REVIEW: Sharing You by Molly McAdams

I have a confession to make…Sharing You is my first Molly McAdams’ book. Are all of her other books on my Kindle? Yes, they are…Am I scared to death to start any of them? Absolutely! So why choose a book where there are cheaters as my first McAdams’ book? The answer’s simple – the fact that it’s based on a true story intrigued me along with the reality that the antagonists, those who readers love to hate, are actually out there and living their lives like that is mind blowing.

Sharing You is Kamryn (KC) and Brody’s story. A story rooted in angst, secrets, and lies. A story that starts with two people living lives that they wanted no part of, but one does what needs to be done to get out of her situation while the other feels like there’s no getting out of the prison he’s helped to create. For 22 years, Kamryn’s life was not her own; there was a certain path she was expected to follow, and she couldn’t deviate from that plan or she would let her parents down and ruin her family’s name. But there came a point when she refused to live the life her parents saw fit and made it be about what she wanted. Brody’s quest to do the right thing led him down a road he never wanted to travel, and because he feels responsible for a devastating act while down that path, he remains shackled to a life he doesn’t want.

Brody doesn’t know how to escape his loveless marriage, so he and KC make choices that neither is proud of but ones that they feel need to be made because living a life without each other is more than they can handle. But a relationship that begins with so much already against it is one that can self implode easily due to insecurities, jealousies, and half truths. Kamryn and Brody may want a forever together, but how are they going to live their forever when they can’t even share their happiness with others because Brody shares his life with a woman he detests and is doing everything in her power to keep him from divorcing her?

This is not your typical cheating story. It’s clear that Brody’s marriage is over…it was over before it even began. And, his wife…wow, I have no words that can truly describe her. Readers need to experience her on their own to truly understand her form of crazy. Should Brody still have gotten out of his marriage before diving head first into a relationship with Kamryn – of course, he should…he even admits that many times throughout the text. But when someone has had to deal with a life that is more about surviving and enduring than living, it makes a bit more sense that he would leap without thinking of the repercussions.

I definitely don’t agree with how Brody and Kamryn handled things, but Molly made me understand their actions better through the first person point of views and putting me in both Brody and Kamryn’s heads. She helps me feel what they were feeling as all of it was occurring, and I couldn’t help but root for them despite how it all played out. For an author to persuade me that this situation was what was best for the characters despite my feelings on how they went about it shows the type of storyteller Molly McAdams is. She develops her characters so thoroughly in terms of their minds and hearts that there is no question as to why everything happens the way that it does because there doesn’t seem to be any other way.

A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher through Edelweiss.

4 poison apples