When I read the synopsis of this book I was already hooked and ready to read it. I love true crime, and this just felt everything I’ve always looked for in a thriller. The victims of tragic murders always weigh so heavy on my heart, so getting a story that focuses on the victim and how she feels just called to me.

Alice has her whole life ahead of her when she dies which makes her story so tragic. I felt so awful for her. I loved how Alice was the one telling the story and that it goes from first person to third as she tells it. The writing Bublitz uses pulled me right into her world and was so beautiful. There are so many amazing quotes about life, death, and surviving. I’m so excited to get my physical copy and go back and reread all those quotes.

I did find that the middle got a bit slow for me, it just seemed like we got a bit more of Ruby than I wanted, especially when nothing was really coming forward in Alice’s case. But it certainly didn’t stay slow for long, by the last third I was sucked back in and wanting all the answers!

Before You Knew My Name will be republished with this gorgeous cover on November 1st, 2022. I definitely recommend if you’re a thriller and true crime fan!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Pardon my French, but this was just bada$$. A feminist thriller is everything I’ve wanted from the thriller genre pool of unreliable narrators.

New to me author and I loved this book! It was crazy from the first page! I will for sure be wanting to read more by this author! Thanks to Netgalley for letting me read it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Jacqueline Bublitz for this eARC.

I don't know how to put my feelings for this book into words. It is so beautifully written. It's haunting, it's emotional, and it gave me so many different feelings.

It intertwines 2 women together, one alive, Ruby, and one murdered, Alice. Their stories are told through the voice of Alice. Through her eyes we see so much, and through Ruby's eyes, we feel so much. Beauty, pain, pleasure, kindness, cruelty, and power are all felt through their stories. We see loneliness and heartache, but also the beauty of friendship and love.

This book is spectacular. I encourage everyone to read it. This is one that will stay with me a long time.

This book surprised me. I am always braced for gritty mysteries so it takes me by surprise when one turns out to be moving instead.

I was also surprised by the narrative style. It’s not often I read a story from the dead girls’ perspective, especially narrating from the beyond. But I wouldn’t call this a ghost story. It’s different and I liked it.

I have to admit, the beginning dragged a little for me. It was a little sad and lonely and not much in the way of mystery to make up for it. But that’s not really what this story is about. It’s hard for me to articulate what it IS about. I don’t want to pretend to know the author’s intentions. But the things I took from it: Death, love, friendship.

The heart of the story lies in the second half. It is worth sticking around for.

This story was utterly unique and totally gripping. Told from the point of view of a dead girl and the jogger who finds her Before You Knew My Name is timely and heartbreaking in equal measure. The descriptive writing is so beautiful that it makes the city of New York a character in and of itself. Bublitz writes two very complex characters and the character development was just perfect. I really cared about both Alice and Ruby and their lives before leaving for New York weren't the greatest. What I especially liked about this book and what I found so very different from the usual "dead girl" story was the fact that the mystery of whodunit isn't the main focus of the book but rather the timely topics of violence against women and how very different it is (for the better) for missing middle-class white girls. What a wonderful book with great character exploration, a compelling story, and a marvelous debut. All. The. Stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Before You Knew My Name.

Before You Knew My Name is about a naive 18-year old Midwestern girl named Alice Lee who arrives in NYC ready to start fresh.

But less than a month later, Alice is dead, and the woman who discovers her body, Ruby Jones, becomes inextricably tied to her.

Told mostly from Alice's point of view after death, with clunky segues into Ruby's perspective, this is not so much a murder mystery than it is about the people in a bustling, wild, dark city like NY, the survivors and the deceased, the mayhem and sorrow, the evil and the good.

The murder mystery is superfluous to the descriptive paragraphs of Alice adopting NY as her hometown; her love of photography and traversing the city' Ruby's obsession with her sort of ex-boyfriend, finding friends and love where she least expects it, and how she ends up solving Alice's murder.

The writing is great, but wordy and unnecessary. Lots of prose and descriptions.

For example, when a sentence or two or three will do, the author crafts long paragraphs of what the characters are thinking and doing.

I get it; there's nothing wrong with character development, but the narrative is not suspenseful or dramatic.

This is about people and their lives, living and struggling in NYC, how to cope with loss and sorrow; Noah and his dogs, Alice and Ruby, Josh et al.

The transition between Alice and Ruby's POV is awkward and confusing; sometimes I didn't know who was talking or what was going on.

Despite Ruby being a main character, I don't know much about her except her obsession about her ex, a soon to be married man.

I didn't sympathize or empathize with Ruby or Alice (or anyone else); I didn't dislike them, but I didn't like them.

That might have been due to the writing style and tone; the writing is great, but not what I was expecting.

This was well written, but introspective, thoughtful, and an ideal read for someone who are interested in the characters of a story, and not so much the plot; in this case, a murder.

I enjoyed this read. It was narrated by Alice who is not shy about telling the reader she is actually dead. She leads another young woman Ruby to help solve her murder. The premise is great but the story did drag on with both of their pasts. Overall a great mystery/thriller read.

"You gave me a forever within the numbered days." (John Green, The Fault in Our Stars)

Jacqueline Bublitz's Before You Knew My Name will be loved and will be misunderstood by a vast amount of readers out there. Bublitz delivers a story compressed with the heaviness of grief, of frustration, of missed opportunities and even weaker approaches to life choices. And what is even more apparent is the reality that we have no control over the dark forbidding shadow that steps in and fills the moment with no retreat.

Bublitz introduces us to her two female main characters. Each begins life on different points of the Universe until an intersection takes place in the burgeoning city of New York. Alice Lee has just turned eighteen. She's the product of a troubled dead mother and the subsequent product of the foster care system. Her search for acceptance and love takes her down a path of near emotional destruction. She exchanges life in a small Wisconsin town for the limelight of New York. Hope gives her wings.

Ruby Jones has a bit more mileage on her speedometer. She's a thirty-six year old woman from Australia trying to peel away the clinginess of a long-term affair with a man already promised to another. Ruby wants distance. New York City seems to fit the bill for now. But that hopeless affair has long tentacles that wrap around her heart and her good sense.

Jacqueline Bublitz's writing style is intricate in its telling. She goes deep. Prepare for that. At times it can be rambling and at other times her thoughts are outright profound. She desperately wants you to know the inner workings of these characters and to taste the bitter aftermath of a tragic event that has become, unfortunately, more common place to us everyday. And all of this is wrapped in the constricting materials of tormented relationships, avenues of seeking help and justice, deadly chance encounters, and the grief laid heavily in one's breath of the soul.

The impact of finding the remains of a stranger on the rocks near the Hudson River is at the core of this novel. Ruby must find ways to deal with the impact. Bublitz allows that nugget of compassion to rise to the surface in a world becoming more and more removed from the plight of others. Who mourns the lost and the obscure? Parts of our being remain and parts of our being having already taken flight beyond this world. Deeply sad, but deeply hopeful. Before You Knew My Name is a glimpse into a step forward for the voiceless and the abandoned.......numbers too high to count.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Atria Books and to Jacqueline Bublitz for the opportunity.

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz is so beautifully written that I imagine Bublitz's grocery store lists to be inspiring. I finished reading it this morning and am still in a space of feeling moved, haunted, and changed by its characters and emotional depth.

There are so many themes here to appreciate; how we think of (or don't) the trope and reality of the "dead girl", how trauma and early childhood experiences leave a mark, exploitive relationships between men and women, the beauty and violence of the world we live in, and the mystery of the afterlife.

The book poses questions that I suspect I will be considering for awhile. Thank you to NetGalley for this beauty of an ARC.

This was a really compelling mystery/thriller. The narrator is very open about the fact that she's already dead. She tells her story, both before and after her death. She's basically talking to the other narrator. There is something about this that hooked me right in and drew me into the story. The title refers to the fact that the second narrator doesn't know who this girl is that she encountered by the river. I should stop now before I give all of the plot points away. Both narrators' back stories are compelling. Both are sort of adrift not only in a new city but in their own lives as well.

I definitely recommend this to mystery readers.

Before You Knew My Name is a long, slow descent into the death of a young teen and the aftermath it creates in the jogger who found her. Very soothing prose considering the violence of the death. I found myself slowly reading this, which can be difficult if you have to stop and start. Great storyline and wrapup.

This right here. Books like these are the reason we need something to convey more than 5 stars. This one grabbed me by the heart and said "Wait right here. Come sit awhile. I have something to show you." The writing and the story are genuine, poignant, emotional, intelligent and aware. The stories of Alice and Ruby, how their lives intersect and the things they have to learn from each other are clever, heart wrenching and just gut-level raw at times. I won't soon be forgetting this one as it left quite an impression on my heart and in my mind.

Alice Lee, only just 18-years-old, comes to New York from Wisconsin, ready for a new start with only $600 and a stolen camera. A month later, she's the latest Jane Doe, found trapped and murdered beside the river by a jogger.
Ruby Jones takes a vacation from her life in Australia, trying to escape her role as the other woman three months before her lover's wedding. When he continues to contact her, she takes out her stress by running along the river, instead finding a new nightmare. Only wanting to forget, she can't help but treeline every moment of that fateful day. What if she been a few minutes earlier? What if it had been her lying on the riverside? The PTSD overwhelms her and she joins a support group to help. She starts to realize the only help for her will be to find the killer and give Alice justice.
I've read so many murder mysteries from the perspective of the police or even the killer, but this book is uniquely told by the dead girl and the woman who found her. Terrifying and heartbreaking in turns, I couldn't put it down!
I received an advance reader copy of this book. The views and opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and given voluntarily.

Damn this book is good. It’s told in a dual pov, one of Alice, dead girl, and Rudy, the jogger who found the dead girl. Both want to escape their life’s and move to New York in search of personal freedom. A small spoiler…. The whole book is seeing the world through Alice’s eyes, she is a ghost in the world of the living. She tries to guide Rudy to her murderer. The main characters are not prefect by any means but I never hated or grew frustrated about them. The author balanced the misery with enough bliss that it never felt super heavy of a read. It was slow and a little confusing at the beginning. Meaning it was hard to know who was “talking” as both women are similar enough that it took me a couple sentences to know where in the story I was. This is the only reason that I docked a point. It got better halfway in the book as the plot was more developed. I enjoy reading and would recommend 4/5.

Before You Knew My Name is told by two narrators, Alice and Ruby, who are connected by a tragic event. A murder mystery reminiscent of The Lovely Bones, the writing is good, however, the story becomes repetitive in the telling of the womens' back stories. I enjoyed the book, but I think it could have been edited further to help the flow of the novel.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Two women who are starting life over come together as a victim and a witness to the aftermath of a murder.

Ruby and Alice arrive in New York City on the same day, both running from something. They have a month before their lives will tragically change forever.
It's so hard to write a extensive review of this novel because I don't want to give anything away. All I will say was it was very good. It was told from the perspective of a dead girl. Finally, it was an incredible lesson in loving, fearing and trusting ones heart.

I almost gave up on this book but the last half was fantastic, and I was completely sucked in! Very moving and captivating.

A familiar scene to any viewers of New York City crime dramas like Law & Order, Blue Bloods, or Castle: a young woman’s body is found by a jogger or dog walker, then the central cops swoop in and we follow them on the path to whodunnit. Witness and victim are instigators, temporary in the overall tale.

In Bublitz’s stunning debut, she deftly upturns and plays with those familiar ‘pretty dead girl’ tropes.

Bublitz delivers a beguiling, astonishing tale that deep dives into the lives and viewpoints of two women who headed to New York trying to forget the past and forge a new future. Victim and witness; this time it’s the cops who are bit players. There’s an enchanting warmth to this tale despite the horrifying deed(s).

A rich characterisation of female lives and fears and desires that's beautifully written, Before You Knew My Name is a sublime novel – it’s easy to see why it’s already won and been shortlisted for several major awards in the UK, NZ, and Australia before its US release. A triumph.