Book Review: The Things You'll Never Know by Ashley Audrain

 

This book is about the weekend Fiona died.

Adam takes their daughter, Astrid, camping for the weekend. Fiona stays home with their precocious six-year-old son, Pepper. She's hoping for a reset. She's hoping she can take this short time to get her head straight again. But when Adam and Astrid arrive home, Fiona is lying on the floor wearing a coat that doesn't belong to her. How long has she been there? What happened, and what did Pepper see? Pepper doesn't have much of a story to tell. You wouldn't expect Fiona to say anything at all, but you'd be wrong. Fiona is the biggest narrator of this tale.

This is a heavy story. There is nothing light here from beginning to end. It's about Fiona; how she sees herself, how she's been seen by her mother, her sister, and her best friend, Leah. It's about how her husband and children see her. The timeline changes throughout, and we see things from different points of view. There are mysteries upon mysteries, and revelations that slowly stitch things into a history that makes sense. It's twisty, and surprising, and I never saw that ending coming. I finished this book several days ago and I'm still thinking about it, so I think it deserves all five stars.

This title releases on January 12, 2027.