This is one of the strangest books I've read in awhile. The idea of multiple personalities is fascinating but somehow these different personalities didn't ever feel quite real to me. It's interesting how the story rotates among the different (and they are all unique and very different) personalities but the story just fell flat for me.

I was looking forward to the ending to redeem it all but it was definitely underwhelming. Too bad. I'll give the book 3 stars just because it kept my interest enough to keep me reading but I was disappointed it wasn't more.

Multiple personalities in fiction is a subgenre (found mainly in mysteries or thrillers) that I must admit to being totally fascinated with. And though there have been a lot of changes over the years to the actual science (from MPD to DID and more and more doubts cast on the diagnosis altogether in the wake of the "Sybil" story reveal), any mention or hint in a synopsis still invariably draws me in. So, needless, to say, I couldn't resist this one. But, this one didn't exactly fit my expectations...

Narrated mainly by various personalities housed within the body legally known as Carolyn Grand, this book opens up with a promiscuous personality propositioning an undercover cop and placing their freedom in jeopardy. Their legal troubles worsen when the court-appointed therapist seems to have an agenda of his own. More and more stresses come out, but the book never really feels fast-paced from a plot perspective. There's a lot of set-up with the various personalities as wells the traumatic background that led to Carolyn's fragmented present state. But, while this builds up to a horrifying past, it's revealed in a telling manner, not a showing one, which removes it somewhat and slows down the pacing quite a bit. The real crux of the plot only takes place halfway through the novel, and I definitely spent a bit of time wondering just where this was all really going. Furthermore, the ending is somewhat less than satisfying to me... two of the plot points that I cared about the most are largely unaddressed and the romantic relationship doesn't really feel all that plausible... I didn't hate this one, but it just wasn't what I hoped it would be.

As a child, Carolyn suffered terrible abuse by her father and then later at a foster home. To cope, she developed multiple personalities. Carolyn’s worst fears return when her father is let out on parole after serving years in prison for his crimes. When he is murdered in his seedy hotel room, Carolyn is under suspicion. Was it Carolyn, one of her alter egos, or ? The one time, chance, sexual encounter with the policewoman seemed far fetched as well as the affair with the detective investigating the case. Aren’t the police not supposed to get involved with suspects? Oh well, still a fascinating psychological thriller told by the various individual personalities who each remember different bits and pieces.

I was really looking forward to this book. Multiple personalities? Yes please! It started off pretty strong and had my interest but the more I got into the book the more eye rolling it became. Sorry but this book just did not execute very well.

Thank you netgalley for providing me with All of Us by A.F. Carter for my honest review

Carolyn Grand has very distinct multiple personalities. There's Eleni, the seductive one, Serena, the timid one, Martha, the one that does all the choresss, Victoria is the well dressed one, Tina is the little girl and then there's Kirk, he feels that he is a man stuck in a woman's body.

When Eleni accidentally solicits a detective, Carolyn Grand is forced to prove she's able to care for herself. She then finds out her father, the man that abused her, was being released from prison. All of her rage comes to the forefront as she realizes her psychiatrist isn't really trying to help her and her father has been murdered. Can she prove her innocence when she has no recollection of that night?

I loved this book, it really makes you think about what someone with this disorder goes through. Imagine having days, weeks, or months missing out of your life at a time. The descriptions were so vivid that you feel the frustrations and confusion, not knowing what she did and what happened on those missing days. The only part I wasn't very happy with was the very anti-climatic ending.

All of Us by A.F. Carter Reviewed on May 27, 2020
Carolyn Grand has DID an acronym for Dissociative Identity Disorder formerly known as “Multiple Personality Disorder”. Yes she has 6 personalities.

I took many psych courses in both my undergraduate as well as my graduated program, actually enough for a minor so I totally get excited with these types of novels. I am old enough to remember “Three Faces of Eve” as well as “Sybil”. I recently read a novel that was a mystery and didn’t know into well into the story that personality was a factor.

Story is told from the POV of each of the personalities. Carolyn experience terrible abuse.
I knew this that wasn’t going to be a really fun read. I do like dark and creepy and had high expectations for this story.
I believe it could have been great but guess I just wasn’t in the right mood.

I do wish to thank NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this early release granted to me in exchange for an honest professional review. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for June 12, 2020

Well well. This was a blast. Strangely addictive in its short enough life. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

It’s the story of Carolyn Grand who suffered some severe trauma in her childhood and has split her personality into multiple personalities, diagnosed as suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Carolyn isn’t really there anymore, only the numerous iterations of her with their separate names and one even being a man.

The story is told from their perspective as they find themselves having to attend a psychologist for assessment after being stopped by police for a minor misdemeanour.
Things escalate as “Carolyn” becomes a suspect in a recent murder. Did one of her personas commit it without the others being aware?

I really enjoyed this one. It’s told from the multiple viewpoints of the characters that occupy the one body. We don’t get different perspectives per say of the same situation, rather we jump from character to character as time moves along and a character finds them self in control of the body.
The format worked great and is handled with a mixture of dark humour and some truly unsettling subject matter.
The characters all clearly defined. All facets of her own personality to an extent, they all have their own distinctive trait.

The story does feel like it might trip over itself at any stage or tie itself into knots but it somehow manages to manoeuvre these obstacles and tell a coherent and easy to follow story with what I found a very satisfying ending.

You will need to suspend disbelief on occasion and go along with some of the over the top, nearly cartoon type characters that are scattered through the book but it makes it all the more enjoyable for me. A mixture of quite graphic and nasty subject matter splattered with dark humour and out and out humour with some larger the life characters. A bit like if Tarantino decided to write a novel in a way.

Just over 200 pages. Doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Packs everything the story needs into those 200 pages, I love to see books like this that don’t try and fluff their feathers out to make the book longer for the sake of it. Great job by the editor and whoever else was involved in deciding the final draft.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Grove Atlantic Mysterious Press and A.F. Carter for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I remember reading The Three Faces Of Eve, seeing the movie Sybil and being fascinated with multiple personalities. Sometimes thing happen that are so awful or so traumatic that the mind cannot handle it. Some people blank it out. For other people the mind creates a new identity to handle it. Charlene Grant was abused by her father and his friends for their amusement but she still had hope. When her father was arrested and she went into foster care the abuse was even worse. This time she lost hope and many other identities came into being. As the book opens, one of her identities, Eleni the sexual one, propositioned an undercover cop. She wasn't arrested because she didn't ask for money but she was sent to therapy with the rather creepy Dr Halbertstam. With him we meet Martha, Victoria,Serena,Tina and Kirk. Each of them has a purpose in Charlene's life and they have been existing quite well on their own. Soon after the incident with Eleni, Charlene's father was released from prison. When he is found dead, Charlene was the most likely suspect, especially since she is already known to the police. I did not find this book to be that suspenseful but I enjoyed it. The chapters alternated among the identities which could be confusing for some I suppose but I had no trouble with it. The book was a sad commentary on the mental health system and how it sometimes treats patients. The ending ties everything up but not necessarily neatly. I received an early copy from Netgalley and would like to thank the publisher for allowing me to read and review it.

Loved this novel about a woman with Six multiple personalities, each with their own role, being investigated for a murder. Her horrific childhood brought tears to my eyes, as well as more personalities within her body. Fascinating concept that was well developed and kept me on the edge of my seat...and reading far into the early hours of today. I expect this one to fly off the shelves once it is published. A new concept in the thriller/suspense genre that will definitely keep you engaged! Many many thanks to A. F. Carter, Mysterious Press and NetGalley for this soon to be published thriller.

Who is the reliable narrator? Hard to tell because Carolyn fragmented into six different personalities as the result of sexual and other abuse by her horrible father and others. Now her father, newly released from prison has been murdered and she is a suspect. Fans of Three Faces of Eve and Sybil will recognize the challenges Carolyn faces not only with herself but also with the police and physicians. This could have gone many ways but Carter keeps it restrained. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Well written and respectful.

Carolyn Grand suffered extreme abuse as a young child at the hands of her father and not much improved for her in foster care. In order to survive her horrific circumstances, various personalities were birthed to control each aspect of her life until she, Carolyn, didn't have to surface and function anymore.

I found this book beautifully written, so respectful of the struggles of multi-personalities. The author got the reader inside the head of each multi and you started understanding why each one was birthed and the role of each one in their life.

How each multi deals with the therapist; the police and other figures and even each other, is very clever and insightful.

The ending caught me totally by surprise and in retrospect was actually very clever. The policeman was a clever addition to the whole setup.

A book well worth reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this book.

Carolyn Grand is no longer. As a child, her father raped her repeatedly, selling her body to friends and other sick adults and videoing the horrors for profits. Finally arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison, Carolyn was put into the foster system. Sent to live with the Acevedas and several other foster girls, the horrors for Carolyn continued.

To protect herself, Carolyn's psyche created a family. Countless Carolyns each for a different function. Now, 37 years old, the being that was Carolyn has diverged into six different beings - Kirk, the man; Martha, the homemaker; Victoria, the public face; Eleni, the sexual being; Serena, the artist; and Tina, the nine year-old child.

When Eleni solicits an undercover cop, Carolyn is put back on the radar of the psychiatric hospitals. Though she's been living independently for a decade, she's quickly put back in a hospital for evaluation and then temporarily released and put under the supervision of the state and a therapist.

Carolyn's new therapist, Dr. Halberstam, may not be the good doctor she needs. Well versed in therapy over the years, Carolyn's family instantly recognizes something sinister in Dr. Halberstam. When Carolyn's father, Hank Grand, is due to be released three years early for good behavior, Dr. Halberstam seems to take pleasure in the havoc this will cause on Carolyn's well being. And when Hank shows up dead shortly after being released, it's unclear whether Dr. Halberstam believes Carolyn's innocence, or wants to plant memories that she's guilty even if she's not.

It's difficult to make novels about dissociative identity disorder unique because the genre is so popular in modern fiction, however, this one did feel different. Part murder mystery and part psychological thriller, this was a story of a broken woman trying to get by. Told by each family member, it was easy to connect to the characters and recognize their unique personalities. However, the novel was incredibly short and the storylines wrapped up a little too quickly and cleanly. An epilogue, set a year or two in the future, would have made a really nice addition to the novel.

What is this about?
Carolyn Grand suffered horrific abuse as a child at the hands of her father and a foster family, and as an adult developed six personalities to deal with the repercussions of the abuse. But now, her father has been released from prison and reaches out to her.

What else is this about?
This is an emotionally dark novel in places, and in others filled with fascinating characterisation in the very distinct personalities.

Before I begin my review, I have to stress, there are elements of All of Us , namely as Carolyn recalls her abuse, that are dark and sat with me so that I had to step away from the book until I could come back to it. The character that recalls the abuse is Tina, who is still a child, and the dialogue reflects that youth.

Even as I was reading and engrossed in All of Us, I was commenting on CWW posts how much I was looking forward to light, breezy reads. This book was a big reason of why I was commenting like that, but I couldn’t stop reading either because it was so good — dark, but good.

Martha, Victoria, Eleni, Kirk, Serena and Tina
These are the personalities that inhabit Carolyn, that keep her life going in different ways: Martha keeps them all fed, and housed, Victoria deals with the people that no-one else can, Serena tends to get distracted by things so that they miss important appointments, while Kirk is a heterosexual male in a woman’s body. Tina is the young girl who is the only one that remembers what Carolyn went through as a child, and Eleni is the one who gets them into trouble when she propositions a cop on a night out. She is their risk taker.

Her actions land them in a psychiatrist’s office, a deceptive man who thinks that Carolyn is lying about her personalities at first. They (and by they, I mean all the personalities) find themselves in a cat and mouse game with him, but at the same time, the push and pull of this relationship also highlights just how skilled they are at protecting themselves in a world that does not understand them.

It is through the psychiatrist, that they find out their father is being released, and sent them a letter apologising for what he did to Carolyn. No-one believes him, but that hardly matters when they begin to see him in their neighbourhood, and they realise that he is stalking them, and doing just enough to be on the right side of the court order restricting his contact with her.

Then he takes things one step further when he orders her to meet him in a hotel room.

Except the next day, they find out he has been murdered, and so begins a different game with the cops — and one in particular, Ortega.

Characterisation
I have never read a book like this — with six different personalities inhabiting one body. What I did find in All of Us was that every personality is distinct, with personalities that are recognisable. These personalities don’t always get on with each other, given how different they are, but what is engrossing is how they all work together to get what they want: freedom from being under scrutiny of the courts and their psychiatrist — even as some actually want to get rid of the others.

Essentially, they want to live their life, and have in fact been doing so until Eleni brought them under scrutiny.

The murder investigation is a running thread through this, bringing Ortega into their orbit. I thought that this relationship moved too fast for me, but thankfully didn’t impact on the storyline and my fascination with all the personalities. What was more interesting was that the personalities themselves weren’t entirely sure if they were guilty or not.

Overall, All of Us was filled with excellent characterisation, and characters that stayed with me after I closed the book for a day. It’s a compelling thriller that kept me engrossed from beginning to end.

The majority of the plot was revealed in the blub which left little room for surprises, except for the ending which was a bit weird. That being said, I found it interesting how each personality was as a character and how they evolved during the story. If so much of the plot hadn't been spoiled by the blurb this would have got an extra star from me.

As a concept - this is a great. As a book - not a great execution.

The main character suffers from dissociative identity disorder - and there's talk of murder, suicide, abuse, etc etc etc. It's....a lot.

I think that this could have been great but lacked something. Maybe - real pain? real feelings?

Eh.

This book had an intriguing premise, but just didn’t work for me. Carolyn Grand was abused as a child by her father and to conquer that abuse she now has multiple personalities. Her father has recently been released from prison and is shortly thereafter found murdered in his hotel room, Carolyn is now a person of interest in the case. Did one of those personalities kill her father? Each chapter is told by a different personality. found The cliched characters came across as one dimensional making the overall approach to be somewhat disjointed. Unfortunately, it was not a book I enjoyed reading.

5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Mysterious Press for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This one will be a bit hard for me to go into a more in depth review as I don't want to give away spoilers. Let me just start by saying that this is the best novel I have ever read about Dissociative Identity Disorder. The depiction felt far more real than other novels I have read. I have to say that I found myself caring for each of the personalities living inside of Carolyn Grand. I really had a soft spot for homemaker/Mom Martha and artistic Serena.

Yes, there is a mystery involved but in reality this book was much more about a day in the life of these personalities. If you are looking for something that will may make you cry, will hold your interest and even give you some hope then I would pick this up.

This started off really strong. I loved the distinct characters and that the author wasn't too heavy on a graphic back story, but you know it was bad. However the ending was such a let down.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an ARC of this book! Release date - June 12, 2020

This was a really weird, really unique, but really cool and intriguing book. It's very short but really packs a punch. I oddly found this book about multiple personalities and murder to be pretty realistic. The amount of trauma that Carolyn went through as a child, I honestly can see her splitting into all of these different personalities as a coping mechanism, especially when it's explained that each personality has a very specific role in her life - one who takes care of the household, one who presents a put-together face to the public, one who is promiscuous, one tasked with remembering the childhood abuse so that the others can forget, etc. I loved how the different personalities took turns narrating the different chapters and how different they all were from each other. I thought this was really well done. Some of the chapters that talked about what Carolyn went through at the hands of her father were absolutely terrible and gut-wrenching.

If I have one complaint it's that I feel like almost the entire plot is revealed in the blurb. Next to nothing happens beyond what is in the blurb. I really enjoyed the entire storyline, getting to know the different personalities, the therapist, the father being released, the murder investigation. It was a fully developed plot. But nothing surprised me at all. There were no twists or shocking moments. Everything played out exactly the way I expected it to. Which I guess not every book is going to have twists or surprises, but I was a little disappointed that this book didn't. I also found the ending a little weird and abrupt, like maybe there should have been a few more chapters or an epilogue or something. It was kind of anticlimactic.

So there were definitely things I loved about this book and definitely things that disappointed me. Because of this I'd give it a strong 3.5 stars, almost 4. All in all I would recommend it. It isn't twisty or suspenseful but it was a really interesting look into the mind of a truly disturbed person.

I’m a little conflicted about the rating for this book - two stars seems pretty harsh but three feels too generous, which is why half stars are needed!
The premise involves Carolyn Grand, a woman so horribly abused as a child that she has developed several personalities to cope. When her father, and main abuser, is released from prison and then promptly murdered, one, or maybe all, of her personalities come under suspicion.
Upon starting the book. I found the first-person “different personalities” writing device kinda gimmicky and wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue; I got used to it pretty quickly, though, and was able to deal.
That said, I found the personalities pretty one-dimensional and cliched - the slut, the dreamer, the homemaker, etc. I mean, can’t we expect even invented people to be a little more fleshed out?
Same with Carolyn’s psychiatrist - he was like a cardboard cutout “bad guy” out to ruin her life, with nefarious motives that weren’t very clear, at least not to me. I almost expected him to twist his mustache and twirl his cape as he sat in session with all of the Carolyns.
One of the personalities - the slut - begins an affair with a police detective investigating the murder of her father, for which, keep in mind, she/they are people of interest. At one point, she asks him “Why would a normal guy involve himself with a psycho named Carolyn Grand?” Good question. A better one would be “Why would a police detective who cares about his job start sleeping with a psycho murder suspect for a case he is working?”
My biggest issue with the story, however, was that I just didn’t feel invested in the characters or what happened to them. Did one of Carolyn’s personalities kill her dad? Will she be institutionalized? Arrested? Live happily ever after with her cop? Eh, maybe, but I don’t really care.
I would like to give two and a half stars, because it was a quick read, which I appreciate; but since that’s not possible, I’m rounding down on this one.
Thanks to #netgalley and #mysteriouspress for this ARC of #allofus.