccarthy got so close to writing the story i've always wanted to read -- and then, alas, the dreaded chingon. i'm only joking, but really, it's not until the very end, and it made me laugh out loud, because it's truly funny to be so enamored of a book only to have each of your boxes on your 'domestic suspense/thriller bingo' card ticked
this book is not for people who need to love the characters they're reading about, who need to be able to see themselves inside the characters and never judge their actions or the why behind things. this is not the book you want to read if you want to be uplifted.
you spend so much time wondering, why lacie? what is it about this character? and you never get the answer because rose never has the answer either. because there is no answer. sometimes there are people in your life who are everything from sunrise to sunset. sometimes there are people who just are.
i really, really enjoyed this, but if i didn't once have a lucinda salt of my own, i could imagine being bored.
this book is not for people who need to love the characters they're reading about, who need to be able to see themselves inside the characters and never judge their actions or the why behind things. this is not the book you want to read if you want to be uplifted.
you spend so much time wondering, why lacie? what is it about this character? and you never get the answer because rose never has the answer either. because there is no answer. sometimes there are people in your life who are everything from sunrise to sunset. sometimes there are people who just are.
i really, really enjoyed this, but if i didn't once have a lucinda salt of my own, i could imagine being bored.
whitjobo's review against another edition
3.0
I struggled a bit getting into this book because I found all of the characters so unlikeable. I listened via audiobook from my library and I almost gave up on it. Like many of my reading experiences, the closer I got to the end the more I wanted to finish. Unfortunately, I still found both women unlikeable and the situation so sad. I did enjoy some of the unexpected (and raunchy!) twists.
vlynch5's review against another edition
4.0
Lacie and Rose have a complicated relationship. They were once best friends, but that all changed their junior year in high school. Probably the only way they could have reunited is in a new place, in the city, where a shared history meant more than a betrayal.
They dynamic between the two of them is so strange. They are jealous of each other one minute, practically in love another and indifferent at times. And I have to say that it really mimics a true-life love/hate relationship that is possible in our twenties, during that time when we are still figuring out who we are. It’s messy. And real.
As the book progresses, we learn more about Rose and Lacie. We learn what motivates them, what they admire, what they are good at, what they love and what they covet. And it gets ugly. And the betrayal goes deeper. And it becomes clear that maybe, people never really change.
I really enjoyed Everyone Knows How Much I Love You. It’s literary fiction, the best kind, with a dash of melodrama and a pinch of thriller. Special thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review. This one is out June 23.
They dynamic between the two of them is so strange. They are jealous of each other one minute, practically in love another and indifferent at times. And I have to say that it really mimics a true-life love/hate relationship that is possible in our twenties, during that time when we are still figuring out who we are. It’s messy. And real.
As the book progresses, we learn more about Rose and Lacie. We learn what motivates them, what they admire, what they are good at, what they love and what they covet. And it gets ugly. And the betrayal goes deeper. And it becomes clear that maybe, people never really change.
I really enjoyed Everyone Knows How Much I Love You. It’s literary fiction, the best kind, with a dash of melodrama and a pinch of thriller. Special thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review. This one is out June 23.
nafisa_alam's review against another edition
2.0
This book is so fucking boring. I get it it's character driven, but the character stayed the same for whole 272 pages! I wanted to like this book, i really did. But it was way too boring and slow paced for my liking. 100 pages in still nothing. Literally nothing.
dai2daireader's review against another edition
2.0
I was really curious about Everyone Knows How Much I Love You given the synopsis but it didn't keep my attention. The main character, Rose, is a girl who made a mistake as a teen which ended her relationship when her best friend, Lacie. Rose has grown up...but only in age. Rose and Lacie reconnect and seem to see the same life events in different ways - which I found interesting and was curious about that dynamic. However, I found it very frustrating how Rose went out of her way constantly to be juvenile and manipulative to no real end. She's knowingly repeated unnecessary and destructive behavior which often felt unrealistic and extremely cringy.
Thank you to Ballantine Books and Random House for this ARC.
Thank you to Ballantine Books and Random House for this ARC.
fmurray97's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
energyrae's review against another edition
4.0
Rose leads a very fictitious life. Her personality is that she doesn’t know how to hold on to something good, and she burns everything in her wake. Rose is not a likable character, but her self-destruction makes this book so good. She’s knowledgeable and college-educated, but she’s incredibly awkward, a broken and pathetic person.
I don’t feel this is a catfight as some other reviewers have said because Lacie is just an ultra-forgiving woman who keeps allowing Rose back into her life. All the drama that occurs between the two of them is because of Rose’s gnawing need to destroy everything in her path. She grows obsessed, and as that obsession grows, she spirals. Her perception of reality is hyper-skewed, and we see that in her inner dialogue and confrontations with Lacie.
The writing was excellent. The pacing was slow, and that suited the narrative. The things that Rose does is completely cringe-worthy, and there’s beauty in that because she’s an exceptionally well-written, bad guy who has no redeeming qualities like so many of these friendships portrayed elsewhere. Not everyone can get on board with such a toxic person in fiction, which is a shame because she’s written so well. The prose in this is beautiful, and it makes for a truly fun read. Thank you Ballantine Books for sending this along!
I don’t feel this is a catfight as some other reviewers have said because Lacie is just an ultra-forgiving woman who keeps allowing Rose back into her life. All the drama that occurs between the two of them is because of Rose’s gnawing need to destroy everything in her path. She grows obsessed, and as that obsession grows, she spirals. Her perception of reality is hyper-skewed, and we see that in her inner dialogue and confrontations with Lacie.
The writing was excellent. The pacing was slow, and that suited the narrative. The things that Rose does is completely cringe-worthy, and there’s beauty in that because she’s an exceptionally well-written, bad guy who has no redeeming qualities like so many of these friendships portrayed elsewhere. Not everyone can get on board with such a toxic person in fiction, which is a shame because she’s written so well. The prose in this is beautiful, and it makes for a truly fun read. Thank you Ballantine Books for sending this along!