Book Review: All That's Left to Say by Emery Lord

If you’ve read my reviews before, you might have an inkling that I have a little special interest in all things prison, rehab, addiction, and the systems around these. So this book obviously caught my eye, though I was hesitant from the blurb.

“On prom night, Hannah MacLaren sits in the headmaster's office in her fanciest dress, soaked to the bone. She is in huge trouble after pulling the fire alarm right as the prom queen was about to be crowned. But Hannah had her reasons . . .
One year ago, her cousin Sophie, who was also her best friend and the person she loved most in the world, died of an overdose. Drowning in grief, Hannah became obsessed with one question: Who gave Sophie those pills? Who is refusing to give her family the closure they deserve? Then she concocted a plan: enroll at her cousin's fancy private school with a new look and a mouthful of lies, and finally uncover the truth. But Hannah didn't expect all the lines to blur. She didn't expect Sophie's friends to be so complicated. She didn't expect to fall for her longtime enemy. Now, she must choose to either let herself really mourn Sophie and move on, or see her search through to its explosive end—even if it means destroying herself.”

I wasn’t sure which way this book was going to go. I kind of expected it to be less about the reasons Hannah went to the school and more of a mystery with people trying to sabotage her investigation. But it wasn’t.

I will admit, I was a little confused when I started - not being from the USA, I don’t know how their school terms run, and so that made the time jumps a little weird, but once I wrapped my head around it and just went with it, I understood.

This isn’t a book about drugs. Well, it is, but not in the way Roxy, or Crank, or Heroine, or books like that are. This is a book about grief. It’s about the ways in which people grieve, and how you can fall down a hole looking for closure that you might never get. It’s about depression - while Hannah is never diagnosed with anything, the way in which she pushes away everyone, and her focus on Sophie’s death (and life), read heavily leaning into depression. It’s a book about learning to go on, and how people can surprise you.

This book hurt. I agree with another reviewer, in that I wish that this book had a) a list of resources for anyone struggling with Substance Abuse Disorder to utilise, but also, I wish it had a content warning, or a message from the author at the start. It’s confronting, but not in the way the blurb might have you expect. If you’ve lost someone, or had a close call with grief or SAD, or anything like that, this one might hit a little too close to home.

That said, it’s a beautiful book. Hannah isn’t the most likable, but she grows. Her methods might seem out the gate to some, but as an expression of grief, they are 100% valid and probable. The writing is gorgeous, the art references went over my head but were still enough to give me a  sense of what the author was trying to convey. The other characters were, to me, fleshed out enough - we are seeing them through Hannah’s grief and depression; they’re not going to be the most perfectly described characters you ever came across.

Content warnings: death, drugs, alcohol addiction (discussions re: recovery, AA, Al-Anon), grief, possible stalking, anger, friendships collapsing, grief, depression.

Overall Rating - it would be 5 stars, but 4 due to the need for a warning and links to where to get help.

Posted by Li

Catalogue Link: All That's Left to Say by Emery Lord

13 February 2024

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