Review | I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney

Aimee Sinclair is an up-and-coming actress who prefers a quiet life. One day, she comes home to find her husband missing and their joint bank account empty. She files a police report – but becomes upset when the police start to focus on her as a suspect. She has many secrets – amongst them her real relationship with her husband and her childhood past. As she tries to move on with her life, she finds herself being followed by someone who may be her missing husband. But if he is not missing why would he go through all this trouble to set her up? As Aimee starts to doubt herself and her memories, her sanity begins to unravel and her past finally catches up with her.

I carry my memories of my life before in an old trunk inside my head. It’s been locked for a long time. 

I‘ve read rave reviews for I Know Who You Are and I understand why many love it. Unfortunately it didn’t work for me. The story is set in the present, featuring Aimee and her missing husband, with flashbacks to a child in the 80s. The flashbacks are the strongest part of this book. It starts with a terrible family situation before moving on to a kidnapping and a disturbing crime drama. It’s a lot to take in but it kept me interested. I wanted to learn more about the makeshift family and how the child character will get through her situation. But the bulk of the book takes place in the present and I didn’t enjoy it.

Aimee is not a believable protagonist. Her reaction to being accused of murdering her husband is to pretend the problem will resolve itself, and to act offended when the police ask questions instead of telling the truth. There’s a scene where she steals a pair of shoes for no reason. I could see that the author is trying to build her character but it felt inconsistent. Aimee is adamant that she does not trust anyone so I didn’t buy that she would marry a guy who she has only known for two months. Then she moves on to another guy who she has also known for a few months. Her behaviour doesn’t seem to match her thoughts.

At the end, the villain is revealed in an outlandish twist that is shocking. But storywise, it makes no sense. Although we get the villain’s point of view chapters, the book tries very hard to conceal their identity at the expense of character development. I thought there was potential for an exploration of psychopathy but the story did not deliver.

Overall, I wanted more. I couldn’t match the resilient child in the flashback with the passive adult in the present, and the solution to the mystery is unsatisfying. As a note, this book has content featuring spousal abuse, child abuse, animal abuse and incest which might be triggering for some readers.

About the author: Alice Feeney

Photo by Sarah Sharp