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A review by scarlettg12
All of Us by A.F. Carter
4.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an ARC of this book! Release date - June 12, 2020
This was a really weird, really unique, but really cool and intriguing book. It's very short but really packs a punch. I oddly found this book about multiple personalities and murder to be pretty realistic. The amount of trauma that Carolyn went through as a child, I honestly can see her splitting into all of these different personalities as a coping mechanism, especially when it's explained that each personality has a very specific role in her life - one who takes care of the household, one who presents a put-together face to the public, one who is promiscuous, one tasked with remembering the childhood abuse so that the others can forget, etc. I loved how the different personalities took turns narrating the different chapters and how different they all were from each other. I thought this was really well done. Some of the chapters that talked about what Carolyn went through at the hands of her father were absolutely terrible and gut-wrenching.
If I have one complaint it's that I feel like almost the entire plot is revealed in the blurb. Next to nothing happens beyond what is in the blurb. I really enjoyed the entire storyline, getting to know the different personalities, the therapist, the father being released, the murder investigation. It was a fully developed plot. But nothing surprised me at all. There were no twists or shocking moments. Everything played out exactly the way I expected it to. Which I guess not every book is going to have twists or surprises, but I was a little disappointed that this book didn't. I also found the ending a little weird and abrupt, like maybe there should have been a few more chapters or an epilogue or something. It was kind of anticlimactic.
So there were definitely things I loved about this book and definitely things that disappointed me. Because of this I'd give it a strong 3.5 stars, almost 4. All in all I would recommend it. It isn't twisty or suspenseful but it was a really interesting look into the mind of a truly disturbed person.
This was a really weird, really unique, but really cool and intriguing book. It's very short but really packs a punch. I oddly found this book about multiple personalities and murder to be pretty realistic. The amount of trauma that Carolyn went through as a child, I honestly can see her splitting into all of these different personalities as a coping mechanism, especially when it's explained that each personality has a very specific role in her life - one who takes care of the household, one who presents a put-together face to the public, one who is promiscuous, one tasked with remembering the childhood abuse so that the others can forget, etc. I loved how the different personalities took turns narrating the different chapters and how different they all were from each other. I thought this was really well done. Some of the chapters that talked about what Carolyn went through at the hands of her father were absolutely terrible and gut-wrenching.
If I have one complaint it's that I feel like almost the entire plot is revealed in the blurb. Next to nothing happens beyond what is in the blurb. I really enjoyed the entire storyline, getting to know the different personalities, the therapist, the father being released, the murder investigation. It was a fully developed plot. But nothing surprised me at all. There were no twists or shocking moments. Everything played out exactly the way I expected it to. Which I guess not every book is going to have twists or surprises, but I was a little disappointed that this book didn't. I also found the ending a little weird and abrupt, like maybe there should have been a few more chapters or an epilogue or something. It was kind of anticlimactic.
So there were definitely things I loved about this book and definitely things that disappointed me. Because of this I'd give it a strong 3.5 stars, almost 4. All in all I would recommend it. It isn't twisty or suspenseful but it was a really interesting look into the mind of a truly disturbed person.