Book Review: You Should Have Known

Amazon says: Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice, her days are full of familiar things: she lives in the very New York apartment in which she was raised, and sends Henry to the school she herself once attended. Dismayed by the ways in which women delude themselves, Grace is also the author of a book You Should Have Known, in which she cautions women to really hear what men are trying to tell them. But weeks before the book is published a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only an ongoing chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster, and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.


I was excited about this book, I really was. I was expecting a psychological thriller with a mental health slant. I read somewhere that this was similar to "Gone Girl" by Gilian Flynn (which I loved!), but I was so disappointed in this book. 

First, the title really is the theme of the book. Should Grace have known about her husband? Promising premise - but poorly executed. First, we don't know exactly what Jonathan did, and we don't have a glimpse into their early relationship, to see what (if any signs) she actually missed. 

Also, some of the scenarios in the book are just beyond belief. I don't want to give anything away, but I found myself just not believing that this would actually ever happen. 

Not to mention the fact that I skimmed SO MUCH of the book - too wordy, and there were multiple characters, paragraphs (and pages) that had no bearing whatsoever on the plot (or lack thereof). 

Overall, the premise was promising, but there were too many missed opportunities in the story line, too many superfluous scenes and I never felt myself connecting with Grace. 

I give it two stars. Glad I pushed through, but really disappointed.