Tell Me Everything

April 29, 2019
Malin Ahlberg, the control-obsessed protagonist of Brockman’s disquieting debut, is a senior at Hawthorne College in Edelton, Maine. Though her troubled upbringing left her a loner, Malin arrives on campus determined to reinvent herself, befriending Ruby, Max, John, Gemma, and Khaled on day one. The six become inseparable, but now, just months before graduation, their bond is starting to fray. Malin launches a desperate bid to fix things, but as the book’s prologue foreshadows, a suspicious death will tear them apart. Malin’s narration is studded with flashbacks to both freshman year and her childhood in Texas, tracing the origins of the group’s implosion and her own manipulative compulsions. Brockman perfectly captures the insecurities that plague young adults, as well as the intense relationships that form in the crucible that is college. Deliberate pacing complements the sinuous structure, with anxiety and dread mounting as the story lines coalesce. Not every reveal feels earned, but the shocking central twist and devastating conclusion amply compensate. Fans of Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt should take notice. Agent: Lori Galvin, Aevitas.

Starred review from May 1, 2019
A tight group of college friends fight to keep their relationships from splintering under the pressure of secrets in Brockman's debut. When Malin's parents drop her off at Hawthorne College, her father whispers one word of advice: Pretend. Malin has always been quiet and introverted, but this self-imposed separation has given her ample opportunity to hone her perception and observation skills. Deciding to branch out and find some friends in order to keep her parents happy, Malin chooses Ruby to be her best friend. Pretty, outgoing, and athletic, Ruby is Malin's way into a small but insular group: Gemma, Max, John, and Khaled. During freshman year, the six survive the usual college shenanigans--wild parties, drunken hookups, last-minute study binges--before moving in together. But Malin can see the cracks in their friendships from the beginning: how John bullies Max; how Gemma drinks herself into oblivion to avoid her loneliness; how Khaled needs constant reassurance; how Ruby bows to John's every wish. And then there's Malin herself, top student on campus, the silent witness to so many conflicts. All six of the friends have secrets. By senior year, each of them is buckling under the twin pressures of loyalty and knowledge. Will they make it out alive? By telling parts of the story out of sequence, Brockman successfully builds each character in fragments, preventing us from seeing the full context until close to the end. The college-centered plot is reminiscent of many novels that have come before about quirky kids forming a family of sorts only to destroy each other--Tana French's The Likeness, Donna Tartt's The Secret History--but the development of Malin as a narrator is truly inspired. While French and Tartt use the outsider-as-narrator to further emphasize the group's isolation and the narrator's failure to find true acceptance, Brockman's Malin draws riveting attention to humankind's vulnerability to evil. She is a shadowy figure; an unreliable narrator we get to know through subtle hints and slanted comments in addition to flashbacks. A truly chilling thriller with a twist so quiet, you never hear it coming.

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Starred review from June 1, 2019
It's Senior Day, a hallowed tradition at Hawthorne College, a small liberal arts college in the backwoods of Maine, where the only entertainment is getting drunk on the weekend. Malin, Ruby, John, Max, Gemma, and Khaled have been friends since freshman year and housemates since they were sophomores, but beneath the surface of their apparent bond is a skein of obsession, deception, and manipulation. By the time Senior Day is over, one of them is dead. As the reader soon discovers, there is something not quite right about narrator Malin; she has to keep reminding herself to "pretend, pretend, pretend" to maintain her carefully calculated fa�ade of normalcy. And as she works hard to blend in, she is acutely observant of any weakness in her friends. Tension builds in a narrative that switches back and forth between Senior Day and freshman year, punctuated by flashbacks to events in Malin's childhood, and the tension is amplified by the focus on an insular group in an isolated setting. Though there are few surprises left at the end, Brockman's first novel will appeal to readers looking for another Gone Girl.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)