A contemporary romance that explores the ties of family and love. A thoughtful discussion of mental health issues deepens the storyline.

How to Hide in Plain Sight by Emma Noyes, is something I truly wasn’t expecting when I requested to read. To be honest, it was quite heavy and due that I was not able to continue reading it. It’s has topics and situations I’m just not in the right mindset to handle. With that being said, I’m not sure how to rate it or that my feedback would matter much.

I think if you’re wanting something very thought provoking, heartbreaking and extremely realistic , this is the novel for you. Give it a try!

This is definitely a novel I’d love to return to in the future, the authors way of telling a story is really great! For that, I’ll give this novel a 3.75 out of 5.

Thanks so much NetGalley and the publishers for giving me this arc to review.

3.5,
How to Hide in Plain Sight is seriously heavy. There’s a lot in here - OCD, depression, death of a family member, grief, disability, a very dysfunctional family.

There’s also hope and love. The mental health rep is terrific.

But then it draaaaaaagggggggged but the ending was painfully rushed.

But it’s a really good story and I do recommend it.



Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for the DRC

5 Stars Wow, I wasn't expecting this one. How to Hide in Plain Sight is a raw and emotional look into the different sides of OCD. It's women's fiction with a touch of romance. The dual timeline is interesting and moves the plot along nicely. It's a profound and thought provoking read. Thank you Berkley for the ARC!

Sitting here in disbelief of this amazing unexpected five star book.

Lit fic with a side order of romance. Except our female main character has the best representation of OCD I’ve ever read.

This book exemplifies the broad range of OCD. The side of OCD that isn’t depicted in movies or books (until now).

The characters are so well developed and endearing.

It’s a heavier romance book. But don’t worry because the witty familial dialogue will make you laugh.

But it’s beautiful. Raw. Profound. Thought provoking. Emotional.

Read if you like:
🧠Mental health rep
🤔Dysfunctional family
💔Grief
2️⃣Dual timeline
👆🏻Single POV
💍Wedding weekends
🌊Island living
💞Childhood friends to lovers
💕2nd chance romance

I dove into How to Hide in Plain Sight with high hopes, and while it has its moments, the experience was a bit of a mixed bag. The story centers on Kate, who’s living under the radar due to a mysterious past. Her journey to stay hidden while unraveling secrets about her surroundings had a lot of potential. Kate’s internal struggles were gripping, and her interactions with characters like her cryptic neighbor Daniel and the persistent journalist Laura added some real intrigue.

However, the book didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The pacing lagged in parts, especially when Kate was digging into Daniel’s past or Laura’s probing into her secrets. These sections felt repetitive and could have used more momentum. The resolution, while neat, didn’t offer many surprises, which was a bit of a letdown.

Also, I wished for more depth in the supporting characters. Daniel and Laura’s backstories felt skimmed over, leaving their roles feeling a bit underdeveloped. Overall, it’s a decent read if you’re into suspense and mystery, but it didn’t completely capture my interest as I’d hoped.

Emma Noyes writes about mental health so beautifully and in a way that makes her stories relatable to anyone who has experienced something similar. I really adored this book and Emma's writing.

Eliot Beck arrives in Canada for her brother’s wedding and reconnects with her family. She fled to Manhattan years ago and never talked about the reason. She thinks the wedding extravaganza will be fine, until she sees her best friend, Manuel, waiting for her. She has tried hard to not fall for him and to avoid him.

An apt title, we get a close look at the inner mind of Eliot Beck, who struggles to stand out in a large dysfunctional family. There are very real and serious topics within this story, and they are done sensitively. A lot of the story dragged for me and I felt it could have been much shorter. It’s an important read as it shows an unfamiliar side of OCD.

“I believed I already knew our family tree, with all its many branches and blossoms and bark. I believed I saw the whole story. But in fact, I saw only a small portion. None of its roots. None of its rings.”

How to Hide in Plain Sight comes out 9/10.

Thank you NetGalley, Emma Noyes, and Berkley Publishing Group for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

What an exceptionally powerful, deeply emotional, and profoundly heartbreaking story-beautifully written and truly raw, real, and honest. It courageously addresses numerous sensitive topics, including the death of a family member, grief, mental health struggles, and an exceptionally accurate portrayal of living with OCD. I am blown away by how masterfully the author navigates these heavy topics, effortlessly balancing them with moments of humor and lightness. If you're looking for a story filled with love, forgiveness, hope, all wrapped in a touch of romance, then this is the perfect book for you! I wholeheartedly recommend this book and it deserves ALL the stars!!!🌟 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Eliot Beck is the youngest sibling of a large, dysfunctional family. She leaves the comfort of the routine she has built for herself in New York City for her family's private island in Canada to attend her older brother Ted's wedding. She hasn't seen her family for over three years, not because she doesn't love them, but rather because she does not want to tell them about the OCD that has consumed her life for a very long time.

I was really interested in the very beginning of this book. It quickly grabbed my attention and I settled in for a fast-paced, fun read, but that is not where this story led. The book is incredibly interesting, but it is not the typical romance many readers are accustomed to. This book requires a lot of attention to detail, and is full of very complex ideas and issues. I had to take breaks throughout the story to be able to stay focused, because a LOT was happening in this story.

I applaud the author for sharing her own OCD diagnosis, and using her experiences as a basis for some of the things Eliot goes through from childhood into her adult life. I am just not sure I would call this book a romance. That may mislead readers into thinking they are getting one kind of story, when what they are getting is a much more complex family drama.

Thank you to NetGalley, Emma Noyes, and Berkley Publishing Group for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.


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review scheduled to post on blog and socials on September 4, 2024.

This was entirely not what I was expecting.

Eliot is back on her family’s private island for her brother’s wedding after basically running away after high school. She’s pretty much broken all ties to her family, which include those with her childhood best friend. She wants to keep her distance, but obviously that’s harder than she thought it would be.

This book is heavyyyyy. Eliot has OCD (written accurately and painfully), grief, depression, family illness, and challenging family dynamics. I applaud Emma’s writing because wow was this painful to read.

The dysfunctional family and OCD play the central role in this book. Eliot had a loooot of work to do to feel safe and in control of her life.

I recommend this if you want an angsty, painful read with the back drop of a childhood friends to power/second chance set up.

Thank you NetGalley and berkley romance for the arc!

I really struggled to get into this book. It took weeks for me to read it. I had high hopes because of what I had heard about it. I also had trouble connecting to the main character. She wasn't very likeable and she made some very strange decisions.

For me, this book was extremely hard to rate as I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it either.

How to Hide in Plain Sight is a complex story of healing, a broken family, and love. The characters are complicated in the best possible way but left me feeling conflicted at times. Usually, I'm not a huge fan of flashbacks in a story, but in this case, I think it worked well. Those flashbacks helped me to understand the family dynamic and the trauma they went through better.

How to Hide in Plain Sight does deal with some pretty tough and heavy subject matter, which I do think the author handled with care. I especially thought the author's take on OCD was interesting and not what you'd typically see in a romance novel.

One of the things that didn't work for me though was the pacing. Pacing is such a huge thing for me and it can honestly make or break the story. Unfortunately, in this case, I felt like the pacing was just too slow at times and that just killed me since the story started out so strong. My other issue was the ending. After everything that happened in this story, I found the ending to be lacking and wished for more.

Overall, this book was a bit of an unexpected read for me. I found the writing style, and the characters to be unique and the plot intriguing. While this book wasn't a 100% hit for me, I'm still glad to have checked it out.

An important book about mental health and specifically OCD. The impacts of intrusive thoughts on the life of our main character, Eliot, were so profound it’s hard to imagine how she managed to live her life day to day. I enjoyed the family dynamics, Eliot’s and Manuel’s relationship and the details around how Eliot tried to manage her OCD. My husband suffers from this Illness and this gave me a glimpse of why he must go through. I hope I can continue to be his Manny.

How to Hide in Plain Sight by Emma Noyes presents an intriguing concept with its blend of suspense and personal drama. While the narrative offers some engaging moments, its overall execution may not fully captivate all readers.

What a beautiful and important novel. I empathized with Eliot, her OCD and how her Worries took over her life. And how true…keeping emotions inside and not sharing with others is definitely ‘safer’.

Eliot’s family made me laugh and, at times, extremely frustrated, but I eventually wanted to hug them all!
I read this slower than I could have, so I could enjoy it just a bit longer….releases September 10th.

3.5 ⭐️ rounded up. This was my first book by Noyes, and I was immediately captivated by her beautiful prose. This story completely opened my eyes to a type of OCD that I had never heard of. I read about 30% in one sitting because I was intrigued by the family dynamics and what happened between Eliot and Manuel. But once I dived into the more complex topics, I had to take a bunch of breaks in between reading because it was so heavy. It was also a bit repetitive at times, but I think the purpose was to give the reader a glimpse of what it feels like to live with such intrusive thoughts. The ending made me want to give Eliot a big hug.

I really enjoyed How to Hide in Plain Sight, and it also marks my first book by Emma Noyes. I’m so impressed with her writing and metal health representation that she’s immediately become an auto-buy author for me, and I’m already looking forward to reading more by her.

This book focuses on Eliot Beck and her chaotic family, along with childhood best friend Manuel. After not seeing her family for three years, they’re all due to meet at her older brother’s wedding, which inevitably leads to drama, home truths, and a romantic rediscovery of sorts. The family dynamics are brilliant, the tension is so realistic, and everything Eliot experiences is true to life. Families are messy, and that’s never been more apparent than in this book.

Eliot suffers from OCD, and I think this is the first time I’ve seen this particular kind represented in a fictional book. Emma Noyes has firsthand experience of Eliot’s OCD, and I’m so grateful to her for writing about it. It’s unusual for me to see a little bit of myself and my own OCD in a story like this, and I can’t accurately explain how it made me feel to know someone else understands it. That’s why books and authors like this are so important, and I’m so very glad I was given the opportunity to read this book.

How to Hide in Plain Sight has much more to it than meets the eye, and I hope it finds a wide audience. It deals with grief, mental health, families, romance, personal happiness, and healing, and portrays each with kindness and sensitivity. Emma Noyes should be very proud of herself for what she’s written here, and I hope other readers can also find some comfort within its pages.

3.5 STARS!!

This book did take me by surprise and I have to admit I’m glad I am a strong-minded person because this book tended to be a lot. It’s a lot of mental power to absorb and understand the complexities someone goes through who has OCD.

I have to say I certainly learned a lot and what I love the most is her best friend, Manny, and the honest, true love and support He always gave her. Sadly, she never really understood.

The story has so many complexities to it and I’m not going to try to explain any of it because you truly need to experience the story to understand it completely.

The author crafts the story with a lot of intricacy and detail that is positive and uplifting, but also very heavy at times. It’s almost exhausting to read what’s going through the main character’s mind.

But what I loved the most was her relationship with her best friend and what she had to do to work through that.

What I really missed the most in this book was the ending. We are taken on this journey of growth, healing, complex relationships, and mental warfare. Then the ending is super abrupt and we really don’t get much of a closure. We don’t get that final happiness that the two main characters deserve after they go through it all.

This book truly needs an epilogue and I wish we would’ve gotten that for a better closure for our own part as well as the characters. We need to feel her joy too.

This is a tough one to rate. Tough subject matter but definitely a unique story that is well told and well written. How to Hide in Plain Sight is one to remember!

"How to Hide in Plain Sight" offers a compelling exploration of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) through the eyes of Eliot Beck. Eliot’s struggle with OCD significantly shapes her interactions and inner world. Noyes portrayed OCD with sensitivity and authenticity.

Returning to Canada for her brother’s wedding after a three-year absence, the reunion with her childhood friend Manuel triggers emotional and compulsive challenges, highlighting the severity of her OCD.

Noyes excels in capturing Eliot’s internal dialogue and the impact of OCD on her daily life. The story emphasizes understanding, patience, and self-compassion in coping with OCD. The book’s strength lies in its character development and realistic portrayal of mental health struggles.

Overall, "How to Hide in Plain Sight" is a beautifully crafted novel perfect for those that enjoy reading about mental health & messy families.