What a fun ride!! This was such a twisty, entertaining thriller. Every time a twist happened I was like "how is there still so much book left??" and the story just kept going. Some things were predictable and this is definitely a thriller where I was constantly frustrated with the decisions the characters made.  But this just satisfied everything I want in a thriller.

Lucy King is running form her physically and mentally abusive boyfriend.  Along with her dog, she keeps looking over her shoulder, scared to death he will find her.

Her next door neighbors, John and Vera, prove to be very friendly, very helpful and Lucy is grateful for their newfound friendship.

As Lucy thinks the worst is behind her, her neighbors tell her, they, too, are  running and looking for a new start.  And they have a plan ....

The only way they can start a new life is for John to fake his own death.

As with most plans, this one goes astray ... and John is found murdered ... for real.  

When Lucy finds that she is the prime suspect, she doesn't know who she can trust, but she needs to find a killer before she takes a fall for murder.

There are lots of twists and turns.... too many to keep track of.  The story loses its appeal when trying to figure out what's going on.   On one level, it was a page turner, but the characters spent a lot of time drinking wine and then making decisions that didn't make good sense.  This was not one of my favorite reads. I didn't find it especially thrilling.

Many thanks to the author / Putnam Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological thriller.  Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

What A Wild Ride!! I snuck a chapter in any chance I got!! Meet Lucy she’s just looking for a fresh start so she decides to move to Woodstock NY. Renting a cabin away from town, she meets her next door neighbors Vera and John  while out walking her dog Dusty. After fleeing from an abusive relationship she’s constantly living in fear that her ex is going to find her. The level of fear lucy is living with is shocking, she keeps lists of where she left evening in her house. She double checks windows and doors. After meeting Vera and John, she feels safe and secure with them, and their spending all their time together. One night while drinking Vera let’s it slip they want to pull a Van Gogh and disappear and leave their troubles behind, she drops the bombshell that John wants to fake his own death after sharing some shocking information that he’s accused of a horrible crime/ rumor. Lucy decides she wants to help them with this scheme they have become a family to her . Well the staged plan goes horribly wrong. Soon the lies begin to pile up and it  turns into a murder investigation. Lucy soon finds herself wondering what happened and who can she trust? What happened that day? I’m giving this five stars. There were so many twists and turns and just when you think you have it figured out, the rug gets pulled out from underneath you and you find yourself shocked asking yourself did this just happen? I highly recommend it!

Leah Konen’s All the Broken People is all about the twists and the epic turns – the kind that send you crashing into a tree, dazed and confused, wondering how on earth you got there. It begins with a premise à la Elisabeth Moss’ The Invisible Man, or even something akin to Julia Roberts’ Sleeping With the Enemy. Our protagonist Lucy is in the same predicament, running away from her abusive boyfriend and moving to a new town to start over. Yet the shadow of Davis hangs over everything, with Lucy having to account for every single thing in her new house just so she can reassure herself that she’s free of him.

Despite her obvious trust issues, she allows herself to open up to her new neighbours Vera and John, who become sort-of parents to her, in replacement of the family she’s lost. Konen paints for us the isolation and paranoia of Lucy’s world, an individual so impulsive and desperate for love that she didn’t see the warning signs when it came to Davis, which only makes us think it’s going to happen again. Vera and John take her under their wing, but they are on the outs with everyone else in town, with John’s name tied to a scandal that no one wants to let go or forget.

Feeling the heat, Vera and John conspire to fake John’s death, and Lucy volunteers to help them, on the condition that they take her with them. This is where the narrative takes a turn, because I was expecting a story about a woman trying to outrun and outsmart her abuser, and instead we are now left to ponder who murdered John for real. There aren’t many suspects, but Konen’s writing is so effective you somehow find the suspect eluding you. You hazard a guess only to flip flop immediately when someone else starts looking suspicious.

I, much like Lucy, discovered that I wasn’t the best judge, because the culpable ones were simply not on my radar. And just so you know, even when you figure out who is behind the murder, Konen still has secrets up her sleeve for the conclusion, where you will find yourself stunned once again, blaming yourself for trusting a flawed narrator like Lucy.

Lucy is an interesting protagonist, in the sense that I can’t really relate to her and the choices she makes, but yet I can understand the anger that colours her world. It is a destructive thing this anger, spilling into her relationships, her worldview, an anger she keeps running away from, never pausing to piece together the broken parts of herself.

All the Broken People does seem to operate in the same vein as The Girl on the Train, where we have main protagonists that are unreliable and drink a bit too much. I understand Lucy using alcohol as a way to numb and escape her painful reality, but seeing as how she is in hiding, I would think the urge to be more careful should have struck her more. Maybe it’s a testament to how comfortable she is with Vera and John, but she imbibes whenever she’s alone or whenever alcohol is available, so it seems like a reflex, one that she doesn’t seem to check.

Like I said, I guess I can’t really relate to her, but that’s the joy of fiction, to be able to step outside yourself and see things from a different lens. In any case, Konen delivers a competent, page-turning thriller, and if you’re looking for something like that to sink your teeth into, well, you won’t have to look far.

All the Broken People was a hard one to get into. The synopsis had me so excited. A woman fleeing from her abusive, piece of crap boyfriend only to find herself in the middle of a crazy scheme to fake a man's death? Count me in! Unfortunately it just wasn't executed well. The story dragged until around 60% in at which point, the plot kind of went all over the place. There were too many things that just didn't add up. 

This is probably better suited for readers who don't binge mystery/thrillers like I do. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest review.

From the get go this book really kept my interest. The second half of the book let me down a bit. There are two storylines and they didn't quite gel as well as they could have. I also felt like the ending was drug out. Just when you thought it was going to end it just kept going almost to the point that it was like ok what's next. It was definitely an entertaining read and I feel like it could have been set up for a sequel.

I like mystery/suspense laced with romance, and the plot given in the blurb intrigued me. The novel fulfills its promise--especially in terms of mystery and suspense. For a long time I was drawn in; I hated to put it down and get back to real life, and had fun guessing who the murderer was. This genre is praised for surprise endings; All the Broken People seemed to have several of them. The last section of the novel was like a hall of mirrors, with many twists and turns. If you like that kind of roller coaster ride, you will like this book. I received a copy from NetGalley.

gripping novel, well-plotted, with twist upon twist and an ending you won't see coming.  I would have like to see more development in terms of the friendship between the protag and Vera, because that's what I gravitate towards.

You have the windows down and the breeze blows your hair back as you cruise down the quiet road. The sun is shining and the clouds meander by as you make your way to a new place.

Except the clouds turn dark fast, the sun disappears and the air becomes bitterly cold. That new place and new start you craved has ended abruptly. You tried to run, but you couldn’t stay hidden.

This book had me second guessing myself every couple of pages and I love when a book leaves me floundering for answers and constantly throws me off. It started off really slow for me, and the abused lover running away is a scenario I’ve read recently and the story was sounding redundant. But once the plot turned and this book changed into a lot more than a runaway girlfriend, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

I recommend for those that love a dramatic thriller!

TW: Murder, Physical/Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Abortion/Miscarriage.

A compulsive thriller that grabbed me from the moment I read the premise—a fake murder gone wrong. A riveting story and a set of intriguing characters—starting with the protagonist, Lucy King, and her friends Vera and John—that still haunt me days after finishing the book. The many twists at the end of the book left me breathless. Just as I thought I knew who’d done it, a new twist turned everything upside down.

The book starts out as Lucy, the main character, is leaving her home and her now ex-boyfriend, Davis. She secretly moves from New York to Woodstock, hoping to find a quieter place to get away from the abusiveness of Davis. She meets her new neighbors, Vera and John, and immediately hits it off and starts spending a lot of time with them. But as soon as she has found them, she finds out she might lose them. They are also trying to get away from their past and are making plans to go so far as to fake John’s death and leave town. Rather than lose them, Lucy decides that it might be in her best interest to help them. Except things don’t quite go as planned…

All the Broken People truly is about just that… broken people. But that honestly made it all the more interesting to me. We’re all broken people, and the characters in this book are certainly good examples of that. The characters were fleshed out just well enough that you got to know them – or at least you thought you did. You were still left guessing as to who did what even to the very end. I liked that this book didn’t take the typical path; I wasn’t able to guess all the answers by the end just by guessing “the twist”. It was enjoyable getting to know everyone in the book. They even sounded like they might be interesting to know!

I would categorize All the Broken People as a psychological thriller. It just makes sense given the name of the novel. It is also very much suspense, keeping you hanging on until the very end. You’ll definitely be trying to figure out what really happened. But where this book shines is its characters, who you’ll both enjoy getting to know and who will also continuously keep you guessing. 

This one is a perfect weekend read to dive into this summer. But be careful, it might just take over your whole weekend!

This book is one wild trip! Like from the get go it was amazing.
So we start off with Lucy, she runs off without a trace to escape her psycho abusive ex-boyfriend. When she flees she tells no one where she is fleeing to in the hopes that she will be able to leave without a trace for him to follow. Once she finds a place Lucy meets Vera and John and they hit it off pretty well. They start hanging out and become really connected together, all the while Lucy is looking over her shoulder in fear that he is coming back, that he will find her. Then when all the town becomes kinda antagonistic with John, Vera and John convince Lucy to help in staging John's mysterious disappearance. But, what they had planned on how he would disappear didnt go according to plan and now there is a murder investigation. With everything going sideways now Lucy has the whole situation on her shoulders.
With this whole book you are led through the twist and turns of the secrets to be left unveiled and then the truth slowly starts to appear and by the end you have the who did it but, there are questions that were left unanswered but still a great book. I love books that make you think about the whole situation and leave you considering different possibilities even after it ends.
I love thrillers and this one was AMAZING!!! I definitely recommend it to any thriller lovers because you will not be disappointed!

This was my first book by the author, but I'll keep an eye on her. All the Broken People is clever and twisty and had me guessing until the end!

I think this going to be a popular psychological thriller and I expect most people will love it more than I did. It has a Gone Girl type feel to it. It is twisty and suspenseful and if you don't read a lot in the genre you don't know who-done-it until the end. Unfortunately, I have read several similar style books and I did figure out who the "bad guy" was before the end. But, it still didn't end exactly as I expected it to, which was good. 

I had trouble relating to the main characters and I didn't really connect with them. I found them to be moody and secretive and they drank excessively. They made bad decisions and focused on the wrong things at times, jumping to conclusions. I don't necessarily need to love my main characters, but it helps me to connect with them. In this case, I just struggled with that which made the story a little less enjoyable for me. 

This was the first book I read by Leah Konen and I generally liked her writing style. I would be interested in reading something else by her in the future.

I love discovering amazing new authors, and, although this is actually Leah Konen’s @leahkonen sixth book, she’s making the switch from YA romance to adult mystery/suspense with All the Broken People. You know with a title like “All the Broken People” that the characters are likely to be imperfect and flawed, and Leah absolutely delivers.

The main character, Lucy, is running from a violent relationship and decides to settle in Woodstock, where she is immediately befriended by her new neighbors, John and Vera. Having left almost everything behind but her beloved dog, Dusty (who I absolutely loved by the way), Lucy is searching for a place to belong, a family, and she hopes to find that with John and Vera. Likely because of her desperate need for love and acceptance, Lucy makes a series of bad decisions, ultimately sending readers on a delightfully twisty journey.  This would make an amazing book club read!

A debut novel so smart so involving Inwas drawn right in .Lucy flees Brooklyn with her dog she lands in Woodstock.Quiet peaceful a new life beginning and then she meets her neighbors a married couple and this chilling story takes off.A book that kept me turning the pages an author I will be following.#netgalley#penguinputnam,

The premise of this one totally sucked me in, faking someone’s death just sounds like the worst idea ever and you just know that nothing will go off as planned, right?! On top of that, Lucy has a shadowy past and the relationship dynamics between her and her new neighbors, Vera and John just intrigued me to no end. It definitely had me gripped and felt like a pretty solid domestic thriller.

This is one of those tricky thrillers that I figured would be pretty predictable and average at best the whole time I was reading it. It was definitely compulsive and entertaining, I just assumed I knew exactly where things were headed and I was dead wrong which is always the best! The ending was solid and threw me for a loop (or two) and I found it to be really clever in the end. It made me appreciate the whole book all the more with one of those, ok I see what you did there moments with a really fantastic reveal. Definitely recommended if you’re tired of thrillers all feeling the same, this one was pretty original.

All the Broken People's concept was great. I love a good domestic thriller. I didn't connect or have as good of an understanding of the character's personalities as I would have liked. It was hard to decipher "what a character would do" in a situation, however, I think the author did that on purpose & it just didn't work for me, but could definitely work for other readers. I love a twisty story, but this one had one too many for me. I really enjoyed the writing & will check out future works from Leah Konen.

This book was thrilling and full of twists. Lucy is an unreliable narrator, but we know she ran away to a small town to escape an abusive ex. Thats when we are introduced to Vera and John, her new neighbors and best friends. But trouble can always find you in a small town.

The twists were great, but I do wish there were one or two less twists at the end. I think I would have actually liked the ending better if the last one or two chapters weren't there.

Overall I highly enjoyed this title though!

An intriguing and suspenseful tale that is sure to leave readers up long into the night. All the Broken People is hard to put down, and grips readers from page one to the end!