Book of the Month Club · Hannah Beckerman · instagram · review · Women's Fiction

If Only I Could Tell You


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🌱 Book Review 🌱 . ⭐️ ⭐️ 💫 2.5 stars rounded up . Two sisters and their mother, caught in a continuous web of misunderstandings, grief, hidden truths and many regrets. A story line that I feel had so much potential had it been written in a completely different way, one that led the reader to the answer through character development and growth as a family… instead what I read was a non-stop “catch me if you can” game of dangling the truth in front of me in order to get me to keep reading this book. If it hadn’t been for just wanting to find out what on earth happened… I don’t know that I would’ve finished this book. It was also a bit too dramatic (for me). The ending was good. A little twist. I just am not a fan of this story unfortunately. Jess was a 10 year old child in a 30 (or 40?) year old body throwing a grief-riddled temper tantrum her entire life, ruining her life, her daughters, her sisters, her mothers, and anyone else that walked along her path. The book talks briefly about her job and then randomly that part of the story just goes away and it never comes back. Lily is a feeble push over that never stops trying to please and lets every single person she knows walk all over her. She allows her sister to carry on this ridiculous tantrum for 20-30 years without ever really trying to get her to tell her. SURE sure we find out in the end “why” which was an eye roll in my opinion and was simply to tie up a loose end. And the mom. I liked her most but she had issues in the book too. There’s just bits and pieces of this story that don’t make sense and are just thrown together or randomly disappear with no explanation. I like to read a book to enjoy simply the story, the people, the writing… not simply bc I want to know the answer and could care less about half the people in the book. Oh and I’m still mad there was NO reconciliation of the young daughters with their mothers (Lily and Jess), no more info on or character/story development on Daniel, no telling Phoebe, etc. I hate writing reviews that lean more on the negative but clearly I just really wasn’t a huge fan of this book.. 😦 ———————— 🌱

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