This was just okay. I feel like I'm reading too many of this kind of book, and I won't be sharing this on socials because it's probably just me.

An incredibly moving story about family secrets, missing Black girls from the 1960s left unsolved and one woman's struggle with infertility. I really, really enjoyed this cold case true crime murder mystery involving three generations of a Southern Black family. When Sydney travels to North Carolina to help clean out her recently deceased grandmother's house, she stumbles across a photo of her mother's missing sister, Carol - whose disappearance was the dark family secret no one talked about. When she hears that Carol was among one of many young Black girls who disappeared from the area at around the same time, she starts to dig deeper to see if she can't find out any more leading to an obsession, new facts and a serial killer. Excellent on audio and highly recommended for fans of true crime podcasts. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review!

There are many layers to this book, and each one is explored beautifully. I was hooked from the dedication! I loved the way the mystery unfolded, even when I thought I guessed it, I was still wrong.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC! We Don't Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry is a darkly humorous and hauntingly heartfelt debut that explores family secrets, grief, and the silence that binds generations. Berry masterfully balances wit and emotion, crafting a story that's both deeply relatable and eerily mysterious. With sharp dialogue and unforgettable characters, this novel lingers like an unresolved memory you can’t quite shake.

Great murder mystery / family drama / historical fiction! Kept m guessing nearly 'til the end. Loved the alternating viewpoints, fully developed characters, and historical context. Would be happy to read more by Kristen Berry.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This book was phenomenal, definitely my top thriller read of the year. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time trying to piece together how everyone was involved and what really happened. I will definitely be recommending this book to anyone who will listen to me rave about it!

I really enjoyed We Don’t Talk About Carol.
I definitely did not have the twist figured out. I was shocked multiple times!
It’s definitely a slower burn with it really ramping up the last 20% of the book.
There’s also struggle with IVF and having a baby. I wasn’t sure that really fit into the story of missing/murdered girls. Just seemed like an added storyline that didn’t fit the best.
Overall I definitely recommend this book!

Thank you to netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

We Don't Talk About Carol is a compelling, timely story about sisterhood, trauma, missing Black women and girls, and the many ways Black women and girls are not cared for and protected in society at large. When Sydney discovers an old photograph of a woman who looks more like her than her sister and mother, she finds out about an Aunt Carol she never knew about who'd gone missing as a teenager in the midst of a bunch of Black girls going missing in the 1960s. Sydney has a journalism background—though a mental health crisis caused her to take on lighter work—and decides to throw herself into searching for more information about those missing girls that digs up things people had hoped would stay hidden.

Sydney was bold and daring, despite the fact that I felt like she was held back a bit by her mother, sister, and even her husband, Malik. Malik and Sydney's fertility journey is woven throughout the layers of this story, as Sydney becomes close with her sister as an adult, attempts to understand her mother as a flawed human being, and learns to be independent and pursue the things she is passionate about without fear for the first time. Sydney also partners with a popular missing women and girls podcast to bring focus on the story while her sister does some ancestral digging that brings someone out of hiding.

Kristen L. Berry is a skilled writer and storyteller, and this was such an important story to tell at a time like these where Black women and girls are still going missing at an alarming rate and receive very little to no media attention, police resources, or justice for their families. What a stunning and compelling debut.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine, Bantam, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC!

5 ⭐️s

This was such a thought provoking novel, kind of slow, but the necessary length. I found myself feeling as though I was part of this family and going on this journey with them. Going through the mystery and finding out what happened to the missing women and hearing their stories really got to me. And then watching the journey Sydney goes on with fertility and with her immediate family. Like it was insane and insanely so good.

I did about 20% and while the mystery intrigued me and I think it's a story worth telling ,there was too much other stuff going on. This was more about a family drama it seemed and less about the mystery of it all. I was kind of bored and not feeling compelled to pick it back up.

Wow, one of those books that really grab you, not a true story but based on true events and not what you expect. Highly recommend it.

We Don't Talk About Carol
by Kristen L. Berry
Pub Date: Jun 03 2025

I can't believe this beautifully written mystery novel is Kristen L Berry's debut book! "WE DON’T TALK ABOUT CAROL" is part family saga and part mystery. I was pulled in from the first chapter and couldn't stop until the last. I absolutely loved the family relationships, there were many characters in the story with each one explained meticulously. The story has many twists with an ending I was not expecting! I can't wait to see what Kristen L Berry's next novel will be about!

Synopsis: A dedicated journalist unearths a generations-old family secret—and a connection to a string of missing girls that hits way too close to home—in this gripping debut novel. Delving into family, community, secrets, and motherhood, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a gripping and deeply emotional story about overcoming the rotten roots of your family tree—and what we’ll do for those we love.

I am so grateful to #RandomHousePublishingGroup #Ballantine #Bantam #WeDontTalkAboutCarol #NetGalley for providing me an E-ARC of this fantastic debut novel!

I read this and The Ghostwriter at the same time and they had strangely similar themes. This took me a while to get through and felt a little slow in parts. I liked the emphasis on who gets the press coverage and who doesn't. Not sure how I felt about the ending.

This was a very enthralling mystery that kept me engaged and trying to figure out the ending. In this debut novel we find Sydney sort of in a crossroads in her life. She is helping clean out her late grandmother's house after her death when she stumbles upon a picture that changes the course of her life. Not only is she in the depths of an IVF cycle, unsure if she should continue because she’s not sure she is ready to be a mom, she becomes consumed with her newly discovered Aunt Carol that was in the picture who went missing when she was a teenager along with five other young black girls in Raleigh, North Carolina. The reader is taken on a ride with Sydney to research the mystery of the missing girls, and the stress it puts on her due to her past and current mental state. I thought it was incredibly interesting and would be a great book club pick as it delves into the important topic of how often black women and girls go missing and have less of a likelihood of being found. I found the story engaging and I really appreciated how it was resolved at the end. I did not see some of the twists coming, and I left this book appreciating the story and knowing I will look forward to more from this author in the future.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Ballentine/Bantam for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

Kristen L. Berry’s debut mystery-thriller kept me turning pages long into the night. During a childhood visit to her grandmother in Raleigh, North Carolina, young Sydney discovers a hidden photo that looks much like her. Asking her grandmother about the black girl in the photo, Sydney is told only that “We don’t talk about Carol.” Decades later, with Sydney and younger sister Sasha’s father long dead, both sisters accompany their mother, the grandmother’s daughter-in-law, on a trip from L.A. to Raleigh to clean out the recently deceased grandmother’s house. Sorting through items in the guest room, Sydney again comes across the photo of the pre-teen girl she realizes must have been her father’s never-mentioned sister.

With grandmother and now mother discouraging any talk or inquiry, Sydney, a former crime reporter, determines to uncover the truth about her mysterious Aunt Carol. This personal inquiry leads to Sydney’s discovery of a series of missing Raleigh teens between 1963 and 1965, all black girls whose 60-year-old disappearance held little interest for the local police, each disappearance long ago a cold case.

Add all this to Sydney’s personal story going through fertility/IVF treatment to please her husband Malik, and Kristen Berry gives readers a complex story of search for what happened to missing family while also dealing with emotional trauma. As Sydney dredges up people from the past who might help her learn about Aunt Carol and Raleigh’s other missing black girls and her making a series of trips largely against her husband’s better judgment, she attempts to cope with psychological and domestic issues of her own. We Don’t Talk About Carol introduces a series of likeable and villainous characters, draws on social media, offers surprise after surprise, and raises the important societal issue of missing minority girls who continue to raise little police and public interest even in the 21st century.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine/Random House for an advance reader egalley of this highly recommended and socially significant new mystery/thriller from Kristen L. Berry. I will be watching for this author’s next book.

What started as a pretty low key missing person cold case developed into a complicated family drama spanning several generations, bringing awareness to the underrepresentation of missing black women and girls in the media. A great debut! Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book. I am not familiar with this author but had been drawn in by the cover art and synopsis. I thought this book was well written and it definitely kept me interested.

I enjoyed reading this book. I enjoyed following along with Sydney and discovering the truth about the six missing girls. I do think that her IVF journey did overshadow parts certain parts of the book. But, nevertheless, a good read and I would read another book by this author. Overall, 4 stars out of 5.

Special thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this arc!

Haunting, heartfelt, and razor-sharp, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a powerhouse debut that blends gripping suspense with a deeply emotional exploration of family, identity, and generational silence. Kristen L. Berry crafts a chilling mystery around the decades-old disappearance of a young Black girl in 1960s North Carolina, and the ripple effects that echo into journalist Sydney Singleton’s unraveling present. As Sydney digs into the past, what she uncovers is more than just a buried truth—it’s a reckoning with inherited trauma, motherhood, and the danger of stories left untold. Berry’s writing is fierce and intimate, with a narrative that lingers like a bruise. A must-read for fans of layered thrillers with a soul.

After the death of her Grandmother, Sydney finds a an old photo of a young girl hidden in a drawer of a dresser at her Grandmother's house. The young girl looks strikingly like Sydney but given her father was an only child, who is the mystery girl? Upon digging, Sydney finds out the girl is her long lost Aunt Carol who disappeared 60 years ago as a teenager. In addition to Carol, five other black teen girls went missing from the area at the same time. What happened to these girls and why does no one talk about it??

I found this story to be just the multi-generational, multi-layer family drama mystery type book I needed. I enjoyed how the story unfolded as Sydney uncovered it, allowing the reader small glimpses of Carol's backstory only through journal entries sprinkled in here and there. It felt like we were on the hunt together. I also very much liked the storylines involving Sydney's own struggles including her fertility journey and her complicated relationship with both her parents and sister. It felt like the connections to the generational trauma were subtle but powerful; seeing how Carol's disappearance impacted Larry (her brother and Syndney's father) like a dropped stone rippling out in a calm lake. The focus was certainly on Sydney's pursuit of finding the truth about her aunt, but the way the author wove in the other minor details throughout the book painted the larger picture of these characters to better understand their truths. I thought this was a very well crafted book that had a great twist and a nicely tied up ending. It did feel somewhat rushed at the end, but it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the story and the writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read in exchange for my honest review!