I have one of those faces where people often ask if they know me. So does the author Erika Krouse. People she never met would often tell her the deepest thinkings. She was doing temp work while trying to work on her dream of being an author. While in a bookstore one day, after telling her his secrets, Grayson, a lawyer, would ask her to come work as a private investigator, getting others to tell her their secrets.

One of her first big cases is a sexual assault case against a large university. Women are being attacked by football players and recruits without any consequence. Grayson and Erika begin a five year journey into trying to bring a Title IX civil suit against the university. More and more women are found who have been assaulted by these football players, most of them are afforded no kind of justice even after going to police and the university. As Erika does all the legwork for this suit, she is also dealing with a absolutely toxic relationship with most of her family. The book chronicles the sexual violence she suffered as a small child from a family member only known as X and the emotional abuse heaped on her by her mother. She has spent her entire life trying to get her family to believe what happened to her as a child with no success.

While the university tries to put band aid after band aid on the violence that has been allowed for years without any type of true validation of the damage from the rape culture allowed by the university, it took years of digging for information for the women to find any type of justice. As the author details her investigation, she must begin to really process the abuse that she suffered as a child.

It took a moment to get really involved in the story, but once I did I couldn't stop reading. The thoughts that such violence is allowed to happen, all in the name of a winning football season is beyond belief. The writing of this memoir was amazing, but also so is watching the journey Erika shares of her own trek towards acceptance of the abuse she suffered.

Erika Krouse has a familiar face that leads virtual strangers to open up to her, spilling secrets they would never dream of telling anyone else. A serendipitous meeting with an attorney who was compelled to do just that realized Erika's potential as a private investigator and offered her a job to help him build a case against a major university for a groundbreaking Title IX case. Equally interesting were the meticulous and creative research methods that Erika used to uncover leads for witnesses and the way she leveraged human nature to compel those identified to cooperate and testify. The dual threads of Erika's personal life and that of the trajectory of the case intersected and intertwined and lead to a fascinating, fast-paced read.

Thank you to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read Tell Me Everything and provide an honest review.

Erika Krouse’s story is, in some ways, truly amazing. She tells a powerful story, in this well-paced memoir/true crime account of sexual assault on a Division-1 college campus. With absolutely no training, she becomes a private investigator, working on a civil rights case against the college and some of its administration, coaches and staff.

The subject matter is painful and tragic, but Krouse does an excellent job of telling the story in a compelling and credible way. I love the way her professional and personal life experiences are described and interwoven and how, through both satisfying victories and bitter disappointments, the reader is still left with a feeling of hopefulness.

The author’s brutally honest and candid telling of this time in her life is inspiring; I will remember this book for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is an excellent book. Well written and engaging. The writer tells her story of working with college victims of rape. The rapes were perpetrated by football players time and again. Many if the rapes included multiple attackers. The university did nothing. The women were punished if they went to authorities. The victims had their reputations ruined and there was collegiate retribution as well. One woman was lost her sports scholarship.

It’s horrifying that a culture of rape is perpetuated by administration.

Well written.

Thank you Flatiron Books (MacMillan) for supporting a memoir and work such as Tell Me Everything from Erika Krouse (thank you for the ebook copy via NetGalley). I acknowledge as well the value in Ms Krouse's story, her willingness to share her pursuit of justice while navigating her own life and experiences during her investigation.

There is continued value in sharing the stories of sexual assault and recognizing how institutional structures, be it here university and athletics and patriarchal notions or elite companies or politics etc..., shape and uphold permission to treat bodies, individuals, as objects. I appreciate that Ms. Krouse shared vulnerabilities but also professional explorations of assault on a college campus and how such early investigations prior to the #metoo movement were particularly challenging, isolating, and even risky in many ways. I appreciate the depth of the investigation and how it became a part of important attention to college campuses and Title IX.

I hope that others will engage with this book, it is worthy of discussion for those open to the challenging topic and I am glad I had the chance to read and share this review.

I absolutely loved the premise of this book, but unfortunately couldn't connect with the writing at all.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 4
Pace: 4
Plot development: 4
Characters: 5
Enjoyability: 5
Ease of Reading: 4

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

This was a fascinating story of a woman who becomes a private investigator after having zero training. Erica Kraus begins working for a lawyer on a landmark civil rights case suing a pac 12 university after a female stupid is allegedly raped by male football players. What transpires will make readers angry while also providing a fascinating look at the ins and out of private investigation. I also found Erica's personal life story which she weaves in throughout to be sad yet fascinating. I binged this in a day, readers who love true crime and memoir should pick this up

Thanks to Netgalley and Flatiron for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. This is a memoir/literary true crime about an investigation into systemic sexual assault by a college football organization in Colorado, and the woman who investigated for the civil case against the school midst grappling with her own history of sexual violence. I read this book in one day and had trouble putting it down in between reading sessions. The writing is beautiful despite the tragic content. Erika has the sort of face that leads people to all of a sudden tell her their darkest secrets, and she accidentally falls into private investigation work because of this. I loved the "pauses" in the story where she discussed the history of private investigation as well as her relationship with her husband. The different parts of the story are weaved together seamlessly, and her writing style is warm and inviting. I was blown away.

Brilliantly written a book that women will be passing from one to the other.The victimization of women on a college campus and the brave investigator who revealed the crime.Highly recommend an amazing book of inventive journalism.#netgalley #flatironbooks

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Tell Me Everything.

This was a difficult and heart wrenching read; part memoir and part true crime detailing the author's incredible private investigation of a sexual assault at a university.

As the author delves deep into interviewing the victims and those involved in the case, she discovers a systematic rape culture but at the same time, is forced to recall and deal with her own horrific childhood abuse at the hands of someone very close to her.

When the case hits a legal snag, Ms. Krouse's personal life is also upended as she struggles with her contentious family; a family who refused to acknowledge her abuse and her abuser who is very much alive and well, and her own feelings and where she stands as a survivor, woman, sister, daughter, and wife.

I enjoyed the author's snippets of P.I. history and how private investigations as a career evolved; the historical context provided almost a bit of levity as the investigation and case proceeded, tears were shed and terrible, graphic details were revealed.

Ms. Krouse's writing style and tone is warm, sincere, and honest; she pulls no punches about what and how she's suffered; what she's done to heal, seeking help and solace in therapy and how the investigation brought to life her own feelings about the abuse she's suffered and how to come to grips with it, after so many years.

It never goes away and it never gets easy to deal.

The investigation and her own personal struggles; the love of her husband and good friends, made her see that hope and recovery is possible, from anyone, you and me, anyone willing to listen and be there for someone. Sometimes that means more than you can ever know.

At the end of the book, the author thanks the reader for reading Tell Me Everything.

Ms. Krouse, thank YOU for telling your story.

Erika Krouse has the kind of face strangers tell things to. People always suspect they know her from somewhere, swear they've met her before. "It happens all the time," she says. "I just have one of those faces." Having finished reading Tell Me Everything, I feel as though I've been swept away by Erika too.

This gripping memoir meets true crime story had me rage reading about the injustices the women of the case (and beyond) endured while attending or working at university. Webbed into the investigation is Erika's own story surviving childhood abuse and the denial of it by her family. I could not stop reading. As terrible as the events were in Erika's own experience and the sexual assaults of the university women, there's an ongoing pursuit, of justice of course, though it's known by nearly all involved that justice is subjective and too often protects the perpetrators, but a pursuit of identity and memory and survival.

I felt deeply connected to the author and her work and the women. The book was exceptionally well crafted and paced. It was maddening, possibly triggering for some, but powerful in its exposure of profit and patriarchy.

I loved this book--a fierce and unflinching look at violence and the female body and the representation of women in our culture. A must read.