Kristin's Bookshelf

📚 What You Did
✍️ Claire McGowan
🎧 Narrated by Pearl Hewitt & Karen Cass
⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

Claire McGowan is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I discovered her through the Audible Premium catalog, and I’m already on my sixth book of hers. Not only do I really enjoy her writing, but she consistently has some incredible narrators bringing her stories to life.

“What You Did” tackles some very difficult subject matter, specifically sexual assault, so definitely check the trigger warnings before going in.

This story had me asking myself over and over: WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

What would you do if your best friend accused your husband of more than 20 years of assaulting her?

What if I told you they’d also been having an affair for more than 20 years?

And that your husband was the father of her almost-adult son?

Oh, and what if you’d already lied to protect your husband from a similar accusation back in college?

Ali has some BIG decisions to make, and they only get bigger and more devastating as the story unfolds.

I found myself despising EVERYONE. Even Ali. She’s put in an impossible situation, and while I could understand the logic behind some of her choices, I was also internally SCREAMING at her.

And did I mention her JOB is literally centered around believing and supporting women in similar situations?! The layers of hypocrisy, denial, loyalty, and self-preservation here were infuriating in the best way.

Then more friends become involved. More secrets come out. Friendships implode. Families are destroyed. And everything just keeps going further and further to hell.

McGowan did such a great job creating characters whose choices could make me absolutely furious while still making me understand how they got there.

And thank goodness for that epilogue, because without it, this book would have left me feeling EMPTY.

🎧 Pearl Hewitt and Karen Cass were fantastic. McGowan’s audiobooks continue to impress me with their narration, and these two absolutely delivered.