I really liked this book. It’s different from many I get to read. I loved being pulled into this mystery. The writing was well done. I highly recommend.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

This book was interesting, despite a slow start. I found myself pulled into the different threads that wove this story together. I didn’t think that the disparity between the stories could work, but the author somehow made it work. It was an intriguing and captivating book that definitely sucked me in. I’d love to see more from this author! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

Thanks so mich for early access this was a tremendous read. An author that beings so much of modern living into the most compelling of stories. Highly recommend this book and will be watching for more thanks

More literary than thriller, the writing style was almost ethereal and lyrical. I really enjoyed reading each character's point of views even if they were only connected to the plot by a thread.

My Thoughts
I struggled with this book quite a bit. Here are my pros and cons for Nothing Can Hurt You:

Pros

1. The concept was interesting. I thought that reading a story about how a murder impacted family members and the surrounding community would be insightful and emotional.
2. It is inspired by a true event.

Cons

1. While the concept was intriguing, the execution of the story did not work for me. Every chapter was a vignette of new characters and discussed how they were connected to either the murder victim or the murderer and how the murder affected their lives. I was really struggling to figure out what was going on! There was no continuity between chapters and nothing even close to a normal story arc. Not that every story has to be written in one specific way, but the lack of arc/cohesiveness in this book was very awkward and difficult to read.
2. Due to the format of the book, characterizations were weak. We never really get to know any of the people in the story since most of them just show up once in a vignette and never again. Everything is just surface information, almost like reading newspaper clippings. I didn’t connect to anyone.
3. I was actually pretty interested in a couple of the individual vignettes and it was ultimately disappointing when I didn’t get more of some of the stories.
4. The ending wasn’t an ending.

Summary
I understand the intention behind the concept – a story of love, loss, murder, and grief and how people are impacted by a horrific event. However, the way the narratives of the various people were presented in the book, I lost interest in their voices because I found myself searching for a story.

I appreciate that this book was based on a true event, and I appreciate the attempt to depict how one singular tragic event can impact so many people. The execution just didn’t work for me personally.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing USA for a free eARC of this book, which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

The premise of Nothing Can Hurt You is incredibly intriguing - a work of fiction inspired by a true story, written from the point of view of multiple people involved in the life of the victim in one way or another. However, I found myself confused at various points, trying to keep the timeline and people straight. I think it was an absolutely phenomenal idea that just got away from Goldberg. It felt like there were too many competing ideas she wanted to include, and it all just got kind of muddled by the time it was all said and done.

The story was hard to follow and just did not draw me in. I hate that this was a miss for me since it was based on a true story.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed the book. The well written, in-depth storyline kept me glued to the book. I wanted to learn more about the real-life murder, and my heart goes out to the family. Grab this one!

This was a wonderful book! I really enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend this book! I was really into the characters and felt scared for them at times!

This was a unique and interesting tale based on a true story. It jumps around from one character’s point of view to another and I found that frustrating at times. Overall it was a good read.
Many thanks to Bloomsbury USA and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Okay, this was a book I was completely ready to dive right into. Even though I primarily read YA, I do mix it up some. However, I really feel I need to stick to YA because this book was a hard one.

I read about 28% before I skimmed the rest. I was confused why each chapter had a different set of characters, but kept reading thinking they’d tie together somehow.

That was not the case.

At around 60% I just gave up because I realised I had absolutely no idea what this story was about and there was nothing going on but daily lives of people who weren’t even connected to the murder of the girl.

Wow. I feel like I’ve lost a day reading this. Tense from the get-go. I didn’t realise it was based on a true story but wish I had. Certain parts will resonate with you. 5/5.

3.5 stars
Nothing can hurt you is a story about how a murder can impact in the life of the families and friends involved in the case.
It's a great set up and a chilling story overall but for me personally was hard to keep up with everything as it's told in chapters between then and now and way too many pov of the involved characters.

“At a certain point, you realize the world is so bad, that it’s easier to pretend that people deserve the terrible things that befall them. That way, at least, you can pretend that you are safe.”

In a series of interconnected stories centered on the murder of a college student, Nothing Can Hurt You from Nicola Maye Goldberg sensitively examines the fallout from the crime. In 1997, Sara Morgan is horrifically murdered by her boyfriend, Blake Campbell, and when Blake pleads guilty by temporary insanity, he is acquitted. But this doesn’t end the story for those who are involved, touched, and haunted by Sara’s death in one way or another.

Nothing can hurt you

The book begins strongly with an opening section from a young, damaged married woman named Marianne. She’s moved to upstate New York along with her husband, and while their new idyllic home makes it seem that they “had wandered into a painting,” the darkness in Marianne’s head remains. There are hints that the root cause of her “episodes” lies buried deep in her past. Yes you can move to the country, buy a big house, and get a dog, but these are just the trappings of normalcy. Marianne is damaged and nothing’s going to change that.

It’s Marianne who finds Sara’s body in the woods. There’s some debate whether Sara was the victim of serial killer, John Logan, who operated in the area, but Blake Campbell’s confession eradicates that theory. As the book continues we meet characters who are caught in the ripples that form in the wake of Sara’s murder. Many of the characters knew both the victim and the killer, and find it impossible to align the events that took place. And what of Blake who walked away from the murder and spent a short time in an upscale Rehab center?

Katherine, an alcoholic, meets Blake at the Paradise Lake Recovery Center. He’s young, handsome and a reader like Katherine. Katherine hears the “gossip” that Blake murdered Sara, but she finds it hard to believe that Blake is capable of such violence. Blake’s friend, Sam, the owner of the knife used to kill Sara is still haunted by her death. He’s plagued by bad dreams, dissects the past to try to look for clues he missed about Blake, and even now, years later, the murder stains Sam’s personal life.

In this chorus of voices, there’s a third circle of people–not family, not friends, but still people touched by the crime. During the trial of serial killer, John Logan, Juliet, a reporter who works for a small local paper in upstate New York meets Celeste, a veteran NY reporter who’s feeling burnout from all the violence. Juliet, at the beginning of her career becomes obsessed with Sara’s murder

“How so they manage it? Serial Killers?” I asked Celeste once. “I can barely keep my shit together, and I only have one job.” I was having a lot of days when things like showering and buying groceries seemed not only pointless but basically impossible.

“It energizes them,” she said, without hesitation. “They’re at work, they’re waiting in line at the DMV, whatever, and they’re thinking about what they’ve done, what they’re going to do. It’s how they get through the day.”

The families of the victim and the killer are at ground zero when the murder occurs. Sara’s half-sister, Luna grows up in the wake of the murder and eventually cuts herself off from her family. Blake’s family “hired a lawyer, a good one, from New York, to represent their son. Did that make them bad parents? Bad people?” Blake’s sister, Gemma, has managed to detach herself from her family, but she wonders if her daughter is headed for inherited mental illness. A young girl writes to the manipulative serial killer, and Sara’s mother, who years later is a psychic, is called in on the disturbing case of a missing child:

The Stoddards live in what used to be a farmhouse. It’s big for three people. which makes Jonathan think they wanted more children. They moved up here from New York before William was born, probably to escape the terrors and temptations of the city. Inside, it’s beautifully decorated with thick, soft carpets and silver doorknobs. But it smells slightly off, like rotting fruit. On a table by the front door is a crystal vase full of nothing but dirty water.

Threading through the stories is the dark, inexplicable nature of violence. There’s random violence against strangers, and then there’s violence against people we say we cherish the most. We look for reasons for violence–not just the solution to a crime, and that’s what’s so disturbing about Sara’s murder; there are no reasons.

Some victims stay victims but others … well others who face monsters learn what they are capable of. As Josephine Hart writes in Damage: “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.” Marianne shows just how dangerous she can be when another man makes a clumsy pass. It was at this early point in the book, that I knew I was reading something special.

The snow had fallen so heavily overnight that Ted could not get his car out of our driveway. He and my husband spent all day watching TV, playing Risk, and drinking whiskey. They ate leftovers. I pretended to be busy in bed with a book, when I was really sitting with the emptiness. For the first time I longed for one of my visions. I wanted to see Ted’s head crack open, to see myself scooping out his brain with my fingernails.

Brilliant.

Review copy

Finally, a suspense novel that actually offers something new! Nicola Maye Goldberg's book brought a fresh spin to this genre by having the story told by different people connected to (and ultimately affected by) a murder of a young college student. Each section feels like it's own short story, and Goldberg does this masterfully. The result is a real page-turner that kept me intrigued the entire time. It's not a who-dun-it by any means, but sometimes stories can be just as interesting when you already know the ending.

For some background, this book was essentially inspired by a true event, but Goldberg has changed the names so it's tough to know which real-life crime she's referring to. The novel follows the aftermath of the murder of Sara Morgan. The killer is her boyfriend who claims to be schizophrenic and on acid at the time of the murder and unaware of what he has done. He's found not guilty by reason of insanity and set free. But the ripple effect of this crime is felt by a huge number of people. Goldberg's characters range from Sara's sister to one of Sara's former babysitting charges. What was so impressive to me is that Goldberg was able to place the same amount of importance on each character - so no matter how far removed they were from the actual crime, their input still felt valuable and fascinating.

At the end of each section, I felt a small letdown that the reader isn't allowed to spend more time with that character. But I think this is actually the sign of a compelling read (and something that people often find issue with in short story-like prose). I hope Goldberg sticks to this kind of storytelling in her future work because it was crazy good!

DNF at about 25%. I could not get into this one for some reason. The writing style is very readable but I think the story was just not catching me, even with it being based on a true story. I would say this was more me than the book. No rating on Goodreads but I have to put a rating on Netgalley so I will give it 2 stars.

Thank you to Bloomsbury USA for a free digital galley via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was drawn to this title because of the “based on a true story” callout in the book description & thought the story sounded creepy and interesting enough to read. However, from the very beginning, the writing was very hard to follow. Too many characters, a lot of whom I felt were so loosely connected to the overall story (not to mention, you couldn’t tell half the time whose POV the story was being told from) & a convoluted storyline that read more like a bunch of short stories that were difficult to become invested in.

Thank you, nonetheless, to Bloomsbury USA and Netgalley for the ARC.

Wow.

Days after finishing this book, and I am still reeling. Still unsettled.

Because if this book was anything, it was UNSETTLING.

Downright creepy at parts.

There was just something about this book. Something different. Something I can't quite put my finger on.

Haunting certainly, as echoes and fragments of this story and the characters from it keep flashing back to my mind randomly, jarring me.

I would say that perhaps its because its based upon a true story, a true crime, that took place (although which story it is based upon, I cannot say, what with names being changed and all) but I don't think its just that. Sure, the fact that its based upon true events definitely adds to the chill factor, but there's something more to it.

I feel as unsettled as I imagine the characters within the story must have felt, and would have continued to feel throughout the remainders of their lives.

This book centers around a college student who was murdered by her boyfriend, a schizophrenic, who confessed to the crime, but wasn't sentenced due to a plea of temporary insanity.

The boys lawyer pushed for a not guilty by reason of a temporary insanity. The defense said he was having a psychotic episode and didn’t know what he was doing. Whether or not this was true was of course a topic of high debate, especially due to the brutality of the crime.

This story is told from the POV of several different characters, all connected to the murdered girl or the crime in some way, and these multiple POVs really just upped that certain something to this story. So many unsettling POVs.

Honestly, I went into this book pretty blindly, and I think its best if you do too!

Very thought provoking and well written book about a tragic crime and the way in which it can change and shape the lives of so many different people, in so many different ways.

Highly recommend!

It's an okay book. I thought it was boring. Seems to be self-reflective but comes across as empty.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

I’m not sure if it was a formatting issue in the ebook, but I found the story very hard to follow. New characters were introduced with every chapter, and it was hard to see how they were connected. It was sometimes difficult to realize that a new chapter had started. The physical book might make for more enjoyable reading.