
"They're calling it the worst pile-up in London history. Driving home, Margaret Holloway has her mind elsewhere-on a troubled student, her daughter's acting class, the next day's meeting-when she's rear-ended and trapped in the wreckage. Just as she begins to panic, a disfigured stranger pulls her from the car just seconds before it's engulfed in flames. Then he simply disappears. Though she escapes with minor injuries, Margaret feels that something's wrong. She's having trouble concentrating. Her emotions are running wild. More than that, flashbacks to the crash are also dredging up lost associations from her childhood, fragments of events that were wiped from her memory. Whatever happened, she didn't merely forget-she chose to forget. And somehow, Margaret knows deep down that it's got something to do with the man who saved her life. As Margaret uncovers a mystery with chilling implications for her family and her very identity, EVERYTHING SHE FORGOT winds through a riveting dual narrative and asks the question: How far would you go to hide the truth-from yourself...?"-- Provided by publisher.
Publisher:
New York : HarperCollins, 2015.
Edition:
First William Morrow edition.
ISBN:
9780062391483
0062391488
0062391488
Characteristics:
414, 9 pages ; 21 cm



Opinion
From the critics

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Quotes
Add a QuoteThe kidnapper: "Sometimes it felt as if he had been raised on shame, the way some other children were raised on love."
"Now he was twenty-seven years old and trying to make a fresh start. The layers of his life were compacted already, as sand and silt turns into rock. He couldn't see clearly how to turn the violence, hurt, and corruption into love and truth."

Comment
Add a CommentA well written, if plodding story. Quite violent, at times, with such actions seemingly generally accepted, if not really explained. Some of those so affected simply disappear from the story without closure (I guess the violence was the point, so that character no longer has significance.)
Why "she" forgot if finally revealed and so the novel ends.
I am left feeling a bit unfulfilled with questions about some of those characters introduced yet left behind rather than given closure.
This book seems perfect for a book club discussion group. (I cannot think of any of my reader friends to whom I would recommend it.)
The extreme animal cruelty as mentioned by another reader was a big turn-off in this book, as was the horrendous behaviour of the notorious criminal family. The story is a crime mystery and does hold one's attention but the coincidences required to make the various characters' lives come together are just a bit over the top.
Trigger warning: animal cruelty in the name of orthodox Christianity. And a lot of violence done to people, too. None of the extreme brutality seems necessary to the novel.