Book Review: "Everyone Knows How Much I Love You" by Kyle McCarthy
“Everyone Knows How Much I Love You” by Kyle McCarthy
Synopsis: At age 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.-Penguin RandomHouse
Rating (out of 5): 4
Review: I picked up this book thinking I was about to sink my teeth into a pulpy crime thriller, based on the synopsis. That is certainly not what the book held in store, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how deviant our protagonist Rose could be.
We start the book knowing that Rose betrayed her childhood friend Lacie in some awful way years ago, but not exactly how. Rose manufactures a reconnection with her more than a decade later upon moving to New York, forcing Lacie’s hand into a re-entanglement. While resistant to rekindling their friendship initially, soon Lacie is inviting Rose to move in with her.
Rose flounders in life, in a way that initially seems very “charming bumbling millennial” and then starts to reveal something deeper and much more disturbing. Her actions become more and more malignant, and she betrays Rose again, after enmeshing herself in her world.
I loved reading about a narcissistic and manipulative person through their own eyes, a rare perspective in a book. The exploration of the dark side of female friendship and the ways that allowing people in opens you to betrayal is one I won’t soon forget.
TL;DR: A psychosexual mindfuck of a modern, literary Single White Female. Read it knowing you’ll be deeply unsettled.
If you liked this, try:
“The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith (Bookshop | Kindle)
“Six Degrees of Separation” by John Guare (Bookshop | Kindle)
“We Need to Talk About Kevin” by Lionel Shriver (Bookshop | Kindle)
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