Tell Me Everything is about friendship, betrayal and of course heartbreak.

Debut author sets the tone with Malin who is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years at Hawthorne College.

The storyline was easy to follow and the well-crafted characters were very well done.

Do you ever finish a book and not know how you feel? That is what I am experiencing now. I enjoyed it, but at the same time it felt like something was missing.

I really enjoyed the character development, and found the story easy to fall into. So I think overall, I would recommend this book!

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

When she first turns up to Hawthorne College, introverted incoming freshman Malin Ahlberg—the narrator in Cambria Brockman’s debut thriller Tell Me Everything—makes it her mission to join a close-knit group of friends. As luck would have it, their jolly and diverse group welcomes the Texas newcomer into their New England small-town ways. She latches on to Ruby, an athletic, smart, and beautiful art history major and the two quickly become besties.
It soon becomes clear though, that Malin has unusual reasons for doing this, as is hinted when at the beginning of the school year, her father gently advises Malin to make friends and lead a "normal" life as best she can at college. Cambria Brockman uses brief flashbacks to Malin's childhood interspersed throughout the chapters to reveal Malin's strange and tragic upbringing. Clearly someone good at keeping secrets, she becomes the person her friends spill their secrets to her, because they expect that she keeps them locked up inside with the proverbial key thrown away. She also digs and secretly reads diaries; she quietly records and remembers everything over the group's four years at Hawthorne, a time together that culminates in a surprising and violent death.

As readers follow Malin and her friends from the first days of freshman year through their senior year, when they are more confident and in fuller form, it becomes increasingly apparent that Malin's agenda is less than completely friendly. As Brockman weaves through the senior year narrative, the tension rises and Malin puts a plan in to action that has so many moving pieces that somewhere along the way it will surely fall apart.

As a main character, Malin is unusual and refreshingly so. Although, she enters the tale as an introverted outsider, she is neither meek nor in need of being taken under a charismatic leader’s wing. She has her own unsavory motives and mysterious plans that she is more than happy to execute, but she is more complex than that. She supports Ruby through her friend's abusive relationship with the handsome and unfaithful John, and Malin feels a special kinship with the quiet and contemplative Max (who picks up aspects of Malin that she believes she is successfully hiding). Tell Me Everything is a forceful debut mystery and I would be happy to read Cambria Brockman’s next twisty tale.

I thought Tell Me Everything was a solid story that had a wonderful slow burn mystery! I will be looking forward to Brockman's work in the future.

This mystery is set in college and includes mystery, drama and a great sense of doom. A great psychological thriller.

While the blurb for Tell Me Everything is misleading, it was enjoyable nonetheless. The blurb mentions a murder that happens and tears apart a group of friends. In reality, the murder doesn't happen till the very end of the book and the friend group bears no impact. The book follows Malin, the main character, and her group of friends during their start of college through senior year. Malin's traumatic experience and damage is easy to guess, but wasn't a particularly unique plot line. The ending feels rushed, but is satisfying.

“Everyone is having the best time ever. We are all pretending. And we are good at it.”

** Mini Review **

A slow burn character study with a splash of suspense. Told entirely from the perspective of Malin. In multiple time periods, freshman year, senior day, and A brief look into her childhood. This really was a story about friendship and connections. Malin is an introvert, her freshman year in college she’s determined to make friends and is happy to find herself part of a group of six who remain tight throughout college. The group moves in together after freshman year. They are as close as people can be. BUT Malin is keeping secrets. It is now senior year and the friendship is starting to unravel leading to a tragic event on senior day.

This wasn’t as much a thriller as I was anticipating, but I really enjoyed it. I loved getting to know all of these characters and watch them navigate their relationships. I enjoy books about friendships and the college years, so this was right in my wheelhouse. Recommend anyone who enjoys a well told story with some elements of suspense. Looking forward to what’s next from this author.

This book in emojis 🍃 🏫 📓 🗓

*** thanks to Random House for my copy of this book ***

Small Hawthorne College in Maine is the setting for this book about six friends, some with more secrets than the others. Told slowly, alternating between freshman year when they all met and Senior year, in particular the famed Senior Day, Malin from Texas takes center stage as the main narrator. Really well thought out psychological thriller, it was hard to put down and even more difficult to guess what was going to happen at the end.

I was anticipating ‘Tell Me Everything” by Cambria Brockman since learning of its release. The story centers around Malin, a new college student who will soon discover that all secrets don’t remain buried.
The premise of this book was great. I mean, I love books where secrets are revealed. I loved the writing style of this author. The characters were developed. But….what was that ending?! Also, this book was not suspense. I feel a little bamboozled to be honest. The synopsis and the actual book really don’t match up. It was not a thriller. There were no twists. I’m not sure why it is being advertised as such but this is not the case.

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

An elite New England college, a group of friends that form fast and close, a shocking murder that tears them apart…. I knew going in the Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman was my kind of book. I love books that take place on college campuses. They are little microcosm of society—everything always seemed heightened because it is more contained. This was no exception!

What a book! The suspense in this one creeps up. Despite knowing upfront that Senior Day will end in a murder, the story was so captivating that I almost forgot about the murder for the first half. The story is told in alternating timelines between freshman year as Malin forms friendships with the group of six, Senior Day where the twisted path these friendships have taken unfold through quick stories leading up to the murder, and stories from Malin’s past that cover secrets she has worked to keep hidden.

This narrative structure was so perfectly executed, as the bits of stories we learned about each character slowly became connected, leading to a shocking ending that truly took me by surprise. Sometimes I think that telling a story out of sequence can be jarring, but that didn’t happen here. Instead, the characters became more rounded as the book progressed.

Malin is an incredible and unique character. Her beauty is in stark contrast to who she is—someone who is more comfortable in the shadows letting others shine. When Malin starts college, she pushes herself to try to make friends. In the past, she has always preferred being alone, a fact that made her parents worry about her. With a fresh start, Malin is determined to be normal and have people to rely on.

And despite Malin’s reserved nature and distance from others, she does develop friendships. Seeing the characters through Malin’s eyes was interesting, because Malin is a person who thinks deeply about each interaction. She reads others and tries to understand what they want, what they are hiding, and why they are doing things. But Malin herself never seems fully reliable. Through her monologue, we come to understand that Malin has some secrets in her past that she hopes the others won’t learn. Malin doesn’t even share them with us right away.

And the ending! I have to be careful here because I don’t want to give any hints. I saw another reviewer describe the ending as “a twist so quiet you never saw it coming” and I think that is the perfect way to describe it. A brilliant debut novel! I will be looking for whatever Cambria Brockman does next!

Fun page turner, like a less serious version of The Likeness or The Secret History. Great atmospheric campus setting and an interesting format, switching between three time periods.

When I received this book from NetGalley, I had no idea what to expect, and boy this was a pleasant surprise. It takes a lot for me to make me oh wow, and this book did that. This is a slow burn of novel, but so worth it.

This story is narrated by Malin who is at college and becomes close friends with 5 other people. This takes them from freshman year to senior year. This story also flashes back to when Malin was at home in Texas and an incident surrounding her brother. There felt a lot like the Secret History but has a much larger thriller element.

This is a story that I can’t say too much, as it will divulge too much and this has a shocking twist that I would never want to spoil for the reader. I gasped at the last 20% and I never do that. If you don’t mind a slower build-up than take a chance, because it well worth the wait.

Thank you NetGalley and Ballentine Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. There’s Gemma, an insecure theater major from London; John, a tall, handsome, and wealthy New Englander; Max, John’s cousin and a shy pre-med major; Khaled, a wise-cracking prince from Abu Dhabi; and Ruby, a beautiful art history major. But Malin isn’t quite like the rest of her friends. She’s an expert at hiding her troubling past. She acts as if she is concerned with the preoccupations of those around her – boys, partying – all while using her insight to detect their deepest vulnerabilities and weaknesses. By Senior Day, on the cusp of graduation, Malin’s secrets – and those of her friends – are revealed. As their fragile relationships hang in the balance and close alliances start shifting, Malin will test the limits of what she’s capable of to stop the truth from coming out. review: I had heard a lot of hype surrounding this book and was really excited to read it! The story opens up on Senior Day and while you’re aware there’s been a murder, you’re not sure who was murdered or how it happened just yet. Throughout the story you see the friends college years unfold while also discovering bits and pieces of Malin’s childhood I really enjoyed that the story took place on an elite college campus – it had a Gossip Girl feel! I didn’t find this book to be fast-paced but I did enjoy it! I particularly enjoyed learning more about the protagonist’s childhood and seeing how it had impacted her life. The ending was really crazy and that made me enjoy the book overall! rating: 3 out of 5 ⭐️

Malin was such a unique character! Her image is shattered, but do we as the reader ever truly understand her? Read to find out!

This is not the book the blurb or cover claim it to be. I expected good things from a book that has four references to The Secret History on its back cover but I was thoroughly disappointed. The book itself was good, but not what I was expecting. I was expecting a book that revolved around a murder, not one in which a murder happens in the last twenty or so pages.

Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman was a great novel. The main character is Malin, a girl with a secret but we really don’t know exactly what her secret is. We do know that once at college, she immediately befriends a group of people who become a close group over their four years at school. But as time progresses, layers are peeled back and Malin sees her friends for who they really are, however she maintains her carefully kept secrets.

In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. There’s Gemma, an insecure theater major from London; John, a tall, handsome, wealthy New Englander; Max, John’s cousin, a shy pre-med major; Khaled, a wisecracking prince from Abu Dhabi; and Ruby, a beautiful art history major. But Malin isn’t like the rest of her friends. She’s an expert at hiding her troubled past. She acts as if she shares the preoccupations of those around her—dating, partying—all while using her extraordinary insight to detect their deepest vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

By Senior Day, on the cusp of graduation, Malin’s secrets—and those of her friends—are revealed. While she scrambles to maintain her artfully curated image, her missteps set in motion a devastating chain of events that ends in a murder. And as fragile relationships hang in the balance and close alliances shift, Malin must test the limits of what she’s capable of to stop the truth from coming out.

In a mesmerizing novel that peels back the innumerable layers of a seductive protagonist, debut author Cambria Brockman brings to life an entrancing story of friendship, heartbreak, and betrayal.

The book flips between freshman and senior year and while this isn’t suspense, the several pages held a twist I wasn’t prepared for. The character of Malin is creepy and a little weird, she reads her best friends diary to gain knowledge of her deepest thoughts and while she learns everyone’s secrets, she tells nothing about her own.

The author’s writing was good, I was interested to learn what was going to happen next as the story progressed. I would not say its a page-turning suspense but more of slow unravel of a troubled young woman.

Out now so grab a copy!

What an amazing debut! It is hard to believe that this is Cambria Brockman’s first book. The many pluses of this psychological suspense are the winter Maine college setting, the flawless execution of well-rounded, believable characters and the unique plot line that constantly kept me surprised. This was one of those books that I could not put down and I enjoyed every minute of it. Suspense fans should put this at the top of their list!

Many thanks to Netgalley, Ballantine Books and Cambria Brockman for providing a complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

"Pretend." Malin Ahlberg's father whispers this instruction in her ear as her parents drop her at Hawthorne College, a small liberal arts school in the Maine backwoods. For the next four years, from that first day through the tragedies that befall her friends on Senior Day in 2011, Malin takes his directive to heart.

Cambria Brockman's debut, Tell Me Everything, ultimately does tell all; yet, in line with psychologically twisted college clique tales, not before putting the reader through a maddeningly enjoyable wringer. Malin is patently unreliable, but in a wonderfully fresh, clear-headed way. She is not influenced by drugs or alcohol; quite the opposite, in fact. Malin is about control, with an unknown but definite method to her madness.

Coming from Texas, as something of a fish-out-of-water, Malin surprisingly finds herself part of an intimate yet disparate group of six friends. Living together in a house purchased by one set of wealthy parents gives Malin constant access to and insights into their secrets, changing dynamics and intimacies.

Weaving through three main timelines--Malin's childhood, freshman year and senior year--Brockman slowly exposes the meaning behind Malin's father's whispered instruction and her ongoing manipulations. Some minor plot points and discrepancies in the character depth of the six friends create minor hiccups in the flow, but Brockman has turned in a compelling slow burn with focus justly on its furtive protagonist. Malin's retelling of each period in her life is fraught with competing control and unease that make for a dynamite combination.

STREET SENSE: I went into this one blind and really kind of dug it. If you're a sucker for multiple timelines and manipulative narrators with shady pasts, you might find it in your wheelhouse as well.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: My father saw potential in me, so he taught me how to be normal. I don’t think he realized it made me more dangerous, to know how to appear like I cared.

(But really, this is the best one: "Responding to people was so taxing." Man, I feel you, sister.)

COVER NERD SAYS: I like this cover. It's a bit "bright" for a book that is really more dark, but the pool has symbolism that I like and the ripples are a pretty cool effect and somewhat metaphorical. Clean, uncluttered, nice palette, good balance, no distracting blurbs or extraneous writing. This would catch my eye on a shelf for sure.

In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. There’s Gemma, an insecure theater major from London; John, a tall, handsome, wealthy New Englander; Max, John’s cousin, a shy pre-med major; Khaled, a wisecracking prince from Abu Dhabi; and Ruby, a beautiful art history major. But Malin isn’t like the rest of her friends. She’s an expert at hiding her troubled past. She acts as if she shares the preoccupations of those around her—dating, partying—all while using her extraordinary insight to detect their deepest vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

By Senior Day, on the cusp of graduation, Malin’s secrets—and those of her friends—are revealed. While she scrambles to maintain her artfully curated image, her missteps set in motion a devastating chain of events that ends in a murder. And as fragile relationships hang in the balance and close alliances shift, Malin must test the limits of what she’s capable of to stop the truth from coming out.

Oh my gosh, the betrayal with these friends was insane!! This was a great story that I highly recommend to anyone.

#TellMeEverything #NetGalley
Pub Date: 16 Jul 2019