Julie's Review: Stories We Never Told You

Author: Sonja Yoerg
Series: None
Publication Date:  May 1, 2020
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Pages: 328
Obtained: Netgalley via Publisher
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction; Psychological THriller 
Rating: 4/5
Bottom Line: How do you escape someones control when their control is subtle?
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Summary: Psychology professor Jackie Strelitz thinks she’s over Harlan Crispin, her ex-lover and colleague. Why should she care if Harlan springs a new “friend” on her? After all, Jackie has everything she ever wanted: a loving husband and a thriving career. Still, she can’t help but be curious about Harlan’s latest.

Nasira Amari is graceful, smart, and appallingly young. Worse, she’s the newest member of Jackie’s research team. For five years, Harlan enforced rules limiting his relationship with Jackie. With Nasira, he’s breaking every single one. Why her? Fixated by the couple, Jackie’s curiosity becomes obsession. But she soon learns that nothing is quite what it seems and that to her surprise—and peril—she may not be the only one who can’t let go. ~amazon.com 

Review: Dr. Jackie Strelitz is a well know psychologist that is studying the early signs of autism and is making significant progress but her personal life is about to get wrecked. For 5 years she dated Harlan Crispin, another leading Psychologist that studies lying and their break up wasn't amicable but it wasn't horrible either. They are cordial with each other and even at times get together socially. It is helpful that Jackie is married to Miles. The wheels come off their amicable relationship when Harlan brings Jackie's new post-doc to dinner; she thinks this is inappropriate. 

This sends Jackie teetering down a road of jealousy that she's not even certain why when she's happily married to Miles for 2 years.  Maybe it's the fact that she was with him for 5 years and never really made in roads with him and Nasira seems to be moving quickly with him. Jackie starts to think all kinds of things but when her data for her study, she begins to view Nasira different and to question her motives. 

What happens next is a series of things that makes Jackie start to question her sanity. She starts to question if things are all in her head or not. Being of the science thinking she starts to look at the facts to put the puzzle together. As she does this things start to make more sense and she's not feeling like she's losing her mind. 

The reader immediately knows that something about Harlan doesn't sit right but you aren't quite sure. Is he just a man who is sore at being dumped? Is he an-ex lover still obsessed with an ex? All I know is he made me feel extremely uncomfortable. 

I liked how Jackie stopped and thought about the facts that were presented to her to come up with her evidence about who was messing with her data and therefore her possible funding; which is her livelihood. She uses reasoning and science to figure out what has been happening to her. 

I definitely recommend this one but know that it's a slow build to the ending. 

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Julie's Review: All the Best People

Author: Sonja Yoerg
Series: None
Publication Date: May 2, 2017
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 368
Obtained: publisher via NetGalley
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4/5
Bottom Line: A look into the history of mental illness as it effects 3 generations of women
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Library

Summary: Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family’s auto shop and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won’t reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn’t the television. She ought to seek help, but she’s terrified of being locked away in a mental hospital like her mother, Solange. So Carole hides her symptoms, withdraws from her family and unwittingly sets her eleven-year-old daughter Alison on a desperate search for meaning and power: in Tarot cards, in omens from a nearby river and in a mysterious blue glass box belonging to her grandmother. An exploration of the power of courage and love to overcome a damning legacy, All the Best People celebrates the search for identity and grace in the most ordinary lives. ~amazon.com  

Review: With mental illness at the forefront of a great many discussions in the last year, All the Best People, comes at a time when we need to be reminded how far we've come and yet how far we have to go. The story is told in alternating view points by 3 generations of women in the same family: Solange, Carole and Allison.

As we delve in to each of their stories and view points, it is interesting to see how much their lives have been effected by either being afflicted or watching those you love deteriorate because of a disease. My heart went out to Allison because she was at a point in her life where she really needed her mother and her mother was struggling with her own issues that she wasn't sure how to talk about. Her aunt was even less help because she was so caught up in her own life, she couldn't see or perhaps didn't care that her sister was suffering.

Unfortunately, Solange's story was probably fairly typical for back in the 20's and 30's. Where if a wife didn't conform to her husband's wishes or brought shame up the family, he could institutionalize her with no way of getting out. So she was put in a mental hospital for being strong willed and wanting out of her marriage, with no way out. The things they did to that woman in the name of science and treatment were outrageous! They most definitely did more damage then the "hysteria" she was admitted for having.

I adored how great Walt was with Carole when it all finally came to a head. He didn't berate her or scold her, he was loving and supportive. I don't think she was ever afraid that he wouldn't be but she didn't know how to talk about it. Even since the 70s, much has changed in how we treat mental illness, especially pharmacology. We still have a long way to go but progress isn't made overnight, either.

If you are looking for a book that addresses how mental illness can affect families, then look no further than All the Best People.


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