This is another great book from Emma Noyes! I loved Guy’s Girl, and this is equally emotionally poignant and readable. It is so hard to read about Eliot’s struggles with intrusive OCD, but I am so impressed by the author’s ability to show these experiences. The book had a great story to it which made it easier to read. I learned a lot, as I wasn’t familiar with this type of intrusive OCD. I would recommend this as an interesting and enjoyable read.

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fun fact about me: I’ve been living with Anxiety and OCD since I was a child. I was officially diagnosed at 8 years old after having panic attacks and OCD tendencies so intense I could barely make it through a day of school, and I’ve been dealing with it literally every single day since then. When I was young I remember wanting to someday write a book to show people what the inside of my head was like, and although I never ended up writing that book myself, HOW TO HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT does just that.

This book follows Eliot Beck. She’s been distant from her family for the last three years - living and working in NY and keeping her siblings, parents, and best friend at arms length. When she goes back to the Canadian island she grew up vacationing on to celebrate her brother’s wedding - she’s forced to confront the fact that maybe she isn’t as healed as she thought she was.

I related so deeply to Eliot and the thought spirals that she was so often trapped in that I had to take multiple breaks just to center myself and breathe. It was both difficult and incredibly validating to see someone like Eliot in the pages of a book.

If it wasn’t already clear, I absolutely loved this book and feel so connected to it.

Eliot Beck hasn't seen her family in 3 years. A long weekend at the families vacation home for her brother's wedding is going to push her to revist the past hurts and also confront her mental well-being,
or the fact that she's not functioning as well as she portrays. A very well written novel. It has all the makings of a great novel. It's emotional, complex, and authentic with real and flawed characters. Eliot struggles with an obsessive compulsive disorder, and through her narrative, we see the way the disorder can impact a person's thoughts. And for all these reasons, I give the novel 5 stars. But I didn't enjoy the novel and struggled to finish it. I think Emma Noyes is not the author for me. As I felt the same way about Guy's Girl. It's the being stuck in the main characters head for most of the book that makes it a slow journey, and I get bored. When I'm bored, I'm uninterested in the outcome. But alas.. I think others will absolutely love this novel, especially if you read and enjoyed Guy's Girl.

An arc provided by netgalley and the publisher was read and reviewed honestly. All opinions are my own.

After experiencing a traumatic incident when she was a child, Eliot Beck develops obsessive-compulsive disorder and flees from her family and best friend, Manuel, to Manhattan to throw herself into her work in an effort to escape her OCD thoughts and symptoms that she calls The Worries and spare her friends and family from associating with her. She is now returning home for her brother’s wedding and must confront her thoughts and the people she attempted to leave behind.

This book taught me so much about how differently disorders such as OCD can present. I had no idea that this type of OCD existed and I applaud Emma Noyes for using her own life experiences to write this fictional family drama and coming of age story with romantic aspects. It is heartbreaking to hear how consuming and self-degrading The Worries are and, while some of her actions and justifications did not make sense to me, I had a lot of empathy for Eliot because, as she explains, her OCD does not listen to logic. The character building and family dynamics were chaotic and entertaining and I loved the open discussions about finding help in therapy. The book did drag in a few parts but as I got closer to the end, I couldn’t put it down and was happy with the ending. I want to wrap Eliot (and Emma Noyes) up in a big hug and tell them everything will be okay. I am so glad she could not only learn to cope with her OCD and become an author, but also use her experience to write a novel to educate others on how it feels to live with it every day. Overall, this book was very heavy but I learned a lot and enjoyed it. I am glad I read it! Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley, and Emma Noyes for the gifted ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After loving Guys Girl I was excited for Noyes' latest release. The story follows Eliot as she reunites with her loving but dysfunctional family for a wedding, but tries to keep her obsessive compulsive disorder buried. The story alternates between Eliot's thoughts in the past and present, helping see how she got where she is today.

The book is informative about OCD and I learned a lot, though I likely wouldn't categorize this in the romance genre. I appreciated Noyes' vulnerability as she shares her own experience with OCD, but parts of the story felt repetitive made the four-day wedding week drag on. I liked uncovering Eliot and Manuel's relationship over the years, but feel like the story was lacking some other character development and the ending was abrupt.

Meet one of my favorite books of the year 🫶🏻

Thank you @berkleypub for my #gifted copy.

Eliot is estranged from her family, but after three years, she decides to participate in one of her brother’s weddings. However, she isn’t expecting her childhood best friend, Manuel, to also be at the event. Now, the two are on Eliot’s family’s island for four days.

Told in alternating timelines, this book does an incredible job of capturing the relationship between Eliot and Manuel.

Noyes does a fantastic job of describing and depicting mental health (ocd). I haven’t really read a book that focuses on ocd, but I felt like I gained a deep appreciation for what the diagnosis means to people.

The romance is slow burn and is not the primary plot point, and I loved how we really got to know both characters.

I’m excited to read more of Noyes’ work and am hoping to pick up her previous book soon.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#litbylillireviews

This was a very interesting book with a strong focus on mental illness. It was a captivating read learning about Eliot. Eliot suffers from OCD. Shes heading home for a family wedding who she hasn’t shared her struggles with and she’s about to bump into her best friend from awhile ago. A very raw story worth reading. You have to check out the author’s note as well. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

**Many thanks to Berkley and Emma Noyes for an ARC of this book provided via NetGalley!**

Eliot Beck has been trapped in a constant battle...but you wouldn't know it by looking at her. Plagued by her worries for so many years, her OCD has kept her trapped in the confines of her own mind, held hostage by a constant barrage of anxious thoughts. Moving to New York City was her escape, and she gives her all to her copy writing job day in and day out, but it's hard to ignore the pangs of guilt and longing she feels for family and for friends from the past that she pushed away to keep herself feeling safe...especially in the wake of losing her brother, Henry, at an early age.

So when her older brother invites her and the whole wacky, family to his wedding in Canada, it's the reunion they all have been waiting for...but Eliot still feels a pit in her stomach that threatens to swallow her whole. After all, when she emerges from the safety of her metropolitan cocoon, she's also opening herself up to endless questions from her family and prying about all that has happened since she saw them last. Nothing could have prepared her, however, for the rush of emotion that follows when she arrives to see the one person who always really 'got' her standing there - her longtime best friend, Manuel, who she fell deeply in love with way back when. As much as Eliot wants to focus on the four days of wedding planning "fun" ahead, her emotions take hold and she can't help but want to let Manuel back in.

But when the worries take a more aggressive hold on her, Eliot starts to panic. Is Manuel able to TRULY be there for her now, after all the hurt she caused him by running away with no explanation? Will she be able to withstand the judgment, the questions, and cope with the struggles of her other family members? Or will the voices that tell her everything she does is wrong tell her once again to retreat, hide, and face her most terrible enemy - her mind - alone?

It's hard to imagine that Emma Noyes could have ANOTHER book tackling mental illness and disorders in such a frank and vulnerable way after last year's effort, Guy's Girl, up her sleeve...but here it is. Once again borne from personal experience, rather than a first hand account of living with an eating disorder, How to Hide in Plain Sight deals very specifically and very openly with another disorder - OCD. Noyes once again has lived with the disorder, and has become the norm, she writes from this very specific place of personal investment and extreme vulnerability to shed a light on a disorder that so many are familiar with to an extent, but also to debunk the severe misconceptions that go along with this general knowledge.

But while I once again applaud Noyes' bravery, honesty, and fearless writing in this effort, her heroine this time was a bit inaccessible amidst a sea of characters, a lackluster plot, and a book that clung to one or two points for dear life...and just would NOT let them go.

As much as I wanted to love Eliot Beck (aside from the distraction of her name, which had me CONSTANTLY thinking of Beck from the "YOU" series...not exactly what I wanted to be thinking about while reading this one!), unlike the MC of Guy's Girl who pulled me in right away, I had such a hard time connecting to her thought patterns and just her general struggles that I didn't feel like I had stepped into anyone else's shoes. The obvious comparison to John Green's Turtles All the Way Down kept coming to mind, since the book deals with another female protagonist and the SAME disorder...and I hate to say it this way because I think Noyes is a truly talented author, but Green just did it better. Eliot's fixation revolves for SO much of the book around her 'sexual attraction' to people she 'shouldn't' be attracted to (for one reason or another) and while this might be an incredibly accurate representation of OCD, it grew tiresome to read. As much as we spend the book in Eliot's head, I still didn't feel like I KNEW her the way I truly wanted to know her by the end of the book...and it was disappointing to feel that way.

There is another barrier to entry in terms of getting to KNOW Eliot fully...and this is the plethora of characters that exist in this one. As much as most of them are 'necessary' in the sense that they are family members, we don't really get to know any of THEM fully, either. With so many to attend to and describe throughout, it was hard to not chalk up many of them to 'basic' characterizations and traits rather than experiencing them as fully fleshed out, complex characters. I think there was all sorts of potential here - in this instance, despite the heftier page count, we just didn't get to go on a deep dive with any of these people...even Eliot's best friend, Manuel. As much as he was a supportive and incredible friend, most of what we learn about him is all through the lens of Eliot and much of it revolves around flashbacks and remembering the past. Although it may have seemed like this wouldn't work, I think some contrast via direct narration from Manuel would have helped to not only alleviate the constant, heavy thoughts of Eliot, but to have helped develop this character to 'match' the energy and intensity of our MC.

It was also hard to go on such a long and painful journey with Eliot and not get the sort of resolution I was expecting. Sure, there's an ending - the wedding happens and life continues - but I just wanted to have a clearer picture of what life was going to look like for Eliot afterwards. There isn't always room for an epilogue, but to go through this much strife, with intense conversations with family and Manuel, and to work through SO much trauma and yet feel 'stuck' in the same place was hard to reconcile as a reader. I understand this approach to an extent, because some of these battles can be life long and don't necessarily lend themselves to a happy ending, but whether the end result was going to be good or bad, I just wanted to know MORE to at least give these characters an ending in my mind, if not on the page.

But in the case that maybe it WAS just me, perhaps the answers to all of my lingering questions were simply hiding...in plain sight.

3.5 stars

Only two books I’ve read with such impeccable and honest OCD rep. Not the norm for OCD but the intrusive, repetitive thoughts, and the worries. This is one of them! I appreciated the storyline and love story too, Manuel <3 The big imperfect family. Everything felt so realistic in this story except how the there was some suspended belief with the family’s actions and how Eliot reacted for some things too.

The writing is so well done and had crazy takeaway quotes on life and learnings on OCD! In your mind! It can be a hard read in some cases, especially if your mind isn’t kind to you that day. But this book 🤍

I was so excited when I first learned about a novel featuring an MC with POCD, perhaps the most taboo type of OCD there is. There are not nearly enough literary depictions of OCD that feel real and relatable, that might give readers accurate insight into the battles our brains insist on having. While the writing style wasn’t my favorite and could’ve been a bit more polished, Eliot and her story pulled me in and propelled me forward. I sobbed at the end, which is the surest sign that a book has found its way into my heart. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me access to this book, I can’t wait to share about it on IG and TikTok.

This book approaches many sensitive subjects like death of a family member, psychosomatic illness, grief, mental health, etc. The way the author brought it into this book was perfect, I loved how she wrote it. And also I have to say that I learned a lot.

this was a really hard book for me to get into, by no means do i find it to be a bad book but it’s definitely not at all what i assumed it was going to be… i was so interested in this book because of the OCD aspect, it is something i have always struggled with and this book is actually how i found that what the character goes through is in fact a type of OCD. i assumed that obviously it would be heavily revolved around this topic but at the end of the day i was expecting it to be more romance based and i dont quite personally think it should have been marketed as a romance book.

the then and now chapters were a bit chaotic but not terrible, i felt that the plot gets kind of lost in between the two and easy to get confused on what is going on. i think the OCD representation was done wonderfully, it helped me with myself quite a bit actually but other than that i didnt really feel connected to the story 🥲

This is yet another ARC that is hard for me to discuss... similar to when I came here to review the latest from the favorite, Elissa R. Sloan.

I read the chapter sampler of this that was included in Guy's Girl, and I really thought that I was going to love this because I loved Guy's Girl and this book was going to have more of what I loved which is a rich family coming back together. Now I also thought that maybe this would be a romance given the publisher, and that would work its way into the narrative a little. The further removed from this the more willing I am to see the romantic elements at play, they just don't work for me as a reader.

This is the story of Eliot, the youngest daughter of a wealthy family. She's been estranged from her family for a bit, in part because she's never really fit in. Her mother is her father's third wife and the chasm in ages between Eliot and her eldest siblings is pretty big and she didn't necessarily grow up with a lot of her siblings. The sibling that she was the closest to in age died when Eliot was a child and it was that life event that led to her family eventually realizing that Eliot had OCD and that's some of the past storyline of this book. It also chronicles her relationship with the new kid at school and friend that gets sort of adopted into her family shortly after the passing of her brother.

In the present the family is reconvening in their usual summer vacation spot for the wedding of one of the siblings.

The wedding plays a bigger role than I would have initially given this book credit for. Similar to the romance that didn't work for me. There was also just some reveals late in the book that were... not my favorite?

Ultimately this book felt very claustrophobic. Despite the big cast of characters it felt pretty limiting in how our main character connected to them. I constantly was wishing I was reading a different book, one that made use of them. This was a plot point of the story, but because we were also making so much time for these flashback chapters to really establish this romance with Eliot and the friend she made that sort of replaced her dead brother in some memories the stuff in the present sort of suffered as a result. Some of it managed to be enriched, but that's debatable. I probably wouldn't have minded if I cared about the romance, but this was really giving general fiction with a romantic afterthought.

I would definitely still be interested in another book from Noyes because the goodwill I have from their debut hasn't been completely eroded. I also think that if I had come into this book understanding what this book was actually going to do I probably would have had a better time and not been as disappointed as I was when I finally did manage to finish it.

This was a well written story about family, grief and coping with mental illness. I went in expecting more of a romance, and while there was a romance, it felt like a secondary story. This tale was a little heavier than I anticipated based on the synopsis. I also found it hard to connect with the characters, mostly because I wasn’t expecting such a weighty story.

Short synopsis: Eliot Beck returns home for her brothers wedding after being away for the past 3 years. She immediately runs into Manuel her childhood best friend that she also ran from.

My thoughts: Emma Noyes is an author that knows how to make the reader feel uncomfortable, but not in an uncomfortable way (if that makes sense). More a “I need to learn” way. My perception of OCD was obviously wrong, I had no idea people live with these thoughts.

I adored Manuel, everyone needs a best friend like him. He was nothing but supportive and loving towards Eliot. I thought the fact that Eliot having such a big family added such a unique element to the story.

This book has a lot of heavy topics, mental health, loss of a sibling, complicated childhood and family dysfunction, substance abuse and addiction to name a few. But there are also so many silver linings and happy moments throughout the pages!

Read if you love:
- Mental health rep
- Childhood friendships
- Weddings
- Large families
- Silver linings and growth

This was a really amazing debut. This had such great representation for someone who has to deal with ocd. This book felt so real and raw. I look forward to reading Emma Noyes future work!

Painfully good. It hurts and you like it and you want to see Eliot grow into the person she's meant to be with the people she's meant to be with.

I was captured right from the start, and read this in as close to one sitting as you can get with two small children, and I definitely stayed up a little past my bedtime to finish. This resulted in my husband coming to bed to find me crying, but he didn't even question it. He's seen it too many times. But I will say, this book earned my tears. I was happy to give it every single drop because the end was so full of hurt and the recognition of grief, but also a door being blown off the hinges that finally allows Eliot's family in to her struggles and lets her show them her love.

This is also Eliot, recognizing that her Person, her best friend Manuel, never let her go.

Eliot is a character with OCD, and the book is very careful to show the spectrum of experiences that entails. Emma Noyes based it on her own experience, and I think it's important to respect her experience and that she is sharing it, and that disability of any kind is experienced differently by everyone. I valued her vulnerability here.

CW for: sibling loss, grief, intrusive thoughts, mental health struggles and spiraling, mentions of past drug addiction

Raw, vulnerable, and real. This book will resonate with you if you've lived with or experienced anxiety or OCD. I appreciate the author sharing another side of OCD as it is different for everyone. Most people don't realize that OCD (or any mental illness for that matter) is not one size fits all, it's truly a spectrum. A must read in my opinion. Obviously loved the mental health rep, but I did knock off a star because the FMC was very unlikeable (sorry)!

Thanks to NetGalley, Berkley Pub, for the complimentary book. All opinions are my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.25/5)

Eliot has OCD, but different then what we are use to seeing. She leaves her tight knit family at 18, including her best friend Manual, to forge a path by herself. She returns after 3 years for her brother’s wedding, and finds so much more than she expected. And the walls she built come tumbling down.

This was a harder book to read, slow in some parts, but so eye opening. I only know about OCD from what I’ve seen on TV. This book gives a whole other side of the disorder. Heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. I loved all the quirky characters. Manual, the hunky best friend, who saw the real Eliot. Protective, the kind of best friend we all need. The large family, trying to be supportive and not quite realizing the depths of Eliot’s pain. Eliot, trying to protect herself and those around her, shutting out the people who love her. This is a character drop oven book with an important message.

I applaud the author for shedding light on this disorder and sharing her story. This book is honest and raw This was a slower read for me, but I learned so much and it will stick with me for a long time. We need to make mental health a priority and remove the stigma attached to it. Thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for this ARC. This is my honest opinion.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫(3.5)

Thank you @berkleypub for the gifted book 🩵#BerkleyPartner

When Eliot Beck returns to Canada for her brother’s wedding, she hasn’t seen her family in three years, hiding from the OCD that once consumed her. Facing a four-day celebration, she’s thrown off balance when her childhood best friend, Manuel, reappears. As old feelings resurface, Eliot must protect the walls she’s built—or risk unraveling completely.

There’s natural, witty dialogue between dysfunctional family members and a merging nostalgic friendship, all fostered on a private Ontario island. All told through the spiraling thoughts of Eliot. Exhausting, heavy, and—heartbreakingly—authentic. The plot is solely driven by her obsessive-compulsive disorder—a brain she cannot trust. And in Eliot’s case, the intrusive dictations of identity are sexual in nature, building upon each other as she grows up, reinforcing the belief that she is a horrific human being.

My biggest qualm with this book is not the focused content or the graphic narrative style; it’s that I wish I knew what is fact and what is fiction. The author has mentioned a large part of the OCD perspective is from her life. If that’s the case, I’d like a memoir with her exceptional writing instead please 🙋🏻‍♀️

Perfect for you if you like:
Unique perspectives + mental illness insight
Dysfunctional families
Ethereal romances

I don’t normally feel the need to defend my similar titles, but—hear me out! If you take the unique + unreliable + articulate POV/voice from Yellowface, mix it with the authenticity + childhood family dynamics of the memoir Between Two Trailers, and set it on a nostalgic lake in Ontario with the melancholically charged childhood friends-to-lovers coming-of-age angst from Every Summer After, you get HTHIPS.”

Similar to:
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Between Two Trailer by J. Dana Trent
Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

⛔️chapters 26 & 27 contain explicit romance scenes (open door)
⚠️explicit language, graphic depiction of OCD mental illness, death of a family member, grief, underaged drinking, family with drug abuse history