Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me. I've been reading it for nearly 3.5 weeks and finally decided to mark it as a DNF at 47%.

I think Hough/Goodlett wanted to kick this one off with a mic drop moment, but I felt myself feeling confused with such a big moment so soon. I wasn't connected to the characters or to the vibe of the book. The more I read, the more disconnected I felt with the story. "Everything We Never Knew" was this mix of tropes that simply didn't work together, at least not for this reader.

I wanted to read this because as a fan of Julianne, I was hoping her debut novel would be *it* for me. That wasn't the case and while that's a bummer, I would be interested in reading another book by her.

I was so excited for this book! It sounded so good. The cover is absolutely beautiful!

Everything We Never Knew started out so good. But by 25% I was so bored. I kept reading just because I was so excited for the book. I had such high hopes but really I should have never finished it. I still did not like it by the end.

To be honest, I’m not 100% sure why I didn’t like it. I think I just had such high hopes because the premise of the book sounded like it was going to be so good.

Thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I started this one and just really struggled to get into it. The story didn’t grip me and I eventually had to DNF it and move on.

3.5⭐️

I enjoyed this book but it was a tad slow.

The main character Lexi, finds herself in an interesting and distressing incident one night. Can Lexi see in to the future? Is she going crazy? I do love this premise in a book. Questioning reality.

The suspense in the book could have been better but the premise was solid. I would recommend this book to fans of Jodi Picolt and such.

Everything We Never Knew starts with an intriguing premise—a woman named Lexi has a surreal experience at an awards banquet, where she feels like she’s drowning after locking eyes with a stranger. As it turns out, the man’s family died in a tragic boating accident, and the story takes off from there. Lexi begins to experience more strange, supernatural moments, sensing others’ emotions and memories in ways that start to feel less like coincidence and more like an unwanted gift.

The setup is definitely interesting, and I was hooked in the beginning, but the novel gradually loses steam. Lexi’s newfound abilities are fascinating, but they’re overshadowed by her journey of self-discovery, which starts to feel repetitive and drags down the pacing. The focus on her trauma, especially her miscarriage and strained relationships, is heartfelt but a bit heavy-handed. While these themes are important, I wanted more exploration of her psychic abilities and how they affected others, rather than so much introspection.

The writing style is breezy but doesn’t quite land the emotional punch I was hoping for. I felt disconnected from the characters, especially Lexi’s relationship with her husband, which felt underdeveloped. The energy healing and astrological elements didn’t fully resonate with me either, though I can see how they might appeal to other readers.

Overall, Everything We Never Knew had potential, but it didn’t quite deliver the depth I was hoping for. Still, the concept is unique, and I can see this being a good fit for readers who enjoy stories about self-discovery with a touch of the supernatural.

I just adore Julianne and this book added to my love. I really enjoyed this story and the premise was so unique. A must read.

This was super interesting. I didn’t hate reading it. It’s not really my thing but it definitely held my attention. As with any celebrity that writes a fiction novel some of the character traits were clearly autobiographical and it makes you wonder how much of it was actually taken from her life. There wasn’t a huge plot line, not a lot actually happened. But I think the message of the book came through clearly about letting go of things in the best and making decisions for yourself and not hiding things from those you love.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC.

Didn't realize this was coauthored by that Julianne Hough, of Dancing With the Stars fame until about halfway through. I might not have picked this up if I knew it was a celebrity book (which isn't a bad thing! I need to change things up every now and then). The start was really compelling, and that was what kinda got me to read this in the first place. It didn't really have much of a direction from there. This really read like someone's personal log of her midlife crisis and spiritual awakening, and from the interview with the authors in the back, it sounds like that was Hough's experience, give or take some stuff to make it a fictional story. I think it handled the stuff surrounding the miscarriage the best. It didn't shy away from the subject or reduce it to something more palatable for the public. But otherwise, it also read kinda like an ad for this energy healing stuff. "Look at all the things energy healing can do in your life! You should try it too!" It almost trivializes the events in the book that way. I have friends who do this sort of thing, I see how it does help them, but the way this book approaches it sometimes rubs me the wrong way. Maybe if this was written as a sort of memoir rather than baked into a fictional story, I would see it differently, but that's not the book I got.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6828611657

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e7f07f57-71c9-40de-8ee0-da203faa0bde

Check out this review of Everything We Never Knew on Fable. https://fable.co/review/002fb02b-6d36-473d-8b35-5dbd3a9e5613/share

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I wasn't connecting with the story, and I have so many other books to read so I decided to move on. I looked at other reviews which weren't great so after reading those I decided to move on to another book.

{3.5 stars}

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions below are my own.

Ooh boy this one is hardcore women's fiction. Perhaps a little too in the emotions for me.

Lexi is going through a midlife crisis about a year after a miscarriage. She begins to realize her life has not turned out as she wants. When she begins to witness some unexplained phenomena she is drawn to energy healing as a way to heal herself and decides she likes the practice. Her husband and friends think she has lost her mind.

This one hits on a lot of themes: wellness, self fulfillment, the pursuit of joy, therapy, pregnancy loss, affairs, sexual assault, abandonment, spirituality, faith and the impact of LDS. It was a lot. It all felt very realistic and was easy to relate to how when you begin to change the people around you can be vehemently opposed to that change out of fear. I think it dealt with those themes and heavy topics well.

Definitely not my favorite. I wanted to love it because I love Julianne Hough, but it definitely fell flat.

I was excited to read something written by Julianne Hough and the blurb/premise caught my attention.

It opened strong and I really liked Lexi. I liked her interaction with the person she didn't know and that part of the book. I did like her friend group.

But then it got very intense into energies and things, and I won't like, at times I was confused. I think this one just wasn't my jam. It was okay for me.

I did enjoy that she narrated the audio.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Sourceboosks Landmark and RBMedia for an eARC and ALC.

I genuinely don’t understand why this book has gotten such low ratings. I thought it was pretty good, for what it was. Maybe readers had a hard time suspending their disbelief for Lexi’s abilities. I can give them the benefit of the doubt on that, because this is something she was experiencing for the first time, in the first couple of pages, with no real explanation of how it’s happening. I did question why it wouldn’t have happened before. However, I am a speculative fiction writer, so maybe it was easier for me to accept. I did go into this expecting a speculative thriller, but this was more like speculative women’s fiction. Truly, it’s a story about a woman’s emotional journey through her trauma and how she deals with it through this ability she develops. So if you’re into that, this might be the book for you. If you’re expecting a high octane, action-packed thriller, this is not it. But it was entertaining enough for me!

Huge thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

This is an emotional and gripping novel that delves into energies, psychic abilities, and human spirits. Lexi Cole, our protagonist, unexpectedly discovers her newfound power to feel other people’s emotions and glimpse their private memories. The story is well-written, but it starts a bit slow. While the spiritual elements are intriguing, the pacing issue aside, the book falls short of its potential.

Thank you Net Galley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the arc in exchange for an honest review

I had high expectations for this one and they unfortunately were not met. It felt like it just blurred the lines between realism and fantasy a bit too much even. Between Julianne's real life and what she didn't want to dish out in a therapy session so she chose to write a fictional book. This could have been much better, but the delivery overall was very muddy. It deals with multiple heavy topics and just has terrible pacing. Julianne is great at many things and I will be a fan of hers for a long time.

I really want to love this book but due to the trigger warnings didn't make it that far with the strong themes. I love Julianne Hough but it just wasn't the right time for me to read this book.

I wanted to read this book because it wasn't something I would normally pick up and because I have been a fan of Julianne Hough's. I'm really glad I got to listen to this audiobook. This will definitely be a heavy book for some people so make sure you check trigger warnings. I enjoyed the spiritual side to this book. It was interesting to learn more about it. I did enjoy Julianne Hough narrating this book. I do wish there would have been more of a story line to this book. I did like the relationship between Lexi and her mentor Bea. If you are someone that likes the spiritual world then this would probably be more interesting to you. I would recommend it for a spiritual person or someone wanting to learn more about it.


Thank you SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for allowing me to read this ARC for my honest opinion.

I went into this book blind, and due to the fact that I wound up liking it would suggest I'm an outlier.

Why I almost didn't read this once I started:
• It deals with spirituality, healing, and auras which I am curious about, but rarely like to read about as fictional topics
• I only knew one of the co-authors through her appearances with Derek Hough on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance and I was already pre-disposed not to like it, thinking it might be a vanity project.

What I liked about it:
I don't know how much was conceptualized by Julianne, who seems to be multi-talented, or by her ghostwriter Ellen Goodlett, but I thought the fact that they were able to turn a based-on-true-life experience into a cohesive narrative was well done. The descriptions of healing made me long to see auras myself. The Bea character, the owner of the local "oddities" shop, was well drawn, and it was so easy to visualize her. There was the backdrop of the Mormon religion which played well against the idea of Lexi's life crisis brought about by the Saturn return, a concept I had never heard of before this book. There were also interesting takes on how the people in Lexi's life related to her new abilities.

This book is about so much more than spirituality; it's about repressed memories and the lifelong damage they can inflict, about longing for something more, abuse, families, friends, and hope through spiritual awakening.

Overall, it was a well-written book about a difficult to describe topic. I love that there are interviews in the back with both authors, and there is a QR code to take you to a quiz for finding which elements you relate to, as well as a soundtrack written by Julianne.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advance reader's copy.

Lexi Cole stands on the precipice of change during an awards banquet. As she accepts her top-seller award (again) at the realty firm, she starts feeling strange. A man nearby, she doesn’t recognise, triggers an inexplicable sensation of drowning. Later, Lexi discovers that this man, now deceased due to an overdose, was involved in a traumatic boating accident that shattered his family.
Lexi’s life takes an unexpected turn when she realizes her newfound ability: she can feel others’ emotions and glimpse their private memories. To protect her loved ones, she must confront her own buried past. The novel delves deep into Lexi’s inner struggles, her journey of self-discovery, and the delicate balance between her gift and its emotional toll.
While the initial chapters engage us with Lexi’s encounters with strangers, the heart of the narrative lies in her internal conflicts. Some readers may yearn for more interactions with the people whose emotions she senses. Overall, Everything We Never Knew invites us to explore power, transformation, and the intricate threads that bind us all.

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark

Title: Everything We Never Knew
Author: Julianne Hough & Ellen Goodlett
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.25
Pub Date: August 13, 2024

I received complimentary eARC and ALCs from Sourcebooks Landmark and RBmedia respectively via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted

T H R E E • W O R D S

Unique • Atmospheric • Healing

📖 S Y N O P S I S

On stage at an awards banquet is the last place Lexi Cole expected to drown. But as she accepts the award for top-seller at her realty firm, something unusual catches Lexi's eye: a man surrounded by a dark haze. Then she hears a woman screaming for help, and the taste of saltwater overwhelms her. Just as Lexi's throat begins to close, the man leaves the room and the sensation of drowning abruptly stops. Later that night, the man dies of an overdose, and Lexi learns about the traumatic boating accident that killed his sons and tore his family apart.

Lexi wants to believe it's a bizarre coincidence. Any other explanation would disrupt the normal, comfortable life she's worked so hard to build. Lexi is an expert at denial, a pro at fitting in. But as more strange events unfold, Lexi can't deny the truth: something is changing inside her. She feels other people's emotions, sometimes even glimpses their private memories.

By embracing her new abilities, Lexi can help heal people--though not until she confronts the past she's spent a lifetime burying. But when a vision reveals her husband is in danger, Lexi must decide: face her inner demons or lose the person she loves most.

💭 T H O U G H T S

When I first head Julianne Hough was publishing a novel, I instantly knew I would want to read it. While I don't consider myself a huge fan, I have always been drawn to her personality and listened to her music. The cover and synopsis sealed the deal for me.

Everything We Never Knew came across as a deeply personal narrative - at times I had to remind myself it wasn't Julianne's memoir. What started out highly engaging, soon turned into a plot that struggled to hold my attention. Lexi experiences bouts of survivour's guilt and anxiety. It's a story of finding oneself and the going through the process of deep healing. Lexi's character growth leapt off the page and is the true strength. I appreciated learning about the Saturn return.

Julianne narrates the audiobook herself. While the pacing and intonation suited the plot quite well. the narration truly lacked the emotional depth of the complex storyline. I expected much more emotion in voice and atmosphere from such a deeply personal story, especially one about healing.

I had incredibly high hopes for Everything We Never Knew that unfortunately were not met. It ended up being meh despite containing such a unique concept and content. Additionally, the ending felt like it cut short a story because the word count was reached. With that said, it is unlike anything I've read before, so kudos to the authors for stepping outside of the mainstream.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• the spiritual world
• unique plotlines
• witchy vibes

⚠️ CW: infertility, miscarriage, blood, toxic familial relationship, child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, death, child death, boating accident, drowning, overdose, mental illness, panic attacks/disorders, cursing

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"You learn to hear the blank spaces in other people's stories when you insert them in your own."

"We want to believe we're in control so badly that we convince ourselves everything is our fault. Because the alternative - the world being totally random and our of our hands - is terrifying."

"You hate the new shape of the world, but you accept it anyway."
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