In this “tale of toxic friendship at its most riveting” (People), a young woman finds herself inexorably drawn to repeating the worst mistakes of her past.“Masterly, mendacious, and a total thrill ride . . . Not since a certain Mr. Ripley have I been so consumed in another’s covetous desires.”—Justin Torres, bestselling author of We the Animals At age thirty, Rose is fierce and smart, both … thirty, Rose is fierce and smart, both self-aware and singularly blind to her power over others. After moving to New York, she is unexpectedly swallowed up by her past when she reunites 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 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 Rose soon finds herself increasingly drawn to Lacie’s boyfriend, exerting a sexual power she barely understands she possesses, and playing a risky game that threatens to repeat the worst moments of her and Lacie’s lives.
Sharp-witted and wickedly addictive, Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is a uniquely dark entry into the canon of psychologically rich novels of friendship, compulsive behavior, and the dangerous reverberations of our actions, both large and small.
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Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is Kyle McCarthy’s debut novel. He handles his unreliable narrator, Rose, well. She is intelligent, awkward, weird, and obsessed with her former best friend from high school, Lacie. Despite Rose’s intelligence, she cannot maintain a regular job. She has been writing a novel for years under the guidance of her agent and has received awards for her work, like time as an artist-in-residence.
Rose and Lacie had been best friends since they were ten years old. In their junior year of high school, Rose betrays Lacie, and they drift apart. When Rose “accidentally on purpose” runs into Rose when they are thirty, Rose finagles her way into Lacie’s life and begins the destructive cycle all over again. Rose has all the sociopathic tendencies of Amy in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, and McCarthy makes Rose believable. This is women’s fiction at its best—when women’s foibles and failings create the novel’s conflict.
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.
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.
“Everyone knows how much I love you.
All your gestures have become my gestures.
Have become my gestures.”
‘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.
(More reviews like this at Betwixt The Sheets.)
(I received this title as an ARC. All opinions are mine and freely given.)
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!
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!