The opening pages of this tale seem impossibly sad, but don’t be put off (as I almost was). This is the beautifully recounted story of survival after the unthinkable happens. It is told looking backwards and forwards from the The Day When It Happened.
The rise of love and fall as depression takes over, and the unforgiving anger of the partner who must endure and support. While tragic, it is also full of hope, and illustrates how we humans are resilient survivors beyond all possible expectation.
It is written in beautiful literary style with Irish inflections and all the characters were thoroughly believable. I truly enjoyed this captivating read.

This is a story of love loss and how one can survive - and even thrive- after an unspeakable tragedy and loss. I thought the writing was beautiful and very evocative. The first two pages were so shocking that they took ,my breath away!! How Rachel was able to come back from that and even to function just amazed me.
I felt the timelines worked brilliantly well too - having THE DAY as a focal point and then tracing both backwards and forwards in time from that fateful event. Living with someone with mental health issues must be truly hard especially when combined with busy and stressful work and two very young children so even though I felt she herself wondered if she could have done more to spot the signs I felt that Rachel should not blame herself and also that whilst she had some understandable panics that she was falling into depression herself at times the ultimate takeaway was that whilst naturally her son and daughter would always be with her and form an important thread to the rest of her days she should be able to start to live a life for herself again and the narration in the book covers that excellently - from the bursts of joy to the guilt that follows them for allowing herself that joy this is a book that will stay with me for some time to come.

Exceptional debut but not an easy read.

We meet Rachel as she's sitting in the passenger seat of the family car. Tom, her husband, is driving. Their two young children in the back. They had been at Tom's parents that afternoon. The drive home is just routine. Or it is until her husband apologises and runs the car off the road.

From there, the timeline splits.

We see how Rachel and Tom meet, the proposal, wedding, kids. A sneak peek into family life and the weeks leading up to 'the incident '.

In the second timeline, we witness the horror of the aftermath.

This is a successful dual timeline, in my opinion, I was equally invested in both, and it made sense to format the story this way.

This wasn't an easy read, yet I could have read it in one sitting. The plot is as gripping as it is emotional. The grief and shock represented is very real, raw, and ugly to look at. It's not pretty here.

Nothing is cut and dried in these pages. Life is nuanced and complicated, and we are left with questions in the way we are when all stories end earlier than they should.

I cried a lot reading this. There's sadness everywhere in all kinds of forms, but there is hope too, sneaking in the cracks.

It's wild to call this novel beautiful, but the way it's structured, the carefully handling of tough subjects, and the love that swirls in the darkness, it's the only word that seems appropriate.

Five stars.

Some books don’t just tell a story; they carve out a space inside you, fill it with sorrow and love in equal measure, and leave you a little more broken, a little more aware. Show Me Where It Hurts by Claire Gleeson is one of those books. It’s not just about tragedy—it’s about the fragile, gossamer-thin line between love and devastation, and how, when that line finally snaps, it feels impossible to trace back the moments that led to the breaking point.

I grew up with a severely mentally ill father, and reading this book was like peering into an alternate version of my own life, one where the fault lines cracked just a little differently. It’s a book that makes you wonder, how close have I come to that precipice? How many times have I nodded along, like Rachel, acknowledging others while feeling entirely absent from my own life? “She felt she spent her life nodding at people now. She had become something almost entirely passive.” And how many times have I questioned whether love can outlast the wreckage, whether there’s anything left to hold onto once the person you love has become someone else entirely?

Gleeson structures the novel with a dual timeline, letting us see Rachel’s life both before and after her husband, Tom, makes an unthinkable decision. The ‘before’ is filled with aching tenderness, with a love so intoxicating it makes Rachel feel invincible. “They kiss in the long grass for what feels like hours, and when he pulls back finally his face is flushed and the look in his eyes makes her feel more powerful than she has ever felt before.” But even in these early pages, there’s an undercurrent of something inevitable, a quiet sense that the darkness is gathering at the edges.

And then there’s the ‘after’—a world where grief is not just an emotion but a physical weight, pressing down on Rachel, pinning her to the bed in the mornings. “Some mornings she woke with an inertia that was a blanket of dead air pinning her to the bed, a lumpen weight upon her chest.” It is in these moments that Gleeson’s writing is at its most devastating, stripping Rachel’s pain down to its rawest form. And yet, despite everything, Rachel’s feelings for Tom are not easy to categorize. “She cannot say any more that she loves him; nobody could ask that of her. But she finds that she does not hate him either. There is so little of him left to hate.”

What makes this novel so extraordinary is its refusal to fall into easy answers. It does not offer closure, because real life doesn’t. It does not paint Tom as a monster or Rachel as a saint. Instead, it explores the spaces in between—the moments of love that still exist in the ruins, the guilt that comes from feeling something other than misery, the quiet realization that the world will continue turning no matter how much you want it to stop. “Now she finds there is something almost comforting in the knowledge that the world was here, doing much the same things as always, long before she arrived on it, and will continue to turn on its axis aeons after she has gone.”

I have read many books about mental illness, love, and loss, but few have moved me the way this one has. It is astonishing, thought-provoking, and unbearably human. Claire Gleeson has written something deeply special. A story of love, in all its devastating, complicated, unshakeable forms. And it is one I will never forget.

Huge thanks to NetGalley & Hodder & Stoughton | Sceptre for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

The opening chapter of this book made me gasp.
The story of Rachel,Tom and their two small children unfolds.
Set in dual time lines this beautifully written book chronicles love,heartbreak and the strength of the human spirit in the worst of times.
Highly recommended

A haunting read. From what a perfect life all was destroyed when Rachael's husband suffers from mental illness and attempts to kill them all. The aftermath of his actions is around where this story is based.
How one woman survives the collapse of her marriage and the loss of her children. It makes you ask yourself what you would do in the same circumstances?

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book.

This was a hauntingly tragic read, about how life goes on after unbearable loss. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, but I really enjoyed the author’s style of writing. It’s written really sensitively and carefully around the difficult topics that the book covers. It was a great read.

ARC - Thank you Netgalley & Hodder + Stoughton

This is Claire Gleeson’s debut into a full length novel from short stories, and whilst this isn’t a huge book - I feel that a lot of authors could learn something from her writing as there are no words wasted across the 252 pages which is both deep in plot and visual descriptions.

The blurb of this book is a very vague and I wasn’t too sure what I was heading into when I started - I would say this is a book you may need to check your trigger warnings for as it is a heavy read.

Rachel and Tom are married with two children, and after the first chapter Rachel is left in the aftermath of her husband having done something terrible. The book alternates between the lead up to the event and after sees Rachel entrenched in the repercussions of her husbands decision - over days, weeks and years.

The story was so succinctly told in such a beautiful way. Towards the end of the book the “after” time jumps get larger - and it felt like we were missing chapters of Rachel’s story in a way if you only watched the last episode of a series each time - you’re caught up on the main events but skipped some of the journey.

I personally found it pretty fast paced and engrossing for covering such heavy topics, and I think I could have read it in one sitting had I have had the luxury.

What happens when your husband with an untethered mental illness can’t handle the pressure of bringing up a young family decides to take things into his own hands? Devastation, that’s what!
Oh, my, what a stunning story this is. We begin with the catastrophic car crash and then follow Rachel as she struggles to put her life back together. No longer a mother, or a wife, what is she to do? How will she carry on? Her husband, Tom’s failed attempt of murder is not as clear-cut as it sounds. Through flashbacks told from Rachel’s point of view, we begin to understand how his unravelling began, and how difficult the whole thing started.
I really enjoyed this book, for its quiet exploration on life, how to navigate loved ones through turmoil, and getting over catastrophes in life. Out on April 10th, it’s one not to be missed.

The first half of this novel had me gripped and I could barely hold back from tearing through its pages. The second half seemed to lose its pacing, but overall a beautiful read. I felt that Gleeson really captured the complexities of grief and depression.

Loved this touching novel, full of grief and some joy and a life that should have been but isn't. I liked Rachel a lot and I liked the vignettes of life, but there were some bits where I wish I had known more - like when she is interview by the journalist! But I did like this a lot. Thank you

Here’s the thing: I rarely give a book less than five stars. Because even if a book isn’t my cup of tea, writing a book is incredibly hard and it takes imagination and effort and craft.
Instead, I write a short review that explains what I liked about a book or, if it didn’t chime with me, what I craved more of. But I try not to dole out gold stars in the manner of a parsimonious teacher who passes judgement from on high.
Which is all well and good until I read a book that absolutely deserves all the stars and I feel like I've already peaked, star-wise!
The premise of Show Me Where It Hurts is ambitious – the sort of pitch a lesser writer might dream up but then think, ‘Hmm, yes, but how would I start getting inside the head of that woman?’ or ‘How could I write it authentically?’
Claire Gleeson charts the story of Rachel, a woman confronted with a dreadful, unthinkable situation and she does so with authenticity and empathy. There’s no sensationalism or mawkishness here, just great writing that puts you inside someone else’s head.
The timeline is divided between ‘before’ and ‘after’ the event that changes Rachel’s life and it feels as if the two timelines come together and converge towards the end.
It’s an ode to human pain, mental illness and compassion, but there are no easy platitudes or Insta-worthy quotes to be underlined or highlighted. Because people, and mental illness, are complicated and sometimes unbearably painful. But life has to go on and it is also other people who help make this feat possible. This is a book to treasure' and I hope it is hugely successful.

Wow wow wow still thinking about this book. I mean what a concept right? I’m still thinking about this book. It really shows the extreme emotions you can have between love and concern for someone and absolute hatred. It’s thought provoking mind racing and a book that will stay with you forever

Beautiful and a slow burner. The premise of this book is what initially intrigued me, but the writing is what kept me reading. I loved the dual timeline used to tell this story, it was the perfect delivery method to get across the trauma and guilt of the incident. Rachel was a great character, I was rooting for her happiness and found myself tearing up a few times at her inner monologue. This book is one of those that simmers in the background, I found myself returning to read it whenever I wanted a story that was steady with an underlying sense of hope.

Whilst I mostly enjoyed this, I did struggle with the pacing and lost interest around 60% of the way through. Similarly to others, I didn't like the 3 person narrative and felt like it took away from the story and made it feel quite frantic and hard to follow at times.

The idea behind "Show Me Where It Hurts" is generally great. The story itself has a strong start but from there it just went downhill for me. I think the mix of 3 timelines, including present days, retrospections and futurospections made the narrative a bit incoherent and way less interesting than I was hoping for.

I inhaled this in a day. A magnificent debut, preorder is a must. I'm sure this will be all I recommend for a while!

Full review to come on the blog.

Show Me Where It Hurts is a novel of devastation and survival after a life-changing loss. Gleeson's understated prose perfectly suits the honest, often confessional tone of the narrative. There are moments of real emotion, but I was expecting harder-hitting heartbreak. I think part of the problem is the pacing - while I enjoyed the way the sections of 'before' and 'after' are intertwined, some scenes felt far more vividly imagined than others, and the second half of the book seems to fall away from itself a little.

Affecting without affectation, Show Me Where It Hurts is an emotive debut.

Wow, this was a stunning read.
It begins with a life changing incident that changes the life of Rachel, wife to Tom and mother to two children, forever.
this novel starts with that event, and then as we move on through the novel covers, alternately, the 10 or so years before and after, building up a complete picture.
It would be a spoiler to say much more, but this is a story about the very worst event of your life, and how life can move on.
It is stunningly written. The most powerful sections are almost what isn't said, what isn't needed to be said, as our imagination does that for us - but only because the author has set this up so brilliantly.
Don't be put off by the horrific event at the heart of this story - it is told with nuance, subtly and also with hope.
Cannot recommend this highly enough.

Rachel is a nurse, who is in a loving marriage and has two children.
This is the story of before, before the before and the many afters.
The writing is gripping and the first couple of chapters do a great job of building suspense and emotion.
I must say, I found the later parts not as fresh, not as necessary and a bit tedious.
Part of the reason may be my personal reading history of a) similarly themed books, b) similarly structured narratives.
Based on the blurb and the strong opening, I had expected more. Though, I highly recommend this for its realistic exploration of depression, grief and forgiveness.