Review of Both Can Be True by Jessica Guerrieri

This is a story about sisters coping with past trauma and resentments trying to find their way back together, with a missing-persons story in the background. The tone of the novel felt difficult for me to settle into, but I appreciated the realistically complicated elements of addiction, abuse, and neurodivergence.

“True crime scratches that itch,” she says. “It gives shape to the darkness. It makes the senseless feel—if not understandable, at least real. Like I’m not crazy for being scared all the time. Like the fear has evidence.”

In Northern California, grown sisters Mere and Frankie have been circling each other for years, often bristling, brewing resentment, and holding their tongues about each other's lives and families, while trying to find a way to become close like they were when they were young.

Then a woman in Frankie's social circle goes missing, and the disappearance serves as a catalyst for examinations of past trauma, relapses in behavior, and an erasure of verbal filters, so that ugly truths are voiced and are unable to be ignored. Only time will tell whether the crisis will usher in a new era of honesty and support.

The sisters each want to get past their current-day superficial connection, but bitterness about their past festers--until a cathartic blowup allows them to air their pain and determine if they can move past it into a new relationship.

The tone of the novel was difficult for me to pin down. The main story is focused on the individual sisters, their relationship, and their own marriages. In the background is the haunting disappearance of local mother Brie (who is, unknown to most, an addict). The disappearance involves layers that feel poised draw in Mere and Frankie's husbands, who were camping in the region where Brie went missing, and may have encountered her while they were in an impaired state. This element doesn't exactly lend the novel a mystery feel, but there's an undercurrent of uncertainty and shadowy possibilities. (This seems positioned to potentially destroy the families, but ultimately doesn't become a significant element.)

I didn't feel fully privy to the women's inner lives or their families' complicated dynamics; I felt a half step removed from emotional investment.

I loved the element of bookstore ownership--although it felt like somewhat of an afterthought. Based on the page time spent on the business, it didn't involve significant involvement.

Guerrieri explores issues around abuse, addiction, infidelity, and neurodivergence. The author's notes following the novel explain her own experience with addiction, relapse, and sexual assault. I wished I'd known her real-life inspirations before reading the book; the novel's representation of addiction felt authentic to me as a reader.

I listened to an audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Harper Muse.

More Bossy Books to Check Out

Jessica Guerrieri is also the author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Please check out these links for Bossy reviews of other books about sisters, addiction, or missing persons.