Book Review: We Thought we Knew You

I FINALLY finished reading this ARC from #bookishfirst. It always takes me so long to finish a good true crime novel because there is so much information and so many facts to process. I have marked up this book more than any other this year, and that’s saying something!

SUMMARY:

In July 2015 beloved mother, chiropractor, and community leader, Mary Yoder becomes violently ill. The doctors think it is a stomach virus but just a few days later, she’s dead. To everyone’s surprise, the M.E. finds a rare poison is the culprit.

A few months later, the police receive an anonymous letter stating that Mary’s son, Adam, poisoned his mother. This letter leads them to Adam’s ex-girlfriend, Katie Conley, an all American girl with a dark side that she hits all too well.

MY TAKE:

Wow! As with the last M. William Phelps book I read, I can’t believe this is real.

Katie Conley, sweet, smart, girl-next-door on the outside, manipulative narcissist on the inside. She sank her claws into Adam Yoder, started working for his family at their chiropractic practice, and refused to let him go. Every time he tried to break things off, she would pull off a crazy stunt to get him back. When faking a pregnancy and accusing him of rape (seriously) did not work out the way she though it would, she had to face reality: that things were over with Adam.

She did not take the breakup laying down, however. Instead, she created an email address under his name, ordered poison, poisoned Adam enough to make him sick enough to talk to her, and finally poisoned and killed his mother and tried to frame him for it.

I’m not going to lie, this book is a lot. I have several notes in the margins saying something along the lines of “WTH?” or “seriously” or “batty bitty.” It’s a rollercoaster of a book.

The only reason I’m not giving it a full five stars is because I don’t feel like it’s fully unbiased. Apparently, the Conley family refused to work with Phelps on this book, so it doesn’t have much in the way of a defense for her (she apparently still claims to be innocent despite mountains of evidence). I know the evidence is all there, but I’d still like to hear her side if for no other reason than to hear who she actually “thinks” committed the murder.

BookishFirst / GoodReads / Amazon