Have you ever seen male friends argue? They can have an all-out brawl one minute and go to grab a beer together the next. Women, on the other hand, have a reputation for being vindictive and holding grudges. Dating all the way back to 1697, English playwright William Congreve wrote in The Mourning Bride, “Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.” While this relates specifically to a woman scorned in love, I’m pretty sure it’s applicable to a lot of different scenarios. (Note to men: I can say this because I’m a woman. If you try to repeat it, I will deny it and then hold it against you for a very long time. 🤣)

Researchers involved in a 2016 study by Harvard University believe that holding grudges is driven, in part, by evolution. Men had to hunt collectively to provide, so they had to resolve conflict quickly. They didn’t have time to hold grudges against one another because they had to work together to survive. Women were responsible for taking care of the family unit, so if someone wronged them, they held a grudge longer, also in an effort to survive. Kind of like the idea of the mama bear protecting her cubs. Basically, it appears we’re wired this way.

My husband and many members of his very large family are classic males in this respect. I have heard my husband cuss someone out on the phone, hang up, and then start watching a movie. Several hours later or the next day, he will be talking to the same person as if nothing happened. And it’s not like they talk it out. They just move on.

I, on the other hand, will get into an argument with someone and seethe for hours and sometimes days on end. My husband will get angry about something and then turn around and ask for a hug. Our daughter or I will get angry, and we’re temperamental for the rest of the day, especially when my husband asks for a hug lol. For him, it’s over and done with. For us, we want (need?) time to be mad. None of it means that we don’t love each other. We just handle the anger differently.

Books and movies are full of stories about vindictive or vengeful or obsessive women looking for payback: Carrie, Double Jeopardy, Single White Female, Fatal Attraction. The list goes on. In some of them, the woman wins, and we all root for her when she’s been wronged and against her when she’s just being vindictive. Regardless of the circumstances, it’s certainly fun to watch.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐
3 Stars for Everyone Knows How Much I Love You by Kyle McCarthy

288 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: June 23, 2020
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Ballantine Books.

Publisher’s Description

At age thirty, Rose is fierce and smart, both self-aware and singularly blind to her power over others. After moving to New York, she is unexpectedly swallowed up by her past when she reunites with Lacie, the former best friend she betrayed in high school. Captivated once again by her old friend’s strange charisma, Rose convinces Lacie to let her move in, and the two fall into an intense, uneasy friendship.

While tutoring the offspring of Manhattan’s wealthy elite, Rose works on a novel she keeps secret—because it stars Lacie and details the betrayal that almost turned deadly. But the difference between fiction and fact, past and present, begins to blur, and Rose soon finds herself increasingly drawn to Lacie’s boyfriend, exerting a sexual power she barely understands she possesses, and playing a risky game that threatens to repeat the worst moments of her and Lacie’s lives.

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Main Characters:

When I requested Kyle McCarthy’s Everyone Knows How Much I Love You, I was expecting a suspenseful obsession-driven or suspenseful story line. If I had seen one of the reviews comparing it to The Talented Mr. Ripley, I probably wouldn’t have requested it because I didn’t enjoy Ripley at all. It built up this whole story and then it really just didn’t go anywhere in my opinion. And I feel the same way about this story of Rose and Lacie.

I felt like something was off about Lacie from the first time we meet her, and since the story is told from only Rose’s perspective, we don’t know if what we’re reading is actually how Lacie feels or just Rose’s perception about how Lacie feels. She’s hesitant, she’s excited, she’s stand-offish, she’s welcoming. As the story progresses, Lacie says things that make you think she is setting Rose up for something, and honestly Rose is so unlikeable that you want her to be set up. You want Lacie to get revenge.

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

I kept waiting for the revenge element. I kept waiting for something to happen to resolve the past one way or the other. I kept waiting for Leo to come back into the picture. I kept waiting…and waiting…and waiting. I’m still waiting.

At the end of the day, Rose seems to idolize Lacie. She wants what Lacie has. I don’t think she wants to BE Lacie, but she wants to be LIKE Lacie. She wants to be charismatic, the ultimate hostess, the girl that all the boys want. And she clearly wants to be loved by the men who love Lacie.

I also thought the ending was so anticlimactic. Rose needs to get her comeuppance, but she just kind of walks out of the story. She writes a “novel” about how she cheated with her best friend’s boyfriend in high school and tried to kill him. She cheats with her best friend’s current boyfriend and may have a hand in his death. Her novel is published, and the movie rights are sold, and several years later, she returns to New York for a gallery opening featuring some of Ian’s artwork, and Lacie gives her a key to a locker that has some of Ian’s old (and crappy) art that she says she thinks Rose should have. Rose believes that Lacie wants her to take it, thinking that she can’t let Ian’s memory go. I thought for sure that she was going to get locked in the room or something, that this would be Lacie’s revenge. But Rose just drops the keys down a drain and walks away.

There is no resolution in this story! I really thought this was building up to be an excellent read, but it felt like such a letdown.

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