This novel is told from the perspective of an 80 year old woman with dementia.  She roams her care facility and is more observant than many expect.  Her children visit her often and she tries to maintain humor and a relationship with them while fighting her mind to remember her past.

I thought this was very well done but could have maybe been a novella, it seemed a bit too long for what it was.  I thought the mixing up of words was clever and I enjoyed seeing the world from this perspective.  There were two elements of mystery within the story which kept it interesting - one was Rose trying to figure out her past and her relationships (with her children, grandchildren and spouses) and the second was within the care facility.  Liked the concept, liked the humor, maybe needed to be shorter.

3.5 stars

Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for the ARC to review

HIghly imaginative and hilariously funny! I loved this book so much and laughed out loud a couple of times. I worked in a nursing home as my first job and found this extremely well done and believable. I would read this again and would buy it for friends and family!

Simply Beautiful. This is a wonderful story of a woman in her eighty with dementia and how she processes through her thoughts day to day. This book was very well written and i saw many similarities in Rose and family members I've lost due to the complications of dementia. While some parts pulled at my heartstrings, others gave me a warm remembrance of my father trying so hard to communicate when the world was slowly slipping away.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for the advanced E-book in exchange for my honest review.

After reading the mixed reviews, I’m glad I gave All the Words We Know a full chance. It’s not a book that will resonate with everyone, and that’s precisely what makes it worth reading. Though it’s technically labeled detective fiction, that feels like a misdirection. The mystery here isn’t about solving a crime, it’s about unraveling a life. Women’s fiction or literary fiction centered on aging would be a far more fitting genre tag.

The story is told through Rose, a narrator whose unreliability is both intentional and heartbreaking. She’s in the early to middle stages of dementia, and we know that from the start. But what we don’t know, and what Bruce Nash keeps us questioning, is how much Rose truly remembers, how much she’s been told to forget, and whether she’s confusing the two. Or maybe she’s not confused at all. Maybe she’s playing everyone. That ambiguity is what drives the novel, and it keeps you turning pages with a mix of dread and hope.

The unfolding leans heavily on homophones, which makes the written word essential. I wouldn’t recommend the audiobook version since so much of the nuance would be lost without seeing the language on the page. Nash uses repetition not as a flaw but as a feature. It mirrors the looping patterns of Rose’s mind, and while it can be disorienting, it’s also deeply immersive. You’re not just reading about dementia, you’re experiencing it from the inside.

Rose herself is a marvel. At times, she says things that sound racist, and it’s uncomfortable. But it’s also complicated. Is this her true nature surfacing without the usual filters? Or is it a symptom of her condition, a breakdown in the brain-to-mouth barrier? Either way, you learn to love her. She’s sharp in ways that sneak up on you. She might fumble for everyday words, but then she’ll drop the Latin name of a bird or a plant with effortless precision. You start to suspect she was once a teacher, a botanist, maybe an ornithologist. She’s not just a woman losing her memory; she’s a woman whose mind still holds treasures, even if she can’t always access them.

The setting, a care home, adds another layer of tension. Familiarity is a commodity, and what Rose can afford shapes what she’s allowed to remember. Her son’s evasiveness, her children’s skepticism, and the institutional haze all raise the question: who gets to decide what’s real? And who benefits from that decision?

This book is funny in the way that only truth can be. It’s heartbreaking in the way that only love can be. It’s terrifying in the way that only memory loss can be. And it’s weepy in the way that only a garden, real or imagined, can make you feel. By the end, I couldn’t swear to Rose’s name, even she says it’s unimportant, but good enough. And if the garden she sits in is only in her mind, then for every day she has left, I say let her have it. Let her have all the words she knows.

This sounded like a fun book, but I found it confusing and repetitive...much like caring for my Alzheimer's-plagued grandmother. I was hoping for more of a mystery and less of poor Rose's struggles. The language was a bit much, too. I will not be suggesting this book to my readers. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This novel by Bruce Nash is relatively short, at 240 pages, and yet he successfully creates Rose’s world. She is an older woman (in her 80s) who resides in assisted living. Her days are pretty routine and include meals, medications, visits from her family, time spent with another resident who is a friend, and time spent observing the life of the home. Rose also must deal with dementia.

Nash does what feels like an accurate job of portraying Rose’s inner life. He shows how unnerving dementia can be. Readers watch as Rose often says a word that is not the one that she wants although, often, she is able to make a correction. She also, for example, has a unique way of playing scrabble.

One day, her friend and neighbor is found dead. Will Rose be able to figure out what happened to her and why? Readers will watch as Rose tries to figure things out.

Readers who want to get a sense of the world of someone like Rose may want to give this title a look.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this title. All opinions are my own.

The idea of the book appealed to me: the narrator, an elderly woman in a care facility, weaves in and out of dementia as she interacts with the people and works around her. In reality though, the narrative frustrated me, making me work too hard to interpret the meaning behind Rose’s words and thoughts. For me, it was too wordy and not a fun reading experience.

All the Words We Know is brilliant! How the author stayed in the zone to get it written is part of that brilliance. At the very beginning of this listen/read I was moments from jumping off, and saving my sanity when instead I went over the cliff and down that long free flowing worder-fall. All those words, freely falling out of Rose's head, thoughts in a chaos that are anything but. . .and may have more pattern and order deep down than someone else's dead on sober blueprint.

And, Dear Reader, it goes like that from page first to page last. I loved it. So clever. Note: you will think hard after reading this book of anyone you've known lately to have spoken in Rose's wild way and replay your conversations with them. . .there may have been more between the lines than you, at the time, realized. With Roses' Rosetta stone you, too, may have some things to unwind. Just sayin'.

The read provides an opportunity to step into a different headspace - how that voice in one's head that never stops narrating our existence must change over our years on the planet. Here's one interpretation of how that may look as we get older. Instead of 'othering' Rose into a victim and person to feel sorry for, the author has allowed her to keep a semblance of her pride, confidence and joie de vivre from past experiences.

All the stars for Rose, her friend with the blue eyes staring at the sky, and Mr. Nash for this excellent adventure!

*A sincere thank you to Bruce Nash, Atria Books, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.*

This is sort of a murder mystery written from the point of view of an elderly woman with dementia. The concept is interesting and the play on words was often humorous. But eventually it just felt so repetitive and tedious. Each chapter started to feel like one step forward, two steps back.

Narrated from Rose's perspective, a woman living with dementia in a care facility, this novel reflects her fractured memory, resulting in a story that feels scattered, disorienting, and sometimes hard to follow. While this narrative style is deliberate and mirrors Rose’s condition, it often leaves the reader unsure about what is real, imagined, or forgotten, making the reading experience feel tedious and unclear. Despite the disjointed storytelling, Rose remains an endearing and memorable character. Overall it was an enjoyable read. Thanks to NetGalley for the ebook to preview.

This was such a fun read and yet gives an insight into what dementia might be like or look like to others. Rose may be suffering from dementia but her mind is still sharp even though she can be very forgetful. Rose lives in a nursing home and a friend dies from falling out a window. Rose decides she will investigate. I did love Rose.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you @atriabooks and @atriathriller for the gifted book copy

TITLE:All the Words We Know
AUTHOR: Bruce Nash
PUB DATE: 07.01.2025

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

What a stunning and deeply affecting read.

All the Words We Know took me completely by surprise—it’s sharp, funny, heartbreaking, and utterly original.

The story follows Rose, an elderly woman with dementia who’s living in a care home, drifting between lucidity and confusion. But when a friend dies under mysterious circumstances, Rose—alternately forgetful and fiercely perceptive—sets out to solve the mystery. What follows is less a traditional whodunit and more a beautiful meditation on memory, aging, and language itself. 🧠🌸

Bruce Nash has crafted something rare: a book that makes you laugh out loud and tear up in the space of a few sentences. The way Rose’s mind works—misfiring words, getting names wrong, mixing metaphors—becomes poetic in its own way. Her confusion doesn’t distance us; it brings us closer. ❤️

Fans of Richard Osman or The One-Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window will love the humor and charm, but Nash adds something deeper and more literary: a tenderness that lingers long after the last page.

📖✨ A must-read if you’re drawn to stories about found meaning, fractured memory, and the resilience of the human spirit—even when the words slip away.

While I applaud the author for their original approach to telling Rose's story, I just found the book way to slow and repetitive. It was so hard to remain interested.

Did not finish. I was hesitant to read this since the main character had dementia but the premise was interesting. Unfortunately the writing was not for me.

Rose is a dementia patient in a care facility, and she is losing her words, or at least mixing up her words. Her children faithfully visit but her relationship with them is not very fulfilling. Her two granddaughters are busy on the phones when they visit. But something has happened. Rose's friend is dead, and Rose is determined to solve what funny business is going on in her facility.

The story is told in Rose's voice, and I enjoyed her transposed words which somehow still made sense. The "scare manager" who runs the facility is aptly named, and she is suspicious of a nurse carrying a pillow to possibly smother patients. It takes a bit of patience to follow Rose's ramblings, just as it does in real life with a dementia. My biggest quibble with the book was when I finished it, there were still loose ends for me that were not explained, as we had seen it through Rose's eyes. But I enjoyed this very different and fresh approach and I felt I learned something reading it.

Thank you to Bruce Nash, NetGalley, and publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Eighty-year-old Rose is suffering from dementia. She lives in senior care facility, and uses a walker to get around, making her more mobile than some of the other residents, including a friend of hers with whom she regularly plays scrabble (though Rose knows her friend cheats). Rose is regularly visited by her grown up children, her son and daughter. Her son manages her finances, while her long-suffering daughter cleans her mother's bathroom for her.

The novel opens with the death of a resident, though Rose doesn't process this as such. Instead, she sees her friend lying in her nightgown on the ground outside in the parking lot, and though Rose notices tension in the care manager and head nurse (or "scare manager" and "angry nurse" as she calls them) afterwards, as she wanders the hallways. She notices one of the custodial staff, whom she dubs the Nice Boy Who Maps the Floors, and she sees the tension the in the young person's demeanor and disrespect of the care staff for this person.

Author Bruce Nash spends much of the novel giving us insight into Rose's dementia through her heavy use of wordplay (e.g., "scare manager", "parldalote" for paradox, etc.). In fact, much of the novel is given over to this, while the plot progression frequently stalls, and the few clues as to what is actually happening in the facility, and with Rose's family, are very few and far between, considering the main character's situation.

We do get a bit of a sense of the vulnerability of the residents, but it is hard to suss out where the mystery part of the story is going. And when a few revelations happen, I was a little past caring, even though I enjoy stories with unreliable narrators.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Atria Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I was surprised that the main character in this story has dementia. It was a great idea to follow Rose who has dementia, but it became a little confusing at times. Still playful and unique story telling. Certain parts of the book I couldn’t stay with, but wanted to continue the story. Thank you Bruce Nash, NetGalley and Atria Books for this digital copy.

All the Words We Know begins with charm and promise. Rose, an elderly woman living in a care home, has a quirky, tender way of viewing the world that drew me in early on. Her perspective felt original, with moments of genuine warmth and wit.

But the novelty wore off. As the book continued, the writing style, initially clever, began to wear thin. What first felt inventive gradually became repetitive, and the lack of narrative momentum made it harder to stay invested.

The author leans heavily on linguistic play to reflect Rose’s cognitive decline, which is effective in immersing the reader in her mindset. However, this focus seemed to take precedence over actual story development. The wordplay, though smart, often overshadowed substance.

At times, the looping structure and fragmented thoughts served the theme well, but it also made the experience disorienting in a way that wasn’t always intentional. I found myself wondering if I had accidentally re-read entire sections.

There are touching insights scattered throughout, particularly in how aging and institutional life are portrayed. But by the end, it didn’t feel like the novel had delivered either a strong plot or a deeply satisfying character arc. It left me a bit adrift.

One of my favorite reads last year (The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife) was a similar setting, so I maybe had unfairly high expectations going into this.

All The Words We Know, Bruce Nash

Going into this book, all I knew was that it was a mystery and some of the descriptions alluded to issues with memory and dementia. It intrigued me because I love a mystery, and I lost a close family member to dementia related issues. Beyond this, I really didn’t know what to expect, and I certainly didn’t expect the book to have the impact that it did.

It’s a short read – at least to me – and I could have kind of flown through it; however, the style of the writing forced me to slow myself down and pay attention. To me, this became a book about words. Words we know, words we remember, words we don’t remember. The way that the words in this book put the reader into the position of not being able to remember a word for something was remarkable to me. We’ve all had those moments where a word escapes us, but this takes it to a whole new level. It makes it sort of a difficult read, but not in a bad way. It puts you into the mind of someone struggling with memory and shows the difficulty and frustration faced in just having a standard, everyday conversation. The book also addresses the difficulties and intricacies of families working through grief and loss and chronic illness while weaving a murder mystery into the story all at the same time. Our main character is both disabled and dealing with a failing memory, and extremely observant and intelligent at the same time. She’s complicated and nuanced and so very human, and I was able to relate to her on many levels.

I wasn’t anticipating loving this book as much as I did. I read this as an e-book, but with the right voice actor, an audiobook would be amazing. This is a solid 4 stars for me.

This book intrigued me from the synopsis and I fear it got confused me to no end.

I understand what the author was trying to depict which is an older woman with dementia. That caused this book to feel so repetitive and I literally had to pick out the plot every single time. It was like a puzzle (which did keep me reading) but it got to a point where I absolutely felt nothing for the main character, Rose. I applaud the author for bringing awareness to elder care and the constant abuse of power when it comes to them but I felt it could have been written in a way that helped all of us follow along.

Overall, an intriguing read. Thank you NetGalley, Atria and Bruce Nash for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.