I was sent a free ARC of this book by HarperCollins Focus, so thank you for the opportunity to review this novel. I’ve kept this review as light on spoilers as possible.

Both Can Be True is about two sisters, Frankie and Mere, who’ve become distant and don’t get along anymore due to the conditions of their upbringing. They had a difficult childhood and adolescence with a sick mother and a father who has Bipolar Disorder. As adults, they both have children and husbands and their own unique lives, staying just on the outside of each other’s orbit but never fully involved.

Frankie is recovering from alcohol addiction and is part of a support group where she meets a woman named Brie, who still struggles with getting and staying sober. One day, Brie goes missing. They live in a fairly small mountain town in California where everyone knows each other, so the word spreads fast, and search parties are deployed.

Much of the novel focuses on how the main cast of characters tries to reckon with Brie’s disappearance and what it might mean. For a time, there are even suspicions of foul play, as the husbands of Frankie, Mere, and two other women were on a camping trip in the same area where Brie disappeared. Once the truth is revealed, several characters must wrestle with the parts they played and their resulting guilt.

Right from the beginning, there are a lot of characters introduced. I don’t love it when a book wants you to get to know a bunch of characters in rapid succession, as this can make it hard to keep up with who’s who and what their relationships are with each other, but I eventually got the hang of things.

Several of the female characters have husbands who are different shades of incompetent, uncaring, and boring, which make this book painful to read at times—especially when you’ve had up-close experience with this very thing in real life. It’s admittedly hard for me to understand how so many women find this kind of literature enjoyable or relaxing when it’s so much like the reality we (or at least, I) often try to escape. Our protagonist Frankie has made an effort to stop calling certain men incompetent, though, because she doesn’t want to be “man-hating,” and even makes a comment about not wanting to become a bitter and mean feminist.

Alright, girl.

Although there are a few LGBT+ characters (one subplot does feel like a thrown-in afterthought), this book is very much cishetero women’s lit, which I suppose is to be expected for an entry in the women’s fiction genre. Many aspects of the characters’ beliefs center around heteropatriarchal ideals, so this novel might not mesh well with you if you’re not the kind of person who believes things like 1.) childless/childfree people have no real struggles (this is more of a passing moment from Frankie) or 2.) having sex with someone means they’re “a part of you forever.” These aren’t the kinds of ideologies I often encounter in the books I read, so it wasn’t pleasant to come across them here.

We do eventually get a little more depth from Mere’s husband, Dale, and find out that his neglect of their daughter ties into his neurodivergence, but this still isn’t an excuse for his initial lack of care or cooperation. Frankie’s husband, Caleb, sees less character development and serves as more of a support for Frankie’s issues—which include her concern over Brie (as Brie is her AA sponsee) and her fall back into substance use.

This book is listed as a “Thriller” and “Mystery Thriller” on Goodreads, which feels very misleading; this categorization puts Brie at the forefront, as if most of this book will be the characters doing detective work to find answers. Although Brie’s disappearance is a major plot point that reverberates throughout the narrative, this book isn’t really about her; it’s about how Frankie (and to a lesser extent, Mere) react to the incident, and the effect it has on their lives and families. If anything, this story is more about addiction/recovery, motherhood, marriage, sisterhood, and sexual assault, with the disappearance serving as a backdrop that helps move the plot/serves as a catalyst that the characters need to start making realizations and trying to change their lives.

Since I have an ARC version of the book, it looks like some pretty major changes were made along the way. The Goodreads summary mentions the women going on a girls’ trip to Mexico and finding out about Brie’s disappearance there, which never happens in the paperback I have. These discrepancies are helpful to keep in mind if you decide to read this novel; the summary on Amazon is the accurate one. I’m a bit disappointed about the modification, because the Goodreads plot seems like it would’ve been more interesting than what we got.

All in all, this book isn’t for me, but I do like the one chapter we get from Brie’s perspective. This is a dual POV novel where each chapter alternates between Mere and Frankie, so we receive up-close looks at their inner conflicts and difficulties with each other and the larger world at hand. Fans of character-driven narratives might enjoy this one.

Pick up this book if you like:

• Familial reconciliation
• Sisterly bonds
• Recovery journeys
• Narratives about mental health

Pass it by if you don’t want to read about:

• Sexual assault/sexual violence (Very big warning for this one; several scenes dredged up unwanted memories)
• Substance use and addiction
• More traditional views on marriage and sex
• Cancer/death from cancer