More than another well written drug memoir, this delves into true crime. There’s a shocking and unresolved twist at the end that makes you reread and want more.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this book. While this title is no longer within the realm of my current reading interests I appreciate the opportunity in receiving an ARC.

Rose Andersen opens her soul and heart in this deeply emotional memoir. Have the tissues handy before you start to read this personal life story. The accidental overdose of her younger sister triggers regrets about relationships with their family, past lovers and a mystery man who may have played a hand in her sister's death. There are no secrets that withheld in Andersen's story about coming of age, dealing with cancer, and feeling the guilt and loss of her only sister.

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

What essayist and short fiction writer Rose Andersen knows about her sister Sarah's death is this: "She died of an overdose in her bathroom. She was dead for four days before her body was found. Her dog spent those four days trying to claw and bite his way through the bathroom door.... The police thought she had accidentally OD'd." What Andersen believes began surfacing through rumors shortly after Sarah's death: the overdose wasn't accidental; Sarah was a "loose end" that required tying up.

In her poignant and distressing memoir, The Heart and Other Monsters, Andersen recounts her Herculean efforts to "resurrect" her sister via diaries, e-mail hacking, newspaper clippings, record reviews and raw reflection on a shared family history replete with suicide, betrayal, addiction and abuse. Their father was, among other detrimental things, emotionally abusive (calling Sarah "Piggy" and both girls "fat and lazy"), helping drive each to self-harm only Rose would overcome. Sarah "wanted a father, even if that father was a drunk or mean.... She wanted to be loved."

As Andersen relays their excruciating paths, parallel yet divergent, she begins to merge facts about violent men, murders and dismemberment in "Small Town," ultimately tangentially connecting them to her sister. Written as though there is blood and heroin in her pen, Andersen blames herself for not saving her sister from the "great shadowy monsters." The Heart and Other Monsters is a biography, cautionary tale and murder mystery, masterfully blended with a memoir burdened by grief and guilt for crimes committed by others.

STREET SENSE: These days it doesn't take much for me to want to punch someone, but what these girls went through is so agonizingly maddening I felt myself tense up just reading it. Andersen's memoir is part murder mystery/investigation and part recounting of the family dynamics that can often doom our children to self-harm. It's very well done and one of the best memoirs I've read this year.

COVER NERD SAYS: Something about this cover drew me. It's not pretty. It's actually kind of ugly despite the pink palette. If the pink scribble on the photo wasn't there, this would be an entirely different cover. As horrible as that scribble is, it's all-important to the theme and what lies inside. I think this is a really great, horrible cover. Well done.

I do not even know where to start with my review on "The Heart and Other Monsters". It has weighed heavily on my mind and heart since the moment I finished it. At its core it is a personal exploration of the opioid crisis, but it also a physical manifestation of the grieving process.

It is not often that I read something that splits my heart wide open but this memoir did exactly that. I was left emotionally wracked as I boucned between reading words soaked in pain, regret, anger and most of all love. Even at its hardest moments, Andersons love of Sarah seeps from the pages. To loose a loved one is painful but to question your own fault as well as if death came by the hand of another, is a pain that I cannot even begin to comprehend.

Rose Anderson's memoir of her sister's life is brutally honest, heart-wrenching, raw and yet beauitful. As the opioid crisis continues to wage on this is such a necessary book. It truly brings to light a darkness in the world that isnt going away. There are countless untold stories of life, addiction and death just like Sarahs. We truly need more stories like this.

I recieved a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A moving memoir about a dysfunctional family. Rose works through her sisters overdose death, and finds out some troubling information leaving more questions.

Such a necessary book and it will rip out your heart. I just couldn't put it down. I'm not much of a crier but certain parts of this book had me sniffling. So vivid and poignant. A must read. Happy reading!

Rose Andersen recounts her childhood to narrate the journey her sister took that ended in her overdose of methamphetamines. Through her unusual writing style, Rose shares the grief and anger she feels at losing a sister to drugs.

Rose Andersen has written a powerful memoir chronicling the loss of her sister. That's a quick summary. What this book actually is an insider view of the opioid crisis, the rehab process and business and the suspicious events surrounding her beloved sister's death.

Stories like this are everywhere but Rose Andersen is a voice that needs to be listened to.

Rose Andersen’s The Heart and Other Monsters is heart wrenching memoir about the author’s experience losing her sister, Sarah, to a drug overdose. The book was a combination of part memoir about the Andersen sisters’ lives together and true crime story about the seeming drug overdose that wasn’t. At many turns, the book conveys Andersen’s grief for her sister who even in their disagreements were bound together.

Where the book succeeds is in conveying Andersen’s life fully, though at times we don’t fully understand Sarah’s upbringing singularly. The Andersen home was a combination of supportive maternal figures (their mom and stepmom, Sharon) and toxic father figures (their dad and a tough, unflexible disciplinarian stepfather). Their stepfather was also a closeted alcoholic while their own father abused the girls emotionally after the departure of his wife and his second wife, Sharon. It seems that the toxic treatment of these male figures translates to insecurity and a constant search for male approval in Sarah, who is nearly six years Rose’s junior. Meanwhile, Rose loses herself in her books and her studies, thus perhaps staying somewhat insulated from the familial chaos. Nevertheless, Rose also develops addictions to alcohol and cocaine, but is able to recover in her twenties and finish her degree several years later.

Integrating a variety of sources from her own memories to Sarah’s journals, we are provided insight into the magnitude of Sarah’s self-loathing. Sadly, she is unable to stay sober barring one year from the age of 15 to her death at age 24. Andersen is fairly successful at conveying the depth of emotion following her sister’s death, as the “monsters” are the drug demons and perhaps the “heart” is Sarah’s competing self, the positive self-worth infrequently on display. The author, however, is less successful at integrating the true crime portion of the story as there is some uncertainty about whether Sarah’s death was an overdose or purposefully inflicted in a “hot shot,” which in drug parlance is an intentional drug overdose. The author pores through the criminal record and coroner’s report in retelling the true crime aspects of this unsolved crime but these areas seem labored and disjointed. The book may have been more effective if it remained in memoir form or it more fully integrated the true crime aspects. Still, it is a heartfelt memoir of life snatched away far too prematurely.

So beautiful! I couldn’t put the story down. So readable, so emotional, and very well written. This is a tribute to a bond between sisters. I enjoyed every page!

This was a real missed opportunity for a unique take on the addiction memoir. The "true crime" aspect - the possible murder disguised as run-of-the-mill overdose - could've really set this apart, but although news articles touching on aspects of this were sprinkled throughout the book, it really only gets a close look at the very end (and even then, just as pure speculation and not as really any actual investigation or research). Instead, this was mostly just a look back at an addict's life, replete with details on the now-stereotypical abusive upbringing and family history of substance problems - in other words, the typical book about this topic that we've all read before. Was Sarah's death tragic, and traumatic for her sister Rose? Of course. Were there details here that turn your stomach or tug at your heartstrings? Definitely. Did this book break any new ground? Unfortunately, no.

Beautiful and brutal. A book filled with tragedies large and small, but also the resilience necessary to survive them. Honest and courageous in its search for the truth and for justice. I felt Andersen’s grief acutely throughout, which really means I felt her immense love for her sister. This story will stay with me for a long time.

Honestly, I don't think there are any ways to review this book that would do it justice. Rose Anderson's loving memoir of her sister's life is honest, unflinching, beautiful, and heartbreaking. Her emotions are so real that there's no way we can't understand and empathize so completely, in a universal way - yet at the same time, this book truly honors Sarah as a unique and special person who was very loved. This book will stay with me.

In this non-fiction piece, Rose Anderson writes of the death of her younger sister due to a drug overdose. Her sister’s death serves as the focus of this memoir, and around it, Anderson shares her own personal history. The memoir seems to serve as a means of healing for the author. It is a very heart wrenching read as we hear of Anderson’s struggle with dealing with her grief and her attempt to understand why her sister lived such a tragic life.

I read this book in one evening. It was impossible to put down. It is raw and real and very very heart wrenching but at times possessive of poetic language and imagery.

Read it.
It is amazing.

I enjoyed this memoir by Rose Andersen, reading it in one sitting. I’m not quite sure how to tell you about it beyond that, it’s still swirling around in my mind. It’s about her dysfunctional family, the opioid crisis, the rehabilitation business, and the loss of her sister to an overdose under strange circumstances at her sister’s boyfriend’s house. The true crime is pretty subtle in this book. Mostly memoir. Advanced electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Rose Anderson, and Bloomsbury Publishing.

I guess I'll probably be in the minority here, but I just didn't get into this book. I certainly feel for the author--what a terrible, tragic loss. I think this book read like a journal that the author might have kept as a way to deal with the grief of her sister's death, not so much a memoir. The story of her life is here, but I don't feel I got to know much about the author herself. Who is she outside of her relationship with her sister? I didn't get a clear picture from reading this book.

Five out of Five Stars!!

I knew going into this one it may trigger some feelings in my usually neutral-reading soul.  Little did I know.....

This memoir wrecked me in a way that no other memoir to date ever has.  I could feel Rose's anger, pain, regret, guilt, and, above all, the love for her sister   coming through on every page. It's one thing to lose a beloved sister to an overdose, but to a potential murder?  I can't even imagine.

Rose Andersen's writing is powerful and cohesive without trying to be flowery.  There is no sugar-coating, no excuses.  She takes the reader into her past, with the abusive, alcoholic stepfather and the mostly absent father.  She shares the story of her own descent into addiction and her hard-won sobriety.  I have a feeling this memoir was more of a cathartic and healing experience for her as well as the need to share the story of her sister.  And it's something that I commend her for finding the strength to do.

I read this memoir in an afternoon, yet it's taken me a few days to mentally process it.  It dredged up a lot of feelings for me, including my own pain over the loss of some close friends to drugs and alcohol and my own substance  abuse problems.  But at the end of the day, this story of Rose and her sister Sarah is a powerful testament to family bonds and coping with the unexpected.  Be sure to check this book out when it is released July 2020.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for sending me this early e-copy for review.

Lyrically written memoir/true-crime of family and addiction in a small town... I really enjoyed this and would recommend.

Raw honest heartbreaking bring you right into the authors life the sadness of her sisters dying from an overdose.She travels back in time to their unhappy childhood their lives.Their are twists and turns that will shock you.This is an emotional raw important read.#netgalley#bloomsburybooks