The premise behind Tell Me Who You Are sounded very intriguing when I first read it and in the long run that’s not my issue with this book. The plot is still very compelling and the book itself is well-paced and well-constructed. This book just didn’t vibe with me from the beginning in almost every other way: I didn’t enjoy the writing style, the narrative voice was rather annoying, and there seemed to be a few holes here and there that maybe could’ve been taken care of with another pass through with the editor.

I didn’t find it to be as sharp or propulsive as other reviewers have found it to be. While it does have some unpredictability in its favor the shock factor isn’t that great when the turn comes.

Sometimes we just don’t vibe with a book, and I think this is one of those times.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was rated three stars or lower, meaning it will not be appearing on my social media pages. Thank you.

File Under: Murder Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller

Tell Me Who You Are is a standalone novel from Louisa Luna (no Alice Vega in this one)

"Dr. Caroline Strange is a Brooklyn psychiatrist. A new patient, Nelson, comes in and claims that he is going to kill someone and that he knows who she really is. Suddenly, Dr. Caroline is a "person of interest" in the disappearance of a woman who happened to write an article claiming she was one of the worst doctors in Brooklyn. Caroline doesn't believe the police are competent enough and sets out to find the missing girl and clear her name."

This is a psychological thriller from Luna. Caroline is always searching for the reasons that Nelson is what he is. There's a semi-duel timeline. It took a few pages for me to make the connection with the present, but it's a husband/father that's slowly losing it - with horrible consequences. That's the character that you will dislike the most.
There are red herrings galore in this story. Just when you think you know what's going on and who the bad guy/girl is, Luna throws another one in there. It keeps you guessing and the tension high.

There was a moment where I thought the story was going to veer into a trope that I'm not a fan of but Luna addresses it and moves along.

Another good story from Luna.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux MCD, and Macmillan Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of the latest thriller by Louisa Luna, perfectly narrated by the cast of Megan Tusing, Robb Moreira, and Stephanie Németh-Parker. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars rounded up!

Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what's best for her patients, her family, and pretty much everyone else, but that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are. Thus, the story begins.

I really loved this book - it's full of unreliable narrators and unlikeable characters with a plot and storyline that will have your head spinning in the best possible way. I think you really need to go into this book as blind as possible to get that full head spinning effect; suffice it to say that it will keep you gripped until the very end. Be sure to add this to your reading list - I switched between the digital and the audiobook, and the cast was wonderful.

I love Louisa Luna's Alice Vega series, so I was really looking forward to reading this. It's a wonderful psychological thriller, with all of the ingredients to make it good - unlikeable characters, an unreliable narrator, and twists and turns along the way. I was a little disappointed in the ending, however. The author flirts with different possibilities for the ending throughout the story, and I think it could have been more explosive than it actually was. All in all a great book, though and I look forward to what she writes next! Thanks to Netgalley and MCD for the advance digital copy.

Tell Me Who You Are by Louisa Luna is a compelling and thrillery multiple point of view novel with an intriguing premise. Psychologist Dr. Caroline Strange was unconventional in her professional and personal life. When a client shocked her with, "I am going to kill someone" followed by, "I know who you really are" my pulse quickened with possibilities. Caroline had secrets galore and a past she wanted to forget. Would Nelson (or anyone else) reveal anything? Things began to unravel when police questioned her.

Unfortunately, my mind and heart weren't engaged. The first page turned me off, not a great start. The characters were juvenile, messy and infuriating. I like to dislike characters but this was a different level. Covid references were frequent, something I could do without. Ellen's point of view was too discomfiting. I simply didn't enjoy my reading experience. Such a shame as the blurb had grabbed my attention.

My sincere thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley.

TELL ME WHO YOU ARE
Louisa Luna

She whispers

“Tell me how you start your day.”

“Tell me what makes you angry, sad, and vulnerable.”

“Tell me all the secrets you've kept, the lies you've told, and the dreams you've sold.”

“Tell me who you are”

Dr. Caroline Strange (love that name) is unlike any psychiatrist you know, and she’ll be the one you never forget. She has nontraditional methods for tackling her patients’ issues and from time to time her problems seem bigger than her patients

One day a new patient, Nelson, walks in threatening to kill someone but with no specifics yet, she cannot intervene with a phone call to authorities. But there’s time still. He also states he knows who Dr. Strange really is. This unnerves Caroline but instead of cowering, she decides to take Nelson as a patient head-on. She knows how to handle her patients and he is just one in a long line of creepy patients that have sat on her couch.

Soon after Nelson’s session, the police show up at her office door. Someone is missing and Dr. Strange is on the short list of people to interview. Does this have anything to do with her strange new patient, Nelson?

Someone’s mental health is showing, and it’s not the patients.

Well, at least, it’s not just the patients. I love Louise Luna’s female characters. They are almost always headstrong, alpha types that don’t take a lot from anyone and they’re so much fun to read.

The writing is smart, and the characters are gold, however, this story didn’t really work for me. I look forward to whatever Luna publishes next. I am a fan and even when I don’t love the story, I still enjoy my time reading Luna’s work.

Have you read Louisa Luna before? What are you waiting for?

Thanks to Netgalley, Farrar, Straus, Giroux | MCD, and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copies!

TELL ME WHO YOU ARE…⭐⭐⭐

Multiple Personalities Complicates Finding The Predator

This novel opens with the psychiatrist, Dr. Caroline, giving her introduction to a new patient concerning what she wants to be told and what will require her to contact the police. Soon, her new patient challenges her interpretation of the latter part of the previous sentence. He expresses the desire to kill someone. He has even selected the victim, and she knows her. He tells her that he is going to starve the victim to death. She reads more as a fanboy than a psycho to her. With this misdiagnosis, this novel begins.

The main storyline consists of three subthreads. The first is Dr. Caroline’s story of the events that she narrates. The progress of the investigation is provided in this thread through repeated detective interviews with Dr. Caroline. She is their primary suspect. The abduction victim, Ellen Garcia, narrates the second thread. She is being starved to death, which provides tension in the novel as she needs to be rescued soon. The third thread starts 600 miles from the first two threads. The connection soon becomes apparent and is a significant source of Dr. Caroline’s early background.

As Dr. Caroline does not have much faith in the detectives’ ability to find her patient, she tries to find him. Her thread becomes quite complicated as her patient appears to be showing multiple personalities, one of which is toying with her. The pace is non-stop, and it is an easy read. I finished it in half of my median read time for a novel of this length. This demonstrates how well this novel captured my attention.

The background of Dr. Caroline is extensive. Most of her personality is provided at the start of the first chapter when she explains what her patients need to tell her and how she describes her patients. She describes them all in a derogatory manner, with a derogatory adjective before their names to remember their fundamental problem. Throughout the novel, she doesn’t comprehend the possible consequences of her actions. She believes that the lead detective sees her as a Karen. Dr. Caroline is a very unsymmetric protagonist, but it is needed to make this novel work.

Some aspects that can cause some readers to stop reading are present in this novel. While there are no direct intimate scenes, there are some strong inferences. I have a high tolerance for vulgar and rude language, but the level here was reaching my limits. Violence is described as occurring but not more than what is on prime-time police procedurals. Lastly, this novel appears to be a stand-alone, so there are no issues with not reading previous novels in a series.

The aspect of this novel that I found to be not a plus was the strong adult nature that approached my trigger level, and I fear it might exceed that level for some readers. I found a cute twist in that Dr. Caroline does not believe that multiple personalities is an actual condition, but the detectives suspect she suffers from the same condition. As I mentioned before, I finished this novel in record time. This is the fourth novel by this author I have read. The previous three novels were from her Alice Vega series. This author is in my Will-Read category of authors and will stay there. I do recommend reading this novel but with the caution mentioned above. This novel earns my caveat: let the reader be forewarned about possible objectional content. I look forward to reading more novels by this author. I rate this novel with four stars.

I received this novel's free prepublication e-book version through NetGalley from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. My review is based solely on my own reading experience of this book. Thank you, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for the opportunity to read and review this novel early.

This was a weird one. It was full of completely unlikable characters. There was no reason to care about almost any of them. The main character is absolutely horrible. Whether or not she did or did not do something in her past, she is just really bad. Everyone is. The plot was OK but it was impossible to find it at all believable or relatable. And no one calls Jack Daniel’s “bourbon”.

Childhood, chilling, and challenging.

There are sever storylines here to keep you on your toes. One is a woman is kidnapped and trapped in a room. The other, Dr. Caroline (a psychiatrist), decides to take the matters of the missing woman into her own hands and tracks down one of her patients in connection with the kidnapping.

Who’s responsible for the trapped woman?
Who is Dr. Caroline?
Why is there another man’s perspective as well?
…the puzzle pieces fall, as you just wait to slowly put them into place.
What do all of their pasts have to do with the current cat and mouse game?

This has taken me some time to get into, but the second half was really good. The internal monologue of the characters was something different, that seemed to go off on tangents. By the end I was questioning everything, this needs to be published, so I can talk this through with other readers!

Thank you to NetGalley and to the Publisher Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. You can find this Mystery & Thriller, General Fiction (Adult) story published June 4, 2024!

Dr Caroline is a psychiatrist and meets with a new patient who tells her he’s thinking about killing someone and that he knows who she really is. He then leaves her office and doesn’t return. Her next visit is from the police to ask if she knows anything about a missing woman.

This was a quick read and a good way to spend a summer afternoon. I’m not sure it’s one that will stick with me or felt particularly different from other books I’ve read - but sometimes it’s fine for a book to just be a good time for the moment!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook and audiobook to review.

The story is told from thr POV a brilliant psychiatrist who had a traumatic childhood. This psychological thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you enjoyed Gone Girl you will absolutely love this book

This was pretty good. As a thriller, it was a bit of a slow burn, and not nearly as twisty as I expected, but it still moved quickly and had an exciting ending. 
*
Basically, therapist Dr Caroline has a new patient, who says he's planning to kill someone that she knows. Later the police show up and reveal that a journalist is missing, and they suspect Caroline because the journalist included her on a "Top Ten Worst Doctors" list. Dr Caroline decides to take matters into her own hands to find the missing woman. 
*
This felt like it moved pretty quickly, but I kept expecting more out of it. There were twists, I guess, but nothing too shocking, or honestly even all that relevant to the story. And Dr Caroline is not exactly a character you want to root for, and I think some actually concerning things about her were glossed over. 
*
The ending is exciting, and the final bit is interesting, so overall I'd consider this fine, a decent choice for a basic thriller.

Tell Me Who You Are is a compelling if improbable story of childhood trauma, revenge, conniving, overblown sense of self, multiple personalities, and more, told by three narrators and in two timelines. Louisa Luna's writing propels the plot forward and around its many twists and turns with ease. The book is all about the plot; character development and setting necessarily take a far back seat to it. Without adding a spoiler, I will say only that the book kept me on the edge of my seat and kept me guessing about the perpetrator until almost the end. Too many coincidences and improbabilities keep the book from rating 5 stars, but fans of this genre will be eager to read it and will enjoy the ride.

An absolute thrill ride. No one is who they say they are and I loved every word of this twisty thriller.

I enjoyed this book but then I read another review where the person said they were never sure if the male patient was real or not and then I felt like I read a different book. I thought it was pretty explicitly clear he was but that the doctor was also an unreliable narrator. So if there was supposed to be any doubt about that, it sounds like a flaw in the book.

I did find it a little odd that they bothered to have Dr Caroline have a husannd and child. The child was away the whole time and her husband had basically nothing to do with anything at all. He was there. It seemed weird she'd date and marry him (or anyone) and I think if he had to be in the book, they should have fleshed that relationship out. It added nothing that she was a mother since we never "saw" the kid. Any mention of them seemed like a waste of time.

Look, maybe it's the psych major in me, but I love thrillers that feature therapists and psychiatrists. I was so excited when I read the blurb for this book, and I really wanted to love it....

But I just couldn't.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot that is good here. I like the idea for the story. I really enjoyed Gordon's character and POV, and felt it was easily the most entertaining narrative in the book. The story was fast paced and kept me interested. But then comes my issues.

First off, there is so much jumping to conclusions and lucky guessing going on in this story. Caroline just continued to make wild assumptions (and be right) and managed to track down a murder. And the storyline with her past seemed really contrived. I feel like I don't know anything about Caroline as a character, or why she did the things she did. She just kind of acts better than everyone, and is rude to everyone around her, but then in the end she's going on about how she is a therapist because she wants to help people. She doesn't develope whatsoever as a character. In fact, all of her attitude just gets justified when she ends up solving the kidnapping case instead of the police!

Speaking of contrived, I could not for the life of me discern what Will Wall was trying to achieve. All we really get in way of explanation on this is Caroline's best guess, which is basically that this guy is obsessed with her because they both 'survived' family annihilations, researches her online, gets a job at her mother's nursing home to get information about her, then kidnaps a journalist who wrote about her to lure her in?? I understand he's supposed to be mentally unwell, and that his plan is meant to be ill conceived, but that's just a lot for me to swallow. Also, I feel like the writing of Will's character is extremely villianizing of the mentally ill, and all of Caroline's commentary on DID not being real felt very odd.

And of course there is the past storyline in which the reader finds out the Caroline, a thirteen year old girl, drove her neighbor to killing his entire family by showing him a picture and telling him a few lies. Why does she mess with her neighbor? Good question. Unfortunately Caroline is an entirely hollow character with no realistic emotions or motivations, so I can't answer it. Like I said before, I enjoyed Gordon's POV. I thought it was the most well written, and watching a man who recently lost his job descend into madness was surprisingly, fun. But the end just didn't feel justified. Honestly I'd say that was the case for both plotlines, they just didn't come together in the end. It felt like there was a lot missing.

There are several points in the plot that don't ever feel like they have a solution or reason to exist in this story, such as when Caroline gets upset at her husband for not telling her about her kid getting in trouble at school. Overall the plot felt full of holes and odd little offshoots. There are also a lot of instances where the author choice to use pop culture references that felt extremely out of place to me.

For me, that bad really outweighed the good in this one. I had far too many issues with the story and the writing to enjoy it fully.

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing me with a free ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book but I couldnt say I loved it. I found it hard to connect to the characters apart from that everything was ok. Connecting to the characters is hugely crucial for me in connecting with a book.

Title- Tell me who you are by @louisalunawriter
Rating-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This thought-provoking psychological thriller explores the human psyche with depth and intelligence, providing a gripping and intense drama that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The unique storyline is told through the perspectives of three people over two timelines, slowly building tension and suspense. With a therapist with secrets, a kidnapped woman, and the therapist’s former neighbor all bringing their own complexities to the table, this is a disturbing and very interesting ride that will keep you guessing until the end.

Synopsis:

Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what’s best for her patients, her family, and pretty much everyone else, but that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are.

Dr. Caroline is accustomed to hearing her patients’ deepest, darkest secrets, but it seems Nelson Schack may be one step ahead when detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman. It looks like Nelson has made good on his threat—yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect.

Convinced the police are incompetent, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget. As she closes in on her target, all the polished pieces of her manicured life splinter when people begin to question who she really is.

The Silent Patient meets Gone Girl in this sharp psychological thriller about a psychiatrist with a shocking past and her dangerous new patient.

Add this one to your tbr as it comes out June 4th✨

QOTD-do you believe in therapy? Or what’s something that interest you about the human psyche?

Thank you @netgalley and @louisalunawriter for this advanced copy.

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the copy of Tell Me Who You Are by Lousia Luna. It’s always hard for me to love a book when the characters are as reprehensible as they are in this book. There wasn’t a single likable character! I hated how Dr. Caroline had nicknames for her patients because it was mean and unprofessional and had nothing to do with the story. The story was intriguing and I never knew what would happen next. If you’re looking for a fun, well-written thriller with a surprising big reveal, this is the book for you.

Wow, what a good book! The story is a slow burn, very compelling. I really enjoyed Luna’s writing style, which was witty and full of dark humor. Most of the characters are not very likable, but they are interesting. This is the first book that I’ve read by this author, and I will definitely be reading more. Highly recommended!