4.5

This is an astonishing subject to have for a novel but thankfully Claire Gleeson handled it beautifully.

Rachel and Tom have a normal life, with an ordinary house, ordinary jobs, two children and the usual hassles. Until one day when Tom drives the family car off the road in a bid to end his own life and that of his entire family.

Show Me Where It Hurts follows Rachel's story divided into before and after the accident.

This is an emotive subject and it took my breath away in parts but Claire Gleeson has written a beautiful novel full of love and forgiveness along with confusion and a desire to understand how one person can make such a decision that will change your life forever.

The characters of Rachel and her family along with Tom and his mother, Bernice, are all quite sympathetic, which is something I didn't think I'd say after the first shock.

I will certainly be looking out for more books written by this author.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the advance review copy. Very much appreciated.

I wasn't able put this book down and stayed up into the small hours, eyes burning, heart in tatters, because there was no way I was leaving it unfinished. I loved it even though it broke me a little (or maybe because it did). It’s devastating, yes, but also full of quiet, life-affirming strength, raw beauty, and the kind of love that lodges deep in your bones and won’t let go.

The story follows Rachel, a mother of two, whose world is shattered in one unspeakable moment when her husband, Tom, drives the family car off the road in an attempt to end his own life—and theirs. Rachel and Tom survive, but what follows is the kind of trauma you don’t just bounce back from.

What Gleeson does so powerfully is bring us into that aftermath, Rachel’s grief, shock, rage, and stubborn, flickering hope. There’s confusion, tenderness, fury, love—and above all, the deep resolve to keep going. Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But honestly.

There’s no gloss here, no easy redemption, which is why it lands so hard—I cried more than once. It’s not just a story of survival, but of the slow, lonely, impossible-feeling work of living after. Of loving someone who’s suffering. Of clinging to fragments of yourself in the dark.

There’s such grace in Gleeson’s writing, a depth that hums in the pauses, in the things left unsaid, in the way ordinary moments turn quietly profound. The past and present weave through each other like breath and heartbeat, and it leaves you wrecked and grateful all at once.

If you’re after something raw, real, and unforgettable—this is the one. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time yet.

Many thanks to the publisher for the ARC via NetGalley. As always, this is my honest review.

A really moving book, which I would thoroughly recommend. I particularly liked the switches between different time periods to give a full and sympathetic portrayal of the main characters. At times it was almost unbearable to read, but I am glad that I did as I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Oh my word this book. From the shocking first chapter to the slow unfurling, unburdening of the events that came before, and after Claire holds our hands through grief, guilt and coming through the other side.

Show me where it hurts delved into some tough subjects. I was in two minds as I have a four-year-old and wondered if I could handle the emotions. I did but it was heart wrenching all the same. I loved the way the various supporting characters reacted to the situation and how Rachel internalises and works through her emotions. The book portrayed a sense of this could happen to anyone - where are the signs, were there signs, should I have done something differently and successfully worked through those with the reader to come to a satisfying conclusion.

Loved it. Thanks Claire!

This debut novel by Irish writer and medical doctor Claire Gleeson is just so unspeakably sad and yet brims with love, empathy and humanity. I cried so many times while reading it, I feel I have to say that so that if you decide to read this novel, you’re prepared for what lies ahead.

Rachel and Tom are married with two children when one day, life is changed utterly for them. The novel charts Rachel’s return from the brink of despair, finding comfort in the small things, always finding a reason to put one foot in front of the other.

It is so beautifully written and so tender and compelling, but be warned: your heart will ache. I couldn’t help but think of the real life cases similar to the storyline in this book, and I hold all of those families in my thoughts.

If you think you can bear it, this is a must-read. 5/5 ⭐️

With thanks to Sceptre Books for the advance copy via @Netgalley. Show Me Where It Hurts will be published this Thursday and is already on the shelves in Irish bookshops. If you loved Nesting, I predict you will love this too.

This was a heart breaking read at points especially as you followed on the aftermath of Tom's decision and how Rachel deals with loss and recovery.

Show Me Where It Hurts by Claire Gleeson

Rachel's husband Tom steers their car off the road, attempting to kill them and their two young children. Rachel and Tom survive, and we follow their story from when they met 10 years ago up to the date of the incident, and the following 10 years as Rachel grieves and tries to live the life she wasn't meant to have.

WOW WOW WOW!!! Immediate place on my list of books of the year! What an absolutely brilliant book - equisitve writing, fantastic characters, compelling story... perfection. I will be thinking of this book for a long time and urging everyone to read it. Very VERY highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Show Me Where it Hurts
By Claire Gleeson

A captivating debut about surviving unspeakable loss and grief. The opening chapter, "Something Wild and Terrible" describes the pivotal moment in Rachel's life, when like a flip of a switch, everything she loves and everything she is, is obliterated. The brevity of the chapter is shocking compared to the devastation that ensues. What is left?

How can a person pick themselves up and carry on? Why would they want to?

I'm very impressed with the stylistic choices Gleeson makes in he first novel. The structure is clean and highly effective. The alternating of linear Before and linear After produce an even pace and offer the reader the comfort to process these harrowing circumstances without hyperbole. The marking of time in both timelines feels precise, one told through tension, the other through emotion.

Rachel appears so real, it feels wrong to think of her as a character, she's too personal for that. She is embued with grace, even throughout the movements she makes through the various stages of mourning and grief. There are so many ways that the author conveys a sense of dignity, quiet little things like preserving the anonymity of the children, like they pared back dialogue, the universality of gesture.

A quiet examination of how the human spirit survives. Beautifully written and bound to evoke your deepest compassion and empathy.

Publication Date: 10th April 2025
Thanks to #Netgalley and ##HodderStoughton for providing an ARC for review purposes.

🩹 REVIEW 🩹

Show Me Where it Hurts by Claire Gleeson
Release Date: 10th April 2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

📝 - Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it’s the comfortable family life she always thought she’d have. All of that changes in an instant – when one action by Tom destroys the life they’ve built, leaving Rachel to pore over the wreckage to try and understand what happened, to try and find a way to go on living afterwards. What emerges is a snapshot of what it’s like to live alongside someone who is suffering, how you keep yourself afloat when the person you love is drowning – and how you survive irreparable loss.

💭 - This was a really intriguing title for me, but I found that it didn’t quite turn out as expected. While I found the storyline interesting and thought provoking, I did want a bit more of a deep dive into Rachel, and I felt the writing style didn’t give me that to the extent I wanted. Nonetheless, the story is moving, and one that will likely stick in my mind for a while.

#showmewhereithurts #clairegleeson #bookreview #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookreviewers #bookreviewer #literaryfiction #contemporaryfiction

Show Me Where It Hurts is a very raw and powerful story of mental illness, the most tragic loss and subsequent grief. The chapters alternate between ‘Before’ and ‘After’ this devastating event - because as is so clearly reflected in the story, there will always be a ‘Before’ and ‘After’ for Rachel. Her life is irrevocably changed by this event - the most unthinkable, unbearable thing for a mother of young children.

But in the midst of Rachel’s pain, there are glimmers of hope radiating from these pages. Across the ten years ‘After’, Rachel’s journey is one of learning to find some semblance of acceptance - it is okay to love again, it is okay to have moments of happiness - because the world goes on, even though Rachel’s life has been changed forever. Rachel’s character is an example of the strength of the human spirit and what it means to survive.

An emotional, shocking, gripping story, so beautifully crafted. This is a book that will stay with me.

Thank you to the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a book. This is a staggering story in many ways, told in an understated way, about a horrific event in one woman's life and her struggles to deal with the aftermath of it. But it's also about how mental illness can creep up on people, and the myriad of ways that this affects the lives of those around them too.

The beginning launches us into the life of a family travelling home from visiting relatives in the car - Rachel, Tom and their two young children. The shock as, within the first few pages, Tom veers the car off the road is tangible. The chapters that follow move back and forth in time. Some travel back to when Rachel first met Tom, and detail their developing relationship and marriage together. Others look at Rachel's life after the accident, and how her life unfolds after the devastating loss of both her children.

The writing is absolutely brilliant. Gleeson is describing harrowing things that it sometimes seems just can't be explained, but the understated, down-to-earth nature of the writing keeps it grounded, and stops the novel from flying off into hyperbole. Readers can probably imagine themselves facing similar situations and reacting in similar ways.

Tom's gradual unravelling has its roots in the economic crash and the failure of his business. But Rachel discovers that in fact there may also be deeper things going on, as she learns more about his childhood and adolescence. It's very poignant. We see Rachel almost living with someone who feels like a stranger at times, her husband only making the briefest of appearances in smiles and rare 'normal' conversations. Tom's mental deterioration is very well done.

I liked the fact that there is no clear and simple explanation for it. This can be a frustrating reality in terms of mental health, and we see as Rachel struggles to understand what is happening to her husband.

The parts of the book that deal with her life after the accident, living a life she didn't think she'd be living, beginning a new relationship, are captivating.

If I had one criticism, I thought that there would be more overt and 'loud' trauma from Rachel in terms of losing her children. We hear that she sometimes sees them in other people, and they are on her mind a lot, but this isn't always obvious in the book. But again, this is maybe part of the understated way of writing and is more realistic as it shows how people have to get on with life, regardless of what it throws at them.

This is a very empathetic and moving novel, and I would highly recommend it. Thank you to Netgalley for the preview.

“Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it's the ordinary family life she always thought she'd have. All of that changes in an instant - when Tom runs the family car off the road, seeking to end his own life, and take his wife and children with him. Rachel is left to pore over the wreckage to try and understand what happened - to find a way to go on living afterwards”

Okay wow this book was so good! I found the story so different and also so emotional! I love when a book makes you properly feel in the pit of your stomach and this is definitely one of those. There was definitely a lot of references to mental health and how everyone can be affected by it - whether directly or indirectly.

I loved that we heard about the lead up to the incident, all the way back to when Rachel and Tom met. I loved that we got snapshots into their lives and how they got to where they ended up. I loved that we got to then see Rachel and her life after the incident and how it has affected her day to day. I feel like this could be such a great movie!

This is definitely not an easy read and is quite heavy but I honestly believe it could be in the running of being my favourite book of the year! I felt like I didn’t want to put it down and was excited to get something time to read.

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this advance ARC!

If you love contemporary Irish fiction this is definitely a book for you!

Rachel's perfect family life is shattered when her husband Tom drives their car off the road, attempting to end his and his families’ lives, leaving her to grapple with the aftermath. As she tries to understand what led to this moment, Show Me Where It Hurts explores the emotional toll of living with someone in deep pain, the struggle to stay afloat when a loved one is drowning, and the challenge of surviving immense loss. A compelling and heartbreaking journey, the novel ultimately offers a story of recovery, resilience, and the unexpected hope that can arise from even the darkest moments.

The chapters are split between the present and the ten years leading up to the accident, when Tom and Rachel met. I love when any novel does this because I think you learn so much more about the characters and the depth of the story. As you read about the accident in the very first chapters, some of the chapters about Rachel and Tom dating can be pretty hard to read knowing what he does ten years later.

Gleeson writes grief exactly as it is; raw, ugly, terrifying, and tidal. A book that is both gripping and emotional. I really liked the way that Gleeson explores family dynamics in the novel, from Rachel’s relationships with her mother, sister, and of course with her husband Tom.

Show Me Where It Hurts is a powerful novel. Gleeson has written a mindful book full of tenderness, heartbreak, and sorrow. The book evoked so much emotion within me, a truly excellent and haunting debut novel that I won’t forget for a long time.

Five stars.

loss is hard. loss is hard on anyone. for those who suffer with mental illness it effects ripple far and wide for those who love them. because when you are in a family or know someone who suffers you can both feel their pain and witness it. the stigma against mental illness is horrific. the stigma about whether its an "illness" is just plain horrific. and only when you've lived with someone suffering do you know that its one of the worst set of illness a patient could ever suffer from. and to the families the pain you see and feel alongside them is also horrific.
there is also a steel. and a better understanding of people and empathy from the heart that comes with it.
this book looks at that. but also take you before the loss and after the loss of someone who suffers with mental illness and gets to the point where they reach the end of their illness and decide to take their life.
i didnt think id cope with seeing this. it felt all to real. and i also needed it to be done properly. but it was. it really was. it was handled with both the ferocious terror and emotional overwhelm that such a thing needs. but also the tenderness and the tumultuous feelings that comes from such a time and such a moment in peoples lives. we get to see parts of the lead up and after. and how people cope. and how they dont. and what the hell happens next.
this book was done so well.
i dont want to say i enjoyed it because that doesnt seem right. but im soooo glad i got the chance to read it. its a book that will sit with me. and also softened a piece of pain inside of me too.

Imagine the worst thing that could possibly happen, then circle it, from well before to well after, to and fro, exploring the impacts, the early whispers of it, the fallout, to the beginning of healing but never forgetting years later. Using this method enables the reader to gain insight into various layers, a more nuanced and detailed understanding, so that when you move from one time to another you go with an appreciation of who those involved are and how the events came about, how they then echoed into the future. It’s well written and considered. However, I felt it lacked a little in terms of exploring and expressing deeper emotions and the appalling agony the main event would have created, hence giving it 4 rather than 5 stars.

I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy of this heartbreaking yet beautifully written debut novel, ‘Show Me Where It Hurts’ by Claire Gleeson. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down and devoured it within two days.

The story follows Rachel and unfolds through two parallel narratives: ‘before’ and ‘after’ a tragic event. In the ‘before’ sections, we see Rachel meet and fall in love with her husband, Tom—a familiar tale of boy meets girl, love blossoms, and they begin to build a life today, settling down and building a family. But as circumstances shift, Tom's struggle with mental health leads to a devastating event that shatters Rachel’s world.

The ‘after’ narrative explores Rachel’s journey through unimaginable grief, devastation, and horror. Yet, it also charts her resilience, recovery, and the complexity of healing from profound loss. The interwoven structure of the book is brilliant, enhancing the emotional impact and giving depth to Rachel’s experience.

Given the subject matter, I hesitated to read it, but I am so glad I did. It’s my best read of 2025 so far. Claire Gleeson has an exquisite writing style, capturing the nuances and complexities of love, grief, loss, and mental health with sensitivity and authenticity.

She skillfully avoids clichés, instead presenting her characters as layered and real, illustrating how messy and multifaceted tragedy and healing can be. Even though the story is sad, it also tells a story about survival and hope.

Claire Gleeson has crafted something extraordinary from a difficult topic, and I am in awe of her talent.

I rarely give five-star reviews, but this book unquestionably deserves it. Incredible storytelling, incredible writing.
The book is out on April 10th and available for pre-order now.

Many thanks to @netgalley and @hodderbooks for the ARC - all opinions are my own.

#ShowMeWhereItHurts #NetGalley #debutbook #irishwriter #debutnovel #irishbookstagram #irishbooklover

@netgalley @hodderbooks @clairegleeson_writer @sceptrebooks

Show Me Where it Hurts is a powerful and heartbreaking book that will linger with me for a long time. The subjects tackled in this book are heavy but the author handles them as sensitively as possible and as someone who has experienced living with someone who struggles with their mental health this book resonated with me in a very personal way. The set up is deceptively simple, the reader is thrown in to the story as the book opens with a car crash, it is only as the book unfolds that we learn that this was no accident, but rather a deliberate attempt by a man to kill himself and his family. The book diverges into two time lines, in one we see how Rachel and Tom meet as students and fall in love, and in the second we follow Rachel in the aftermath of the tragedy that robbed her of her two children as she tries to come to terms with her grief and learn how to navigate her new existence and how to redefine her relationship with her husband in light of what he has done. As the before timeline moves closer and closer to the event that destroyed her life and the after timeline moves further away and closer to healing it is impossible not to feel for Rachel and root for her, but there is also a degree of sympathy for Tom and how dark things must have been for him that his actions seemed like the only possible solutions to the problems he faced. This may be a short book but its impact belies its brevity, it is flawless and though not an easy read it is an incredibly rewarding and memorable one, and one that I will return to and recommend over and over again.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

What an incredible book this is, Claire Gleeson tackles a difficult subject with such insight and sensitivity. I was hooked from the opening chapter, and every spare moment I had I picked this book up as I was so engrossed in the story. This book will stay with me for a very long time. I’ll definitely be looking out for Claire Gleeson in the future!

Opening with a devastating traumatic event, Show Me Where It Hurts then splits in to a dual timeline - before and after the event. The ‘before’ timeline gets closer and closer to the incident, while the ‘after’ timeline gets further away. The reader is shown the build up to what happens over a series of years and months and then we experience the immediate aftermath and Rebecca’s recovery from trauma and grief.

I am a firm believer that books sometimes find you at exactly the right time and Show Me Where It Hurts is that book for me this year. After a horrific incident in January I have been desperate to connect with someone who understands and has been through similar. Although fictional, Rebecca is that person. I saw myself in her and so many of her experiences. The writing is incredible and I devoured this book in a matter of hours. At times I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough and at others I just had to sit and absorb what I had read. I constantly had the feeling of “yes, yes, that’s it”. One quote in particular: “I just. I don’t think this is the life I was supposed to have”. I’ve said almost these exact words several times these past few weeks 💔

This is an incredible book; raw, unflinching, devastating and ultimately hopeful. A debut novel of exquisite writing. At only 256 pages, Claire Gleeson has the ability to tear you apart and build you back up again. I was reminded of Claire Keegan as I was reading; the ability to express so much in such a short book.

I was blown away by this book and will cherish it forever. Thank you @netgalley and Sceptre books for allowing me to read an early copy. I need a physical copy to keep on my forever shelf.

This was a hard read.
Covering such a difficult topic.
I felt for the mother. The unimaginable grief she must feel. Her questioning if there were signs. Did she miss something.
But also wanting to carry on.

While I do wish we got maybe a little more of the straight after. I understand why it jumps through the years after.
But also the lead up to what happened. Showing the decline in her husband.