More Than We Can Tell by Brigid Kemmerer (Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Also by this author: Letters to the Lost
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA on March 6th 2018
Genres: Family, General, Love & Romance, Orphans & Foster Homes, Romance, Social Themes, Young Adult, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 304
Rev Fletcher is battling the demons of his past. But with loving adoptive parents by his side, he’s managed to keep them at bay...until he gets a letter from his abusive father and the trauma of his childhood comes hurtling back.
Emma Blue spends her time perfecting the computer game she built from scratch, rather than facing her parents’ crumbling marriage. She can solve any problem with the right code, but when an online troll’s harassment escalates, she’s truly afraid.
When Rev and Emma meet, they both long to lift the burden of their secrets and bond instantly over their shared turmoil. But when their situations turn dangerous, their trust in each other will be tested in ways they never expected. This must-read story will once again have readers falling for Brigid Kemmerer’s emotional storytelling.
First of all, More Than We Can Tell is listed as a book 2 to Letters of The Lost, I don’t know that I would categorize it that way. This is definitely more of a companion book and if you’re so inclined you could definitely read it without reading book 1… but I don’t know why you would want to. A. You’d miss out on an amazing and beautiful story, and B. You’d miss out on a lot of the base of Rev & Dec’s friendship. And that’s something you don’t want to miss.
I was incredibly excited when I heard that Kemmerer was going to give us Rev’s story in this book. He’s such a big part of Letters To The Lost and you can’t help but wonder about his past while reading … I just knew that there was an amazing story to be told there, and Kemmerer didn’t disappoint.
Rev is known as the weirdo at school. Underneath the hoodies and quiet demeanor, there are scars and demons fighting to get out, but Rev is determined to share neither. His adoptive parents are supportive and patient and understanding, but he worries about the lasting impacts his father will have on him… and when a letter arrives from the man who used his religion to support his actions, Rev doesn’t know what to do.
Emma Blue would love to spend all her time perfecting the online game she created… in fact she idolizes her father, a video game creator, to the extreme frustration of her mother. When a troll joins the game and starts harassing her, she isn’t sure who to turn to, and accepts it as just something she’ll have to deal with as a woman in programming. But that’s not the only thing that’s going on in her life. She’s struggling to connect with her best friend who seems to have completely different interests in life than her, and her parents are arguing more than ever.
When Rev and Emma meet by chance, they find it’s easier to share some secrets with strangers and quickly connect in unexpected ways. As Rev’s father continues to reach out and shake his confidence, and Emma’s troll escalates in ways she isn’t sure she can handle, they lean on each other and bond over their personal struggles.
If I had one complaint about this book, I suppose it would be that I felt like it crammed A LOT of issues into one story. That said, I don’t think it ruined the story in any way for me, it just felt like these kids were dealing with a lot and in turn, as readers we were also dealing with a lot!
Rev of course was such an amazing character. I knew I was going to love him, I just wasn’t aware of how much I would. He’s one of those characters that you just want to shrink down and stuff into your pocket to pull out for a hug every once in a while. He’s been through so much in his short life and while you get hints of it in Letters to The Lost, finding out the true extent of it was just heartbreaking. Knowing that his adoptive family was so compassionate, and had so much love for him eased a bit of the hurt, but as Rev reveals more and more of himself through the story and you see those demons come back to haunt him, it was so lovely to see him connect with Emma in ways he couldn’t’ reach out to those in his family.
Emma on the other hand, had me struggling a little bit to like her. While I thought her struggles were absolutely relatable, I kind of felt like her attitude throughout the story made it hard to sympathize with her and connect. That said, I actually loved the progression of her relationship with Rev. It was wonderful to see them each leaning on each other and building those bonds that allowed them to reveal some of the secrets they couldn’t share with even their closest friends.
The story itself was riveting and interesting and had me turning pages as fast as I could. Despite the heavy nature of the story, I found that it wasn’t overwhelming in the least, only that I just wanted to know more and know what was going to happen next. Admittedly, I kind of figured out some of the stuff that was supposed to be a surprise early on, but honestly I don’t know if it was truly meant to be a surprise at all.
Kemmerer delves into adoption, friendship & family issues, abuse, and internet harassment and she does it in a way that will have you invested in her characters and what they are going through. This is such a beautifully told story, and in the end I’m so happy we got to know more about Rev.
If you were a fan of Letters to The Lost, I highly recommend picking this one up as soon as possible, and if you’re a fan of contemporary YA that deals with timely issues and characters you won’t be able to stop thinking about I highly recommend both this and LTTL.
Thank you to the publisher for an early copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
About Brigid Kemmerer
BRIGID KEMMERER is author of LETTERS TO THE LOST (Bloomsbury; April 4, 2017), a dark, contemporary Young Adult romance; THICKER THAN WATER (Kensington, December 29, 2015), a New Adult paranormal mystery with elements of romance; and the YALSA-nominated Elemental series of five Young Adult novels and three e-novellas which Kirkus Reviews calls “refreshingly human paranormal romance” and School Library Journal describes as “a new take on the supernatural genre.” She lives in the Baltimore area with her husband and four sons.
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