2 ½

This started out ok, even interesting, and then nothing happened. I kept reading and figured it was being promoted incorrectly and that it would be some fun chick lit. I was incorrect. Not That I Could Tell failed at both genres. Certainly not a thriller and the connections between the women seemed forced, making it pretty lame chick lit.

I can't recommend this one.

Three stars: A thriller that fizzles. No big twists or surprises. A lot of drama for a weak payout.

A relaxing Saturday evening around the fire pit for a group of women turns into a mystery after one of them goes missing without a trace. Memories of that evening are fuzzy as everyone drank too much wine, but no one can recall a conversation that indicated that something was wrong for one of them. Now Kristin, is gone leaving behind a wake of questions. Why did Kristin run? Was she a victim of domestic abuse? Did she come to harm?
What I Liked:
*From What I Saw was a book that starts out engaging and interesting. A relaxing night of conversation and wine around the fire pit results with one of them going missing. The tale follows two of the women, Claire and Izzy, as they attempt to figure out what happened to their neighbor, a woman they thought they knew.
*The book is told via two different view points. There is Claire, a young mother, who ended her career to stay home with her young children. She was the closest to the missing woman, and she is reeling from the aftermath of her missing friend. Then there is Izzy, her life is in turmoil, after her sister married her best friend. It took some time to adjust to the different voices, but I found that I liked the dual narratives, even though I much preferred Claire’s voice. Each woman offered an entirely different view which kept things interesting.
*In between the chapter there are is another view point, that comes from the missing woman. On the surface, Kristin appeared to have the perfect life, but appearances are deceiving. Kristin reveals little details about her supposedly perfect life, helping the reader to put together the pieces.
Aside from Claire and Izzy, there are many other characters that I enjoyed. Each of the women at the gathering has insight, and I enjoyed getting to know them a bit better. I also liked Claire’s husband, Benny.
*I also appreciated that the detective handling the case turned out to be a kind and caring person. I liked that. It was refreshing to get a competent law enforcement official with a heart.
*The ending, though not a jaw dropper, delivers one interesting piece of information that I didn’t see coming. Even though I was wanting a big, clever twist, I was satisfied that this ended well without lingering questions or unrealistic twists.
And The Not So Much:
*I was disappointed that nothing really happened. All the evidence is laid out early on so it is easy to figure out what happened to Kristin. I kept expecting some big stunning development, but that doesn’t happen. Basically, there is a lot of drama around a disappearance mystery that is too easy to piece together. The ending was a fizzle.
*I was not a big fan of Izzy. She has all this romantic drama, and she spends the majority of the book feeling sorry for herself. I thought at first that she had been betrayed in the worst way, so I felt some compassion toward her, then when I learned the truth, I lost patience with her. She makes some stupid decisions, and I found her constant pity parties annoying.
*I didn’t need a romance, but then there was the possibility of a healthy relationship developing for one of the characters, and then she turns it down for the dumbest reason. Annoying.
*This book attempts to be a thrilling mystery with a twist at the end, but it ended up being a fizzle of a mystery with a rather uninteresting finale. The time put in wasn’t worth the pay out.

Not That I Could Tell was a book that I picked up expecting a thriller with a dramatic twist at the end. Instead I got a book with a lot of unnecessary drama, a weak mystery and a fizzle at the end. If you are wanting a stunning thriller, this is not for you. It was far too easy to piece together the mystery. However, it was still an interesting read.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.

A suburban mom mystery in the same vein as Big Little Lies. I enjoyed it and would recommend it as an entertaining beach read, but the characters were a little too cookie cutter and one dimensional for me: the perfect soccer mom, the kooky lesbians, the jilted single woman etc. I definitely enjoyed it once I got into it and it had a decent little twist at the end.

NOT THAT I COULD TELL is set quaint little neighborhood where a neighbor mysteriously goes missing. The night before Kristen goes missing a few neighborhood women have a rare kid free night. They drink, a lot, and enjoy each other’s company. They drink so to the point that most of them can’t remember if Kristen left any clues about leaving. The cops struggle to trace Kristen’s steps prior to the disappearance.

Kristen didn’t just leave, she took her twins with her and left behind a lot of her belongings. Her and her husband are estranged and he was living in an apartment near by. He is the one that discovers them missing. He is also the number one suspect.

So the main characters in this story are; The host of the part Clara, a single woman named Izzy, and Kristen’s husband Paul. No one seems to know what happened the Kristen. They all have major baggage and we pick through their stories one by one. Everyone brings something interesting to this story that further complicates the mystery of Kristen’s disappearance.

This story really digs into the pressure of being the perfect mother and of being the only single person in a place where everyone seems to have a family. This story is very character driven, even with the mystery of the disappearance. I think the main theme of this story explores how even in a picturesque little neighborhood where everyone knows everyone, there can be horrible things going on behind the scenes.

I picked up this book because of the premise. A woman and her two kids disappear after a neighborhood bonfire the night before. I thought it would be an amateur like detective mystery with the neighborhood women taking it upon themselves to find their friend and her kids and discover exactly what happened. Only, that’s not what we have here. Instead, the story focuses on two women, Izzy and Clara, and their struggle to understand what happened to their friend while dealing with their own issues. The beginning is strong. Strawser sets up the plotline and introduces the main characters, opening the story with a police detective visits Izzy, explaining her friend Kristen and her kids are missing and her ex-husband was the one who reported them missing. From there, the story flashes between Izzy and Clara, and the mystery slowly unfolds within their thoughts and observations. Izzy moved into the neighborhood after her sister married Izzy’s best friend and the man she loved. The man she never had the nerve to tell she loved. Clara loves her kids and her husband but beginning to questions her life and the decisions she made. I hit the 40% mark and realized how bored I was. Lots of talking and watching but little action. I could not connect with any of these characters. I think women’s fiction would have been a better genre to slate this in as it deals more with friendship, love, loss, and acceptance with a very light mystery. I gave up halfway in.

Grade: DNF

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

When I got Jessica Strawser’s second book, Not That I Could Tell, in the mail- happy dances happened all the way back from the mailbox. I loved, no LOVED, Almost Missed You and could not wait for the 2nd book (especially after Jessica did a cover reveal on Facebook!)
What I liked:

The cover. The firepit. The wine glasses. The Adirondack chairs. The purples and blues swirling together. Honestly, this looked like a great night to be part of…. till you notice those burned edges that hint at something darker.

The setting. This is a neighborhood that nothing goes wrong. It’s a PTA, bake sale, mommy life full of smiles neighborhood. Till you realize that secrets are lurking.

The ending. I will say no more. But it’s good.



Bottom line: While this one did not quite knock Almost Missed You off as my fave Jessica book- it came close. It has TONS going for it and I eagerly anticipate Jessica’s 3rd book.



*Not That I Could Tell was sent to Traveling With T by St. Martin’s Press for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*

**Not That I Could Tell is a March #FuturisticFriday selection of Traveling With T’s.**

This book was told from the viewpoint of several characters. It was especially revealing to read the thoughts of the woman who was missing. It was suspenseful...the kind of book that keeps you guessing. I especially liked the twist at the end. If you enjoy a book that keeps you turning the pages, then this book is for you. (I was given a copy of this book for my review, but would have gladly paid to read it!)

3.5 stars. Six women gather in a neighbor's backyard for a casual evening of drinking and conversation. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but by sunrise one of the women and her two young children are missing. Law enforcement and media swarm the neighborhood, while the women rack their brains trying to remember if anything odd happened the night before. What happened to Kristin and her twins? Did she run away or did someone harm them? Could her soon-to-be ex-husband be to blame?

The chapters alternate between the perspectives of two of the missing woman's neighbors, with the occasional cryptic chapter from someone I immediately assumed was Kristin. Izzy just moved to the neighborhood. She has been secretly in love with her best friend for years, but he ended up falling in love with her sister. She moved to Yellow Springs for a fresh start, hoping that the distance would help her get past the heartbreak and help her build something of her own. Bonding with her new neighbors has been nice, but she can't resist focusing on what could've been. Clara has lived in Yellow Springs for a year. She was hoping for some peace and quiet after an incident that altered her perspective on life, but much to her husband's chagrin, she's managed to find herself at the center of yet another conflict. Clara spent the most time with Kristin out of all the neighbors, but as the investigation into Kristin's disappearance unfolds, she realizes how little she actually knew about her "close" friend. Clara's story didn't interest me as much as Izzy's tale of unrequited love, but she's a kind, supportive friend and her relationship with her children and husband was sweet and authentic.

If you like Celeste Ng's characters, you'll probably like Jessica Strawser's characters too. (There's also an Ohio connection there!) They both have a knack for exploring emotional conflict and zeroing in on all the oddball thoughts and little quirks that make a complete person. There are so many little details that make the characters relatable. I laughed when Clara mentioned that she still expected authority figures to be "significantly older than her," even though she's in her mid-thirties. Even minor characters like Izzy's mom have traits that make them feel familiar: "She was the type who was so good at fussing over things that she almost seemed to enjoy it—and thus didn’t bother to adjust her intensity for big problems or minuscule ones, or for those within her control or well outside." Strawser also excels at building authentic relationships between characters. Izzy enjoys Clara's company because Clara is the one person that doesn't make her feel like she's "in the wrong place in her life." Clara bonds with her twelve-year-old neighbor Hallie because she recognizes "a familiar loneliness, a solidarity shared among only children with varying degrees of absentee parents." The missing woman Kristin and Hallie's mom Natalie are the only characters that receded into the background for me. Two of my favorite characters were Izzy's father and aspiring investigative reporter Hallie, because they both steered the main characters in different directions.


I just read Just Between Us, a book about a group of women where the most elusive one is married to a potentially abusive doctor, so that probably affected my reading experience. Even in that review, I mentioned that I keep reading variations of the same theme! While I loved the characters, the story was slow and uneventful. Between Izzy's moping over a situation that could only end one way and detailed descriptions of Clara's day-to-day life as a stay-at-home mom, the story stagnated. At about 85% I was wondering if anything was ever going to happen. (Something actually did happen a few pages later!) I also didn't feel any urgency or concern over Kristin's whereabouts. Like Izzy, I "didn’t actually know Kristin well enough to be truly fraught over her vanishing act." The story deals with potential domestic abuse, but Izzy's story of unrequited love was actually the emotional core for me. I liked the ending, but it felt too familiar.


What is our responsibility to our friends and neighbors? Should we mind our own business or do we assume "some risk ... with proximity"? Izzy prides herself on being an objective observer during the whole situation, but perhaps taking a stand would've been the right thing to do. Clara and her husband's opposing perspectives on this issue is a source of conflict in their marriage. This story is about beginning again when it seems impossible. Even when it seems like all hope is lost, it's never too late to set things right. It also deals with the useless but comforting rituals we use to console ourselves and the futility of seeking explanations where there are none to be found. Not That I Could Tell You is mostly about the friend and acquaintance of a missing woman working through their issues, rather than a twisty suspense novel. If slow pacing due to moping or child-rearing bores you or you've read a "behind closed doors" story recently, you might want to skip this one for now. However, even though I was anxious for something to happen, Strawser's writing and characters kept me turning the pages. If you like slow-burn stories with interesting and relatable characters, this book may be for you!

This author also wrote Almost Missed You, which I really enjoyed. It's about a woman who thinks her life and marriage is perfect until her husband runs away with their child. But maybe the signs were there all along—she just wasn't ready to see them yet.

This was such a boring book that I skimmed a lot of it just to see whether the conclusion was going to be as obvious as I predicted at the start. (It was.) A woman and her twins run away. That's the entire story. The reason is not a mystery. There is no suspense until the last 10% of the book and even then it's pretty feeble. Instead, throughout the book we learn the irrelevant back stories and domestic details of each of the neighbors of the missing woman. This was not for me. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

I was provided an e-ARC of this novel from NetGalley and St. Martins Press in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued by the synopsis - neighbours, wine, backyard fire, and a mystery. I was hooked from the beginning and snuck in a chapter every chance I got. I was kept guessing until the end - did he do it? Is he innocent? I went back and forth so many times that I found myself thinking that maybe it was one of the very minor characters who had something to do with Kristin's disappearance. I was definitely not expecting the ending, but found it fitting.

The characters of Clara and Izzy were easily relatable and I felt myself pulling for them. I despised the character of Paul, he had no redeemable qualities and just angered me.

This was the first novel I've read by Jessica Strawser. I can't wait for future releases. In the meantime, I'll be looking for her first novel.

A solid 4 stars.

When four neighborhood friends get to spend a Saturday night together, they are just glad to have some free time away from kids and chores. Everything is great until the next morning. Three of the friends discover one of their friends, Kristen and her two children, have disappeared. This is the story of what happened to Kristen and how her disappearance affects the neighborhood.
I enjoyed this book. I liked the way the author revealed what happened to Kristen a little at a time. I read almost the whole book before I figured out what happened to them. The ending was superb!

At first I was skeptical about reading this book as I have a relative that lives in Yellow Springs and works in the medical field, so I did not want it to be a dark suspense thriller.

I enjoyed the evening with the ladies relaxing around the firepit and just soaking up the ambiance. But what happens next? Neighbor Kristen is missing along with her twins and suspicion builds as she is getting a divorce from her doctor husband. Is she on the lam or did her husband Paul have any hand in her disappearance?

This book mainly centers around how well do we really know each other and do we really get to look behind the veneer of people we think we know, or assume we know?

This plot kept me captivated through the surprise ending - at least to me.

This is the first book that I have ever read by this author. I will go back and read her first book and anticipate any further books. This was a light enjoyable read that I would recommend to family and friends and also buy as a gift.

I was quite excited when NetGalley and St. Martin's Press gave me an e-ARC of Not That I Could Tell because I enjoyed Jessica Strawser's first novel Almost Missed You so much. One always wonders if an author will be able to replicate the things that captivated you in their prior work, and Not That I Could Tell succeeds wonderfully.

There currently seem to be alot of neighborhood books, but don't let this one pass you by. Following a girl's night of relaxing, drinking, chatting and exchanging confidences around a fire-pit, one of the women is reported missing the next day. She and her twins, along with many of their things, are gone. But did she leave of her own free-will, or is something more sinister afoot? She was separated from her husband, an OB-Gyn, with a divorce pending, but no one expected this! As the investigation continues, her husband becomes more of a suspect, but is he what he seems to be? Is the neighborhood safe?

Strawser does a beautiful job of drawing rich characters and letting them tell the story. I particularly liked Izzy (the only single woman at the gathering) and Clara (the hostess). This story-line (as in her previous book) is both believable and relatable.

Everyone has a story, but not everyone shares theirs. How well do we really know the people around us? Strawser's book is an engaging read on just that topic.

Again, thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this good book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser is a mystery/thriller, and my first book by this author. One night the neighborhood women all get together and drink wine, in one of their yards. The following morning Kristin the mother of twins, is missing along with the children. Kristin is recently separated from Paul, could he be involved with her disappearance? I loved this book and did not want to put it down. There is so many story lines going on, you just want to keep reading to see what happens next. I really enjoy the well developed characters, and story line. I strongly recommend this book for any mystery readers.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser was an enjoyable read about the relationships in a group of neighborhood women after one of them disappears. The story moved along well and kept me reading to find out what happened. I did see the ending coming, but it was still an enjoyable read. Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader's copy.

It was one night by the fire, baby monitors turned up and the wine flowing as five neighborhood friends laughed and shared with one another. Come Monday, one of them is missing and no one knows why or where she might be. Clara dives in, turning herself into the fortress who must protect everyone, her mind constantly filled with thoughts of missing Kristin and her maybe-not-so-nice ex-husband Paul. Izzy feels bereft, her first start of friendship in the small town marred by the ending of that first get together and the aching separation of her family pushing her to seek companionship elsewhere. With detectives lurking around and Kristin's ex-husband suddenly at home all the time, two friends tread the water of uncertainty.

Women's Fiction, Domestic Thriller, whatever you want to call it, Not That I Could Tell is a smart, engaging novel about neighborhood friends and the secrets they keep. I live in a small town, so I immediately connected with Clara and Izzy, though their personal lives are very different. Married with children, Clara is the mom who seems to care a lot about everyone else around her. Most affected by the missing friend she spends much of her time thinking over scenarios and how she found herself in the spotlight of the case. Izzy is single, nursing a broken heart from a secret love and trying to find her footing in a new place. She comes across as young and naive, an easy friend and an even easier target. I liked Jessica Strawser's choice to use these two as the narrators of the story, their viewpoints of the evening and the events that followed it very different. Though I would bill this as a suspense, as missing Kristin is the base of the story, the story is really best when just reading about the background of the characters and the steps each takes to move on as time continues to go by. For some, that may be uninteresting, for me, I love a good bit of friendly drama. The situations the characters find themselves in could easily happen to anyone and the secondary characters felt very true to the people you might meet on the sidewalk of any small town.

Not That I Could Tell seems to be one of those books that readers are either loving or feeling just meh about. I'm one of the readers that really enjoyed it, but I like women's fiction with a hint of suspense. I enjoy novels about neighbors, groups of friends, and the secrets they keep in order to maintain a level of normalcy they've each come to expect from one another. I found Not That I Could Tell entertaining and I was engaged from beginning to end, the predictability of it didn't even bother me. I'd definitely suggest this book to Women's Fiction fans and I think it could easily be a great book club read.

After a group of women meet one Saturday night for a much needed “girl’s night out”, a break from their daily lives—children, other family obligations, housework, etc.--one of the group disappears. This book covers the reactions of the group, who all live in the same neighborhood and close to one another, to this news. In particular, the book focuses on Clara, a young mother like the missing woman, Kristin, and Izzy, the newest member of the group, who stands out because of this newness and because, unlike the others, she has no husband or children. The book also delves into the missing woman’s husband, Paul, reactions to this event. In the book, each person reacts a little bit differently. As time goes on and the woman does not return, and the local police find no trace of her or her children, the story fades somewhat from local news, though the small group still puzzles over the event, as well as why Kristin took off as well as where she and the children might be. As the story progresses, the reader becomes privy to a myriad of secrets each character harbors, which play a major role in their initial reactions and subsequent actions/conclusions.

This was an interesting story and a bit different. However, from the get-go, I had figured out what was going on and how it would end, so there was really no big surprise for me. I found it interesting to learn about the small group and how they all lived and reacted to a neighborhood mystery that touched them all. In addition, the author did include some interesting, though not terribly earth shattering, secrets. My big problem with the book was that it dragged on and on. Some of the past incidents revealed were definitely integral to the story, but some, no so much. For example, the past incident where one of Clara’s co-workers was killed by an ex-boyfriend was interesting, but really had no real part or bearing on the story, so I found myself wondering why the author even included this vignette. I personally felt the book could have been about 50-60 pages shorter, still been about the same and probably would not have dragged as much. In addition, there was no real suspense, at least not for me, as I had figured out what was going on early on. I also do not think the author developed the characters in a way that led to the conclusion. One character I found especially irritating was Izzy. Throughout the book, she is depicted as a crazy, obsessive (at least to herself) love-sick woman, enamored by a man she could never have. This is a grown woman, totally consumed by a man who is married to someone else. Get over it and grow up. Perhaps, rather than silently lusting after and loving this guy, Izzy should have made some moves to get things going with him before he married. In addition, she became totally alienated toward her family because of this obsession. I do not know how close she was to them before this or how much contact she had had with them, but it seemed that she let this man and her obsessive love for him wipe everything else in her life out. Perhaps some counseling or even the recognition that she needed counseling could have helped me like her more in the story—but that seemed not to be an option and she kept pining after him and let this love rule her whole life. The book was not bad, though I would not say it was good either. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

My rating: 3.5 stars

After having read and enjoyed Jessica Strawser’s debut novel Almost Missed You early last year, I was excited when I heard she would have a second book out. I remember pulling an “all-nighter” for her first book, as it was such a gripping read that I couldn’t bring myself to put it down. Not surprising then that I went into her second book Not That I Could Tell with high expectations, which in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have. While I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed, since I did like the story overall and the characters were well-developed as well as realistically written, I do have to say that I definitely enjoyed Strawser’s first book way more. Similar to her first book, this one also starts off with a mysterious disappearance, this time it is Kristin Kirkland, a devoted mother of twins who is in the midst of a divorce from her doctor husband Paul – she and her twins go missing after a girls’ night out with her friends, other women from the neighborhood. From there, the rest of the story is spent trying to figure out what happened to Kristin and why – we get to hear from each of the women who were at the gathering that night and in the process, we also learn their stories and eventually, the secrets they were also hiding. Unlike Strawser’s first book, which was a suspenseful and gripping read for me, this one by comparisons fell a bit flat – the suspense factor was nearly nonexistent and there wasn’t a big “twist” that made my jaw drop like her first one did. Sure, I was curious as to what happened with Kristin but I felt like for much of the book, the “mystery” of Kristin’s disappearance ended up taking a back seat to everything else that was going on in the neighborhood itself and all the issues that the other characters had to deal with in their lives. In terms of plot, this one was very much a slow-burn, with not much action happening for most of the story – it’s not until the last third of the book or so that the story gained some traction, but even then it wasn’t that big of a leap. To me, this book leaned more heavily on the women’s fiction side than mystery / suspense – not necessarily a bad thing of course, it’s just that I was expecting it to be in the same vein as Almost Missed You (which leaned more heavily on mystery/suspense aspect), which obviously it was not.

Even though I didn’t find this book as compelling as Strawser’s previous one, I did enjoy the characters quite a bit and appreciated the different angle she took with their development. The focus of much of the narrative was on Kristin’s neighbors Clara and Izzy and how they had to juggle coping with their friend’s disappearance while at the same time working through their own issues – both characters were realistically drawn and interestingly enough, I was able to relate to both of them in many aspects, even though their lives were so different. This was a story where I did end up connecting with the characters, albeit not as much on an emotional level but rather more empathetically in that I’ve had to deal with some similar issues in the past, to varying degrees. What really kept me turning the pages though was the writing, which was fantastic! This was an area that Strawser absolutely delivered on and something I’ve come to expect from her books.

Despite this book not drawing me in as much due to its slower pace, it was still a good story and one that I can definitely recommend as long as the understanding is there not to expect a tautly-written suspense thriller. Personally, I appreciated the more underlying messages the story brought out about important issues such as domestic abuse and its impact as well as the attitudes and reactions from society. I also really liked the way the aspects of motherhood, friendship, relationships in its various forms, etc. were handled in the story – slightly different perspectives that made the characters quite a bit more interesting than those in similar stories. Jessica Strawser is one author whose works I will definitely continue to read!

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley

One night, several neighborhood women in a quiet suburban community gather around a backyard bonfire and get tipsy together, as groups of suburban women who enjoy wine are wont to do. The next day, however, one of the women, along with her twin children, is missing. She and her husband were going through a divorce, but he seems to be genuinely worried about where she's gone. The families in the surrounding houses are all increasingly nervous as the missing woman's husband takes up residence in the now-empty home, especially as he seems to be moving on rather quickly to the one eligible bachelorette in the neighborhood.

I kept waiting for some kind of big reveal at the end, but this novel honestly played out more or less as I expected. There are a lot of teases and subtle misdirects, but the interstitial bits of italicized text in the book that seem to be from an anonymous narrator are pretty unsubtle hints as to what has actually happened to the missing woman.

Though I found the "mystery" aspect of this book disappointing, I did really enjoy getting to know the characters and the setting, Yellow Springs, which reminded me a lot of a planned community whose library I used to work in - tight-knit families, a liberal, hippy-ish preschool, a lesbian couple with an adorable kid, and the single protagonist, who is struggling with serious internal conflict after her sister marries her best friend. If you're hoping for a head-spinning plot twist, that's not what you'll get here - but if you're a fan of interesting assemblages of characters and their interpersonal dynamics, this is definitely a book for you.

3.5 stars_The pace was sooooo slow ! I really enjoyed the story and the ending pushed it close to a 4 stars for me, but I wasn't really into it the whole time. I did enjoy the characters, the backstories, the fact that they were all neighbors and treated each other like family. I do recommend this book but keep it mind this is not a fast paced thriller. There was only one chapter in the whole book that I was biting my nails out of stress!