Book Review: More Than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez

“History is written by those who have power and want to keep it.”

― Katie Gutierrez, More Than You'll Ever Know

 “More Than You’ll Ever Know” by Katie Gutierrez is a gripping novel that intertwines love, betrayal, and the haunting consequences of secrets. It follows Lore Rivera, a woman who lived a double life in the 1980s, married to two men at once, until tragedy struck. Decades later, Cassie Bowman, a true-crime writer, becomes obsessed with uncovering Lore’s story, believing it could change her career and her life. The book explores the blurred lines between truth and deception, the weight of choices, and the hidden desires that shape people’s lives. Gutierrez delivers a suspenseful yet deeply human tale that asks whether we can ever truly know someone.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Lore Rivera was married to two men at once, until on a baking hot day in 1986, one of them found out and shot the other. A secret double life, a tragic murder. That's the story the world knows.

It's not the story that fascinates Cassie Bowman.

Carrying the weight of her own family tragedy, true-crime writer Cassie wants to know more about the mysterious woman at the heart of it all, Lore. How did one woman fall in love with two different men? How did she balance the love and the lies?

To her surprise, Cassie finds that Lore is willing to talk. To finally tell her heartbreaking story - about how a dance became an affair; how a marriage became a murder.

As the two women grow closer, Cassie finds she can't help but confess her own darkest secrets. But when she slowly starts to realise that there might be more to the night of the murder than anyone has realised, can either woman face up to the thing they've been hiding from: the truth?

My reaction to this novel...

When I first picked up More Than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez, I was incredibly excited because the plot sounded so unique and interesting. The story focuses on a woman named Lore Rivera who manages to live a double life. Back in the 1980s, she actually marries two different men at the exact same time, one husband lives in Texas, and the other lives across the border in Mexico. This choice eventually leads to an awful tragedy that tears her families apart. Many years later, a modern-day true-crime writer named Cassie Bowman discovers this old case and becomes completely obsessed with it. Cassie wants to understand how and why a woman, who was also a mother, could make such a wild choice, so she convinces Lore to sit down for a series of deep interviews.

At the beginning, the book feels very fresh because it is not just a typical scary story about a crime. Instead, it really tries to show the human side of why people make big mistakes. I really liked how the book makes you think about how hard it is to be a wife and a mother, and how sometimes people just want to escape their normal lives to try something completely new. Lore is not painted as a simple cartoon villain. She feels like a very real, complicated person who wanted to have everything in life, even if it was impossible. The author writes beautifully about the different cities, the culture, and the heavy emotions that Lore feels while trying to keep her two worlds completely separate from each other.

However, as I kept turning the pages, I completely understand why the book can feel so boring and slow at times. The biggest issue is the way the author chooses to tell the story by constantly jumping back and forth between the two women. You get one chapter about Lore in the 1980s, and then the next chapter switches to Cassie in 2017. This structure ruins the excitement because every single time Lore's secret life starts to get intense and interesting, the book suddenly stops and forces you to read about Cassie's modern life. For me, Cassie’s personal life and her daily drama just cannot compete with the high stakes of a woman living a double life. Watching Cassie argue with her fiancé or deal with her own family issues felt very tedious, and it made the book feel way longer than it needed to be.

Another reason the book drags is that it acts more like a slow study of people's feelings rather than a fast-moving mystery. Because the major crime already happened decades ago, there is not a lot of active, scary tension happening in the present moment. Instead, a huge portion of the book is just two women sitting in a room, talking about old memories and analyzing the past. While some of these conversations are deep, many of them feel repetitive, as if the characters are just circling the same ideas over and over again. It requires a massive amount of patience to get through these long, quiet stretches where it feels like nothing new is actually happening to move the plot forward.

Overall, my feelings about the book are very mixed, and it is completely normal to feel frustrated by its slow pace. On one hand, the central mystery is fascinating, the writing is very elegant, and the book does a great job of keeping the biggest secrets safe until the very end without ruining the surprises. On the other hand, the book feels like a rollercoaster that keeps stopping every few minutes for a break. It is a good story if you enjoy slow, deep books about family secrets, but you definitely have to push through some very dry and unexciting chapters to get to the good parts of the story.

My Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨(3.5/5)