A deeply emotional story of two women, joined by the death of one of them. As Ruby learns who Alice was before....she'll find she's not so different than Alice and so many young women who have suffered the same fate. not just the story of another dead girl is so true. Read and recommend, you'll know why when you learn their stories.

I really love this cover and that drew me into wanting to read this! This was a debut? Wow! I was intense and incredibly well written! It was a great glimpse into the traumas women endure.

What a sad story with a satisfying ending. A mystery that keeps you reading until the very end. I recommend to anyone that loves mystery and suspense.

Thank you Atria for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Heartbreaking and intense, Before You Knew My Name isn’t for the faint of heart.

I found it to be rather slow and I couldn’t really connect to either character. That being said, I didn’t mind it once I picked it up again. I had started reading before pub day but then didn’t find myself reaching for it. Recently I decided to give it another try and pair the audio with it which seemed to help.

I ended up giving 3/5 stars as I did finish it and it kept me interested for the most part.

This is an emotional novel that explores themes of identity, abuse, and the ways in which we leave an impact on the world.
Alice is an 18-year-old runaway who moves to NYC for a fresh start. But shortly after she arrivals, she is tragically murdered, a Jane Doe case.
Ruby is a 36-year-old woman, also new to the city, stumbles upon Alice’s body in Riverside Park while jogging one morning. Ruby, feels a connection to Alice and becomes obsessed with identifying Alice and seeking justice for her.
As Ruby searches for answers, the story digs into the lives of women who are often unseen or forgotten in society.
Cleverly written with the presentation of violence against women.
Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC read in exchange for my review.

Feminist Crime Novel Explores Femicide

Before You Knew My Name tells the story of two women, Alice Lee and Ruby Jones, whose lives profoundly intersect in New York City. Alice Lee, an 18-year-old from Wisconsin, arrives in New York seeking a fresh start after a traumatic and lonely upbringing. Unfortunately, she becomes a murder victim shortly after her arrival. Ruby Jones, a 36-year-old from Australia, arrives in New York on the same day as Alice, fleeing a tumultuous relationship. She discovers Alice’s body and becomes determined to find out who she was and what happened to her

One of the book's greatest strengths is its unique narrative perspective and its unflinching exploration of difficult themes. The characters are well-developed, and the plot is both engaging and thought-provoking. However, some readers may find the subject matter heavy and emotionally taxing. Despite this, Before You Knew My Name is a powerful debut that challenges the conventions of the crime genre and offers a fresh, feminist viewpoint.

Heartbreaking and beautiful.

Do I recommend? Yes. Do you need tissues? Yes. Will you love this? Yes.

Do I normally read these tear jerkers? No. But, I must say that this one gravitated to me when I needed to read a bit more depth of a book. Brilliantly executed!

After the publisher comped me a copy through NetGalley, I ended up listening to the audiobook. It's told in the voice of eighteen year old Alice Lee who is destined to be murdered near the riverside in New York City. Alice had escaped the end of a relationship with a former teacher in Wisconsin, and found someone in NYC to take her in and treat her well. Ruby came there from Australia, also looking for a new beginning. The two never met in life, only after Alice's murder, when Ruby turns out to be the one to find Alice's body in the park. Alice gives Ruby the impetus to find new beginnings, meet new people. All Alice (after death) wants is for someone to know who she was, and not be called Jane Doe any longer. Ruby wants that for Alice as well, and makes it her personal project to solve the murder and learn about the beautiful young Alice Lee.

I appreciated the idea of getting to know the victim rather than focusing on the motives or the life of the killer, as many mysteries do. It was also interesting to have Alice as the narrator as she tells us only what she's willing to talk about. I thought it very creative, intriguing, and just heartbreaking.

Wow! This book was so good, yet it was dark and depressing. It delves in abuse of women, two in particular: Ruby and Alice who both have run away from toxic relationships but sadly one ends up murdered. What I loved about that, though, is that the one who was murdered ended up saving the other one. The book was so hard to put down, and I loved Noah. He was just a good man, one we all would love to have on our side. The murder mystery was so well-done that I was just impressed with this being a debut. Kudos to Ms. Bublitz.

I received a copy from Netgalley for an honest review.

This was not a bad novel, I did like how the two women's lives became interconnected just by chance and we watched that all unfold. Sometimes it felt like this novel was focusing more on one character than the other, then we would go back to the others story. In the end, it felt like both women's stories were a bit incomplete in various aspects. Although, this was an entertaining novel to read.

This is a complex story of mystery and suspense about two girls who went to New York in search of a new beginning. The only problem is one is dead and discovered by the other. Ruby Jones is 36 years old and travels to New York City from Melbourne, Australia after her boyfriend, Ash, is already engaged and planning on marrying someone else. Even in NYC, Ash keeps messaging her. Her life becomes complicated when she finds a young woman's body while walking along the Hudson River. She can't seem to forget the "Jane Doe" and the circumstances that brought her to that place.

Alice Lee is an 18-year-old who wants a fresh start and is drawn to New York City where her mother once lived and worked as a model. She has only $600 in her pocket, a few clothes and a camera she stole from her high school art teacher, Jamie Jackson. Unfortunately, she ends up dead but narrates from beyond the grave as she believes that Ruby is the key to finding out what happened to her. Ruby feels compelled to discover the identity of the Jane Doe but isn't prepared for what she discovers. She ultimately learns more about herself and her past bad decisions and how she can change her future.

Thank you NetGalley and Edelweiss and Atria Books for providing me this book for review consideration. My review is my unbiased opinion.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

"Winner of Crime Debut and Readers’ Choice Awards—Sisters in Crime
Editors’ Choice/Staff Pick by The New York Times Book Review

“A brave and timely novel.” —Clare Mackintosh, internationally bestselling author of Hostage

This is not just another novel about a dead girl. Two women—one alive, one dead—are brought together in the dark underbelly of New York City to solve a tragic murder."

Toxic relationships, safety and Jane Does - so many things that women face as part of their daily lives. This book is one that I think we all and relate too.

Before you Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz

320 Pages
Publisher: Atria Books, Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Release Date: November 1, 2022

Fiction (Adult), General Fiction (Adult), Murder, Mystery

This is the story of two women: Alice and Ruby. Alice Lee is 18 years old from Wisconsin. She arrived in New York with $600 in her pocket. Noah, an older man, whom she had been in contact with by text gives her a place to live. Their relationship was strictly platonic. Ruby Jones is 36 years old. She flew from Melbourne, Australia to New York for a six-month sabbatical after the man she fell in love with is marrying someone else. She stumbles across the body of an unnamed young woman. The police have no idea who she is. Ruby is troubled by what she saw and believes she needs to find out more about this woman and who killed her.

The book has a steady pace, the characters are somewhat developed, and it is written in the first-person point of view. If you like murder mysteries, you may enjoy reading this one.

I was really interested in the blurb of this book because thrillers are my favorite types of books, but this one fell flat for me.

The book opens by telling us that the character Alice is going to die. We get some backstory on her life and how she comes to be in New York. Mixed in is Ruby, a mid-thirties woman who is also new to New York. Ruby and Alice only cross paths once Alice has died and Ruby discovers the body.

The premise of the book was good, and the underlying theme of giving a name and a fell story to every human who has something tragic happen is good, but the actual book moved kind of slow for me. I felt like there were moments when the action was all internal and nothing was moving forward with the plot, which isn’t my favorite type of story. This book was fine, but not one I would read again.

Ruby arrives in New York City almost on a whim. After an epiphany during a weekend trip where just about everyone except her is coupled up, she admits that she's stuck in a rut, with a man who can only offer her about one-tenth of what she wants from him. She can't trust herself to end the relationship without putting herself thousands of miles away, so she packs up and moves halfway across the world to begin anew. The night of her arrival, another woman arrives as well. Except she is barely a woman. Alice is eighteen-years-old, and she too is escaping a man, believing as Ruby does that NYC is the place to reinvent herself. But Alice doesn't get a chance at full reinvention because a short month after her arrival, she is murdered.

While on a (very stupid, ill-advised) predawn run, Ruby discovers Alice's body and thus, the two women become bonded to each other—Alice, from the afterlife whispers in Ruby's ear, figuratively (and sometimes literally, though Ruby experiences Alice's influence as a light breeze, goosebumps on the surface of her skin, or the gentle 'shove' of intuition) compelling her to find the man who killed her. Interspersed with this new mission of Ruby's and Alice's recounting of how she came to be a victim are both women's backstories and how in very different ways, they fell prey to the ways of a certain type of man, who treats women only as objects of desire or manipulation. And in the case of the last man with whom Alice came into contact, as an object upon which to express his frustration, anger, resentment and violence. As Ruby works to uncover what happened to Alice, she forms a new community of friends and helpers, similarly plagued by death, or brushes with death. Through Alice, and with those friends, while she searches for a killer, Ruby discovers a new way to live.

The only way to describe this book is "haunting." Alice is every "dead girl" we've ever heard about, whose story we know only through the sparse details in newspapers and online, whose potential will never be realized, and whose tragic and violent end often becomes the most important detail of her time on earth. This author succeeded in making me mourn Alice, so much so that I dreamt about this book after completing it, and felt genuine melancholy not just for the character, but for the young women who have similar stories that may never be told. I deeply appreciated that the author recognized the disparity of young women like Alice—young, white, beautiful—being considered more valuable and their loss being considered more tragic as compared to women not as young, not as beautiful, and not white. I also appreciated the embedding of a very powerful message about the various ways women can be harmed by men, and how they harm themselves by accepting less than they deserve from men.

But seriously, this one isn't for the feint of heart. Despite the hopeful message at the end, the book is infused with loss, and your mood after reading it will undoubtedly take a dive. It'll make you think a lot, but once you begin reading, prepare to feel much more.

I’ll be honest and say the first half of this book was absolutely depressing and hard to take in at times. I almost gave up on it, but I’m glad I didn’t.

This story is about two ladies (Alice & Ruby) running away to New York looking for a fresh start for two very different reasons. Their stories are separate, but are soon connected when Ruby finds Alice’s body in the park by the river one stormy morning. Ruby cannot get her mind off of Alice. Who was she? What happened to her? She becomes determined to find out and her friends at Death Club will help her.

This heartbreaking story of Alice’s death ends up saving Ruby’s life in so many ways.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an advanced digital copy of this book.

“This is not just another novel about a dead girl.”
This book was heartbreaking and powerful.
Alice Lee has been dealt a difficult hand, her mother took her own life and she’s never known her father. Living in Wisconsin she relies on the help of others to survive. Now eighteen she’s is leaving a heartbreaking situation behind where she was taken advantage of, with only $600 in her pocket she heads to New York with a dream of becoming independent and finding herself. In thirty days Alice Lee will be brutally murdered and raped and listed as a Jane Doe.
Ruby Jones is a 36-year old Australian woman who feels like she will never find true love. She had been the other woman for to long and now has come to the realization she needs a fresh start. Ruby decides to take a year off from work and head to New York. Lonely and living alone in New York she starts running. One stormy day on her run, she finds Alice’s body by the river.
Ruby is shocked and cannot believe this young girl is a Jane Doe and she continues to check in to see if anyone had reported the girl missing. Alice’s spirit hasn’t crossed over yet, she soon attaches herself to Ruby. Not wanting to be forgotten she knows that Ruby is a good person and truly wants to find out who Alice was, and to uncover Alice’s name , and also figure out who did this to her.
We get two POV Alice and the days they led up to her being murdered. Ruby and how she deals with finding Alice and until the murder is solved. This was such a moving story on how people feel lonely and never actually seen, and how one person can touch just one life and make a difference. I will always remember this book.

I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN! I was glued to the development of the plot tying together the lives of two girls, Alice and Ruby. If you like books that weld the past to the present though a brilliant unfolding of interweaving connections, then you MUST read this book. Thrilling and exhilarating. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Quick synopsis:
Alice Lee travels to NYC with only $600, a camera, and dreams of a fresh start. A month later, she is dead and no one knows who she is. Her spirit refuses to remain a Jane Doe and this begins her haunting of the woman who found her.

Quick thoughts:
This is a case of great book - wrong reader. I tend to struggle with books where some of the narration comes from the dead. I had read so many amazing reviews I decided to give this one a try regardless. For me, this read like a slow burn mystery whereas I generally prefer fast paced reads. I’d still pick up another novel from this author as I liked her writing style. This one just wasn’t my favorite.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy.