DNF, was around chapter 4 and it was had to follow along at times, with no real explanation as to what was happening or what she thought was happening. Found myself zoning out and not engaging in the book

I wanted to love this ARC, but it just wasn’t for me. The first two chapters threw everything at you—miscarriage, hallucinations, and a traumatic death. I usually try not to DNF any early copy I’m approved for, but this one just wasn’t what I was expecting. Supernatural stuff is usually my thing, but it didn’t make sense in this story, so I ended up skipping a lot of it.

Also the audiobook had this weird crackily sound in the background that was super annoying.

Thank you to the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

The audio production is okay. It's listenable, it's not bad, it's also not the best. sadly, I overall did not enjoy this book. I think there are people out there who will. The writing felt very telling instead of showing and felt slightly immature. However, this is a very touching and sensitive story, so I do think if you feel particularly connected to the synopsis you should at least give it a try. It just hit the same as I expected it would.

Title: Everything We Never Knew
Author: Julianne Hough and Ellen Goodlett (Narrated by Julianne Hough)
Genre: General Fiction (Adult)
Rating: 4 stars
Pub Date: August 13, 2024

📖 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 💭
The cover is stunning and part of what drew me into requesting this book. Although I read the synopsis, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This story follows Lexi and her journey through healing, growing, and changing. Much like her husband, I do not necessarily believe in energy healing, but I saw this as one way to connect with ourselves. Some people need to heal spiritually before being able to heal mentally or physically. It was a beautiful story, likely rooted in Julianne Hough’s real-life situations, that covered grief and loss, parents not standing up for us when we are children, and learning to be in-tune with ourselves.

⚠️CONTENT • WARNINGS⚠️
• difficulty conceiving/infertility and miscarriage
• drug-related death or overdose
• sexual assault and harassment
• parental abuse
• death of a child

Thank you to NetGalley and RBmedia | Recorded Books for the opportunity to listen to an Advanced Listener’s Copy (ALC) in exchange for my honest opinion/review.

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."

No. Just no. This book was so over the top. The narrator was annoying and whiny. It was just not good.

A journey in the path of healing a trauma that causes a dissociative amnesia.
The book is all over the place, I didn't get attach to any of the characters involved in the story. The disclosure/realization is a little bit too unrealistic, the monologue is overly optimistic like everything is fine after it. On the contrary the very last dialogue of the book is extremely well written.

Just finished listening to the book, Everything We Never Knew. This book was just released this week, August 13th. It was both written and narrated by Julianne Hough. I've been a fan of hers ever since I was a kid watching her and her brother as some of the professional dancers on Dancing With The Stars. I had her debut album when it came out and used it with my singing teacher for my singing lessons when I was a kid. Some of my favorite movies of hers were Safe Haven, Grease Live, and Footloose. So as you can imagine, I was super excited to be chosen to listen to this audio ARC of her debut novel! And wow, this was such a beautifully written story full of hope, strength, finding yourself, healing yourself, learning to love yourself after trauma. Many parts of this story struck a personal chord with me. I am so thankful she wrote this book, because I needed this book. She has also written new music, songs to go along with this book, and I cannot wait to listen to them. I highly recommend this book, it was such an incredible and powerful story. 🤍📚

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this audio ARC of Everything We Never Knew, in exchange for an honest review.

This was almost a DNF for me. I was excited when I heard Julianne wrote a book, and while it had an interesting premise, it fell flat.
Here’s the premise: Lexi Cole starts experiencing weird phenomena, feeling others’ emotions and experiencing their memories, while sometimes having audio or visual hallucinations. When a vision reveals her husband is in danger, her abilities are put to the test.
This had the potential to be great but went off on too many alternate storylines like her family, her job, “training” etc and it became very confusing to follow. The only thing I enjoyed was Julianne narrating her novel.
Thank you to RBmedia for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fantastic story! I have always adored Julianne Hough but to listen to her beautifully written, she is one of many talents. It was an incredible story! Highly recommend.

Everything We Never Knew by Julianne Hough & Ellen Goodlett
Narrated by Julianne Hough
Publisher: RBmedia, Recorded Books
Genre: General Fiction (Adult)
Published: August 13, 2024

Everything We Never Knew by Julianne Hough & Ellen Goodlett is the book I didn’t know I was looking for! This story of discovering your own power and the ability to heal was so powerful and wonderful!

I loved seeing Lexi transform and embrace her power. This was inspirational and was a moving story.

I loved the narration by the author. Hearing her tell this story in her own voice and words was such a gift!

I highly recommend Everything We Never Knew. This will be on the gift list this year because I want to share this story with everyone!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I tried so very hard to stay engaged and just couldn’t. My mind kept wondering and I couldn’t comprehend what I was listening too. I really wanted to like this story but ultimately it wasn’t great.

I'm a bit torn on this one. It's maybe more of a 2.5. I like the premise of this, and I definitely think there are nuggets of wisdom to gain from the reading. It just feels like the author put every bad thing that can happen to a person in one story for shock value, maybe? There were parts that really had me intrigued, and I wanted to know more, but overall, it just missed the mark for me.

Lexi is an ordinary woman, a realtor , who has been experiencing anything but ordinary events. She is receiving a sales award when she feels like she’s drowning on stage. It’s all connected to a man in the audience whose son has drowned. And this isn’t the last time she’ll experience the feelings of others. It would seem she’s becoming an empath, and this story follows her extraordinary journey into a world both painful and frightening

The concept was so interesting to me but as hard as I tried I couldn't stay engaged and found myself missing half of what was going on. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I was drawn in by the cover and narrator/author but this just fell short for me. Was not very memorable and did not capture my interest or keep me engaged. Thank you to NetGalley and RBMedia for an early audio
2/5

I read a lot of book recommendations and emails from publishers. I kept seeing this book, so I wrongly figured it must be a great book. I had never heard of either of the authors. Well, I could not finish this audiobook. It was torture. I always try to hang in there with any book in case it just has a slow start or a couple bad chapters, but I just couldn’t keep going. As it turns out, the main author is a celebrity from a dancing show. There are so many talented authors out there that never get this sort of publicity and push from publishers, but if any sort of celebrity writes a book, they get the best of everything regardless of how bad their writing is. If I had known who the author was, I would have skipped the book until there was more feedback.

The concept of this book captivated me from the start. Lexi discovers she possesses the ability to sense others' emotions and occasionally glimpse their personal memories.

The initial chapters were engaging as Lexi navigated unfamiliar individuals and delved into their pasts. However, the bulk of the narrative focused on her internal struggles and processing past traumas, resembling a therapeutic journey. Some parts were perplexing, and I craved more interactions with strangers.

Nevertheless, the book had its merits. The dynamic friend group and Lexi's mentor were highlights for me. It offered plenty of contemplation and managed to hold my interest throughout.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I had such high hopes for this book. It sounded so interesting and started out strong and then kinda fell short. It has some super natural aspect that could have been great if done a little different.

Thank you to NetGallery and RB Media for the opportunity to read and review an advance reader copy of this audiobook.

In "Everything We Ever Knew," spirituality, energy, and healing take center stage as we follow Lexi, an ordinary woman leading an ordinary life. Suddenly, she begins to experience a profound shift within herself, encountering strange visions and sensations when in the presence of certain individuals. As Lexi embarks on a journey of self-discovery, she uncovers a unique gift that allows her to tap into the emotions of others and even catch glimpses of their private memories. While mastering this newfound ability, Lexi must also navigate skepticism from her husband and confront deep-seated issues hindering her path to success.

Narrated by the author herself, the audiobook benefits from her perfect voice for the story, capturing the emotional nuances of the characters with music marking transitions between chapters.

While the concept of the story is intriguing, I found it to be overly verbose at times, and I occasionally struggled to differentiate the other characters in Lexi's life.