Everything He Never Told Me is a deeply moving and heartbreaking novel about love, loss, and the devastating impact mental illness can have on a marriage.

What begins as a story filled with hope gradually unfolds into an emotional journey as Ivy watches the man she loves become someone she no longer recognizes. The author approaches these difficult themes with compassion, reminding readers that mental illness affects not only the individual but also the loved ones who walk through it with them.

What made this story especially powerful for me was how relatable it felt. In today’s world, so many people quietly struggle behind closed doors, yet seeking help is often delayed because of fear, stigma, or simply not recognizing the signs. This book captures those silent battles and the emotional weight of choosing which battles to fight, both within yourself and within the people you love. It serves as a reminder that asking for help is not a weakness and that support can make all the difference.

Rather than relying on shocking twists, the novel draws its strength from its characters and the raw emotions they experience. It explores love, commitment, grief, and the heartbreaking reality that sometimes love alone cannot overcome every obstacle.

This is not an easy read, but it is a meaningful and unforgettable one. Readers who enjoy emotionally driven women’s fiction, domestic drama, and character-focused stories will find themselves reflecting on this story long after the final page.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

“I’ve read that the first thing you lose, when things start to go wrong in your head, is your sense of ordinary time”

This book was … as I’m writing this, I’m trying to wrap my head around it. The pain, the grief, the excitement, the denial, the hope and then the inevitability of what was about to happen that I didn’t want to see coming. I wish I could express with words what my heart is going through right now. I so wish I could say this is a story that has no connection with reality. But I would be lying to you. I would be the worst kind of liar. This story was heartbreaking. Gut wrenching. Devastating. It broke all the hope you had at the begging. It will make you believe there is a way forward only to shut it up before you know it. And then you will believe it again. And then … you’ll have to read it to understand what I mean. Check your trigger warnings before reading this book. After you do, think about the choices you make everyday to live, to love and to protect those you cherish. Think about the right and wrong choices you make everyday. And think about how hard some of them are. Because I think this is exactly what Kai was trying to do.

“This grief didn’t come with a timeline anybody could give me. It just came with a pill bottle. And a choice to make about it, every single night, for the rest of however long I was going to keep choosing right”

Everything He Never Told Me completely caught me off guard in the best possible way. While it's been marketed as a psychological thriller, I found it to be much more of an emotional psychological drama—and honestly, I think that's where it shines.

This was my first book by Clara van Houten, and I was so impressed. The short, alternating chapters between Ivy and Kai kept the story moving effortlessly, and I found myself flying through the pages. The dual perspectives added so much depth, allowing you to understand both characters as their relationship slowly transformed under the weight of circumstances beyond their control.

The characters felt incredibly authentic, and their struggles were portrayed with sensitivity and realism. Watching two people who would do anything to be together face disapproving parents, impossible expectations, and the devastating impact of mental illness made for a heartbreaking yet deeply compelling read. The recurring thread involving Kai's work designing prosthetic arms added an emotional layer that stayed with me long after I finished.

I never saw the ending coming. It was powerful, thought-provoking, and completely recontextualized everything that came before it. This is one of those stories that lingers in your mind well after you've turned the final page.

If you're looking for an emotionally rich, character-driven story with suspense woven throughout rather than a traditional twist-filled thriller, I highly recommend picking this one up. I'll definitely be reading more from Clara van Houten in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and the author Clara van Houten for reaching out to me with this ARC.

Amazing debut, I am happy I got the chance to read it. It was devastatingly beautiful in a way. We get to see two POVs of Kai and Ivy, each telling us how their lives went and where it started to go wrong.

It does start a bit slow, and you wonder what it is that could go wrong, but when the bad starts, you wish you could go back to the happy times. We get small moments that act as clues, and you ask yourself what could it be from the long list of what could happen. Kai himself wishes for a rewind to make it better, Ivy fights to keep it going good the best she can.

Those two POVs let's you see that both are doing the best they can, we get to see their reactions and thoughts. All we can do is read and hope for a good ending for both of them.

It was a great read and I can't wait for her next books, especially if they are on such topics again.

𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙣𝙚, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙮 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙢𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙙. 𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬. 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨, 𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙤𝙣. 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙬𝙖𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩. 𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙡𝙡 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙨𝙤 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙚.

I started this book with not a single clue as to what it was about or what was waiting for me within these pages.

From the very first page, though, I felt it.

And in my opinion, that is the whole point.

I remember reading PART ONE and thinking, Am I crazy, or is this some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read? Her use of metaphors was incredible. Not only was the writing beautiful, but the way she reveals just enough without telling you everything at once had me desperate to know more.

I also remember feeling… calm.

That’s probably not quite the right word, because there was so much happening beneath the surface, but everything felt understated. Quiet. Almost calm.

And yet I felt everything.

The writing kept drawing me deeper and deeper into the story until I found myself sitting there at 2:49 a.m., having completely inhaled these words, surrounded by all these feelings and all this pain, with absolutely no idea what to do with any of it.

I am genuinely afraid that I won’t do this book justice because let me make this very clear:

𝓣𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓴 𝔀𝓪𝓼 𝓹𝓱𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓪𝓵.

Without a single doubt, it is one of the most memorable and impactful books I have ever read. And I don’t think that will ever change.

We meet Kai, who we very quickly come to understand is the “wrong guy” for Ivy.

He isn’t rich enough.
He isn’t well known enough.
He isn’t connected enough.

But she loves him anyway.

Kai is solid. He is committed to changing his life, and he desperately wants to give Ivy everything he believes she deserves. He loves her. He is also deeply consumed by his research and by his desire to make other people’s lives better.

And it is incredibly difficult to explain this book because I honestly don’t think it can be explained.

It is a feeling.

This entire book is feeling. It is breaking. It is devastation.

And the mental health representation is handled in a way that makes you feel every single emotion so viscerally. Not only Kai’s, but Ivy’s too.

Bᴇᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴛʜɪɴɢs ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴇ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ sᴀᴍᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ.

And again, I think that is the entire point of this book.

The book doesn’t hand you a villain, a victim, or an easy answer. It makes you understand people even when understanding them hurts.

It makes you question how you can feel empathy so deeply for one person while also understanding and feeling the hurt and pain of someone else.

My heart was absolutely shattered for Kai. My soul feels permanently altered by him, by everything he didn’t know, everything he couldn’t understand, and everything he couldn’t change.

But at the same time, I felt Ivy.

I felt what she was experiencing. I felt the things she couldn’t allow. The things she couldn’t tolerate. The things she couldn’t change.

There is so much pain in this story, but there is also so much humanity.

When you pick this book up, and I genuinely hope you do, I hope you experience even a fraction of what I did. I hope you appreciate the magnitude of this story. I hope you allow yourself to sit with it.

Because this book deserves to be remembered.

𝓔𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓭. 𝓔𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓯𝓮𝓮𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰. 𝓔𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓹𝓲𝓮𝓬𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓲𝓽.

And I hope when you reach the end, you sit there with all those deep, complicated emotions and realize that you are not quite the same person who started it.

Because I’m not.

My hope is that you will also understand why this book will stay with me.

Thank you to 𝓒𝓵𝓪𝓻𝓪 𝓥𝓪𝓷 𝓗𝓸𝓾𝓽𝓮𝓷 for reaching out to me and giving me the opportunity to read this book. You have somehow managed to give me my 𝓯𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓴 𝓸𝓯 2026, and I genuinely cannot imagine anything taking its place.

It was beautiful. It was devastating. It was unforgettable.