If Only I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman

Author : Hannah Beckerman
Title : If Only I Could Tell You
Published : 2019
Publisher : Orion
Pages : 368
Genre : Contemporary Fiction

     Audrey's family has fallen apart. Her two grown-up daughters, Jess and Lily, are estranged, and her two teenage granddaughters have never been allowed to meet. A secret that echoes back thirty years has splintered the family in two but is also the one thing keeping them connected. As tensions reach breaking point, the irrevocable choice that one of them made all those years ago is about to surface. After years of secrets and silence, how can one broken family find their way back to each other?

     Over the past few months, this is a book I have seen just about everywhere, from book stores to blogs it has been ever present. And I must confess I picked it up just a few times before actually taking the plunge and buying it. I'm not sure why I didn't, having finished it I can't for the life of me think of a reason. At this point, I would like to just mention what a truly beautiful cover it has. We all like to pretend we aren't drawn to a book by what is on the front. But as we all know that would be a big fat lie. So on to what it holds between the first and last. This is a book that in all likely hood will tear you apart as you spend time with it. It is a story that I feel comes from a truly heartfelt place. It is a defiantly brave look at what effects a secret within a family can have. The author delves deep into the bond between a mother and her daughters. It is one that I don't think really exist between fathers and their sons. There is something else at work here a deep connection on an emotional level. But this is not a book of happy lives and people living up to there potentials. 

     The way the author has crafted her book kept me spellbound as I weaved my way between the events of the present and this dark hole that is this family's past.  In moving between these two points we get to see a complete picture of a family fall apart. In talking of secrets and suffering it all most makes this book sound like a thriller. But for me it was never that, there is something moving below the surface. A more cerebral plain that gives both insight and heartache. We all know that for the most part if we are lucky we love our family's unconditionally, and this feeling is reciprocated. It is hard for me to see a point where a turn of one screw can change everything forever. But this is what the author looks at, a chain reaction that ripples throughout time till the point at which we meet these girls, who have now become women. I am having to tread very carefully here for fear of giving anything away.  But there is something very magical between these pages it gives you characters that you connect with and holds dear to you, all the more so as the aforementioned secret finally comes into the blistering light.

      It is a book that I would happily recommend to anyone, but I would have to give it out with a warning that a box of tissues may just need to be within easy reach. And while this story may tear you down it also allows for a light at the end of the tunnel. It is just as much a book about healing the wounds of the past. How our reflections don't all ways hold true, memories and perceptions can always deceive us. They are tricky little beasts that all to often show us the worst of anything. This author manages to deliver a book above and beyond what I was expecting and for that I am eternally grateful. It is one of the few books I have read recently that I know will stay on my forever shelf. And maybe in a year or two, I'll go back to it, just to see if knowing the ending make the experiencing the story any different.