The Last Thing I Told You by Emily Arsenault Review

This is the first book that I read from Emily Arsenault and I did truly enjoy her writing, however, for me, this wasn't faced paced enough. I wasn't dying to know more and wasn't really invested. Other than the fact that it wasn't faced paced enough I gave it 3.5 stars since I did really like the different POV's between Nadine and Henry (the detective), and I really liked Henry! I felt like he brought a realness to the book, especially compared to Nadine, who is not stable. Speaking of which, I didn't really get her, and/or her story, she explains a lot through her sessions with the therapist about her past, but I feel like there are many gaps in her story, and we don't really get an ending to her story. I also wondered what the point of her as the main character was.

I didn't except the ending, but I kind of think it came out of left field, the whole time we were hearing stories about certain characters and all of sudden we completely change directions. There was also a storyline that just abruptly stopped and felt like it was only to mislead the reader. Not a bad read but I think it wasn't for me.

Synopsis

I hear myself whispering. Not again. Not again. Why did I ever come back here? Surely because of you. Because I thought of something I'd always meant to tell you. Because you were the only one I ever really wanted to tell it to.

Therapist Dr. Mark Fabian is dead, bludgeoned in his office. But that doesn't stop former patient Nadine Raines from talking to him -- in her head. Why did she come back to her hometown after so many years away? Everyone here thinks she's crazy. And she has to admit, they might have good reason to think so. She committed a shockingly violent act when she was sixteen and has never really been able to explain that dark impulse, even to Fabian. Now that Fabian's dead, why is she still trying? 

Meanwhile, as Detective Henry Peacher investigates Fabian's death, he discovers that shortly before he died, Fabian pulled the files of two former patients. One was of Nadine Raines, one of Henry's former high school classmates. Henry still remembers the disturbing attack on a teacher that marked Nadine as a deeply troubled teen. More shockingly, the other file was of Johnny Streeter, who is now serving a life sentence for a mass shooting five years ago. The shooting devastated the town and everyone -- including Henry who is uncomfortable with the "hero" status the tragedy afforded him -- is ready to move on. But the appearance of his file brings up new questions. 

Maybe there is a decades-old connection between Nadine and Streeter. And maybe that somehow explains what Nadine is doing in Fabian's office nearly twenty years after being his patient. Or how Fabian ended up dead two days after her return. Or why Nadine has fled town once again. But as Nadine and Henry head toward a confrontation, both will discover that the secrets of people's hearts are rarely simple, and even in the hidden depths of a psychologist's files, rarely as they appear.

@anintrovertreads