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Show Me Where It Hurts

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Show Me Where It Hurts

By: Claire Gleeson
Narrated by: Heather O'Sullivan
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Summary

 'A searingly beautiful novel'
Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things

'Outstanding, and has lingered in my head for a very long time'
Prima

How do you survive the unsurvivable?

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.

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.

Impossible to turn away from, Show Me Where It Hurts is a compelling, heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming story of recovery and unexpected hope.©2025 Claire Gleeson (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction World Literature Marriage
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Critic reviews

With gentle and lulling prose, Show Me Where It Hurts is exceptional in its exploration of the grief and recovery from something unthinkable. This is simply an exquisite novel. (Anne Griffin, author of When All Is Said)
Exceptional. Also brave. One of those novels that, afterwards, makes me think not just about the story itself, but also about why we read, and the role of fiction. (Florence Knapp, author of The Names)
This thoughtful and imaginative debut glows with emotional insight and heft. It tackles a difficult and rarely discussed subject in an engaging, clear-slighted and highly readable way (Henrietta McKervey, author of A Talented Man)
All stars
Most relevant
this book was highly recommended and I was anxious to listen to it. the beginning of the story was riveting as the horror unfolded, the pain and disbelief of such a deliberate act. I disliked the speed and passage of timeline post the accident....I can imagine that as a debut novel there was an anxiety for a happy ending....I think in doing so, much was skimmed over and the characters were less fleshed out. I'm completely open to being wrong on this but I was Disappointed by the timeline of the story. as a nurse myself I didn't believe her irritability with her husbands struggle with his mental health....sorry.

brilliant idea, very disappointed with the timeline

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Full review to follow when I have gathered my shattered thoughts. Show Me Where It Hurts is stunning.

Beautifully written and narrated.

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I liked this book it held my interest right through and was read beautifully by a lady with a nice soft accent which was easy to listen to.

Show me where it hurts

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A simple and very raw telling of a highly emotional story. Fantastically written and laid out. I would love to know what happened next for Rachel!

The sadness of the story is taken away by how beautifully it's told

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I really enjoyed the book and the method of the telling as it moved between before and after but I did feel that the depth of negative feeling was anaesthetised somewhat in the end. I didn’t feel that this took from the story as it is but I did have a sense that there was more depth that could have been explored.

In depth and sensitive telling

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