You Know Why, J.T. Ellison (Review by Elizabeth Burchfield)

The Last Thing He Told Me meets Gone Girl . A page turning thriller with action-packed scenes, near-death experiences, and murder on page 1. The novel flips narrators chapter to chapter which allows the reader to be immersed in the perspective of each key character. Ultimately, the reader is led to try to figure out who’s perspective is fact and who is being untrue and ultimately evil. When Brooklyn’s husband vanishes at the airport leaving her stranded with two kids, I desperately wanted to know what happened to him. She seems so convinced she knew her husband, even though she didn’t know he allegedly killed his first wife and now his parents…allegedly. Ellison did an incredible job making each character so believable and so desperate in their journey to their perspective goals. For Brooklyn, she wanted to find her husband, but Eden wanted something far more sinister. I found it coincidental that Eden just happened to be at the airport where Brooklyn was stranded, but I still found it to be believable. Eden was persuasive in her efforts to connect with Brooklyn and her children, and I was convinced she was genuine, up until a point. I started to suspect her intentions to be sinister when a neighbor spotted her in the area months earlier. However, I was floored when I found out just how evil Eden was throughout her life. Ellison takes you on a journey with each character and carefully weaves together multiple storylines in a way that was easy to follow. She thoughtfully introduced characters and while she was clever in throwing you off of the end, she didn’t needlessly add characters. It was palpable what each character had to lose and although each character was flawed, the reader could sympathize with each. I was floored by the cliff hanger ending and it made me want a sequel.