If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood Kindle Edition

I don’t know how the author managed to delve deeply enough into such a horrifying situation to write a book about it. My stomach was in a knot the whole time I was attempting to read it. (I couldn’t get through it.)Just gut-wrenching.Exceptionally well written, but just too painful. Reads like a novel. If only.HOT TIP: If others on your Amazon account also get a First Reads book, you can “share” through your family library and get access to multiple free books!SECOND HOT TIP: If you have kids, I very strongly recommend you get this month’s First Reads children’s book, This Book is Gray. It’s the best First Reads book I’ve ever come across. And an antidote to the horror of this one.

I received this book free from Amazon Kindle, as part of the Prime First Reads program. This is my honest and voluntary review.This book is the true story of the horrors that 3 sisters survived & 3 others did not. It is full of evil and is difficult to read. From a sociological & psychological perspective, it is a book that many may read, simply because they want there to be a definitive point where the abuser & murderer becomes what they are. I've worked with children like S. K. (I refuse to use her name to bring more attention to her), they are absolutely convinced that they have never done anything wrong. It's always someone else at fault. They have not done anything to deserve where they are in life. Things would have continued, as they caused destruction of other's will to live, to be safe, to be loved. Abusers can twist every feeling & memory. They can convince others that the abuse they suffer is their own fault. My thoughts and prayers are with the young women & the families of those who died. I wish I had not read this book. I will have nightmares myself & I did not have to live through life with this horror.

I am in my 50's and have been telling my story for the first time ever in therapy. I relate to understanding yet not understanding why I didn't seek help or why I stayed loyal, feeling obligated to "not wanting to hurt" my parents by letting out the secret. I have been moving from victim to survivor through engagement in intense (and many times scary) therapy sessions. I am grateful to have support from 1 of my 3 siblings who also acknowledges the crazy childhood. Though this book was intermittently intense to read, I know that others would understand my story. Thank you Nikki, Sami and Tori for sharing. RIP Kathy, Shane and Ron.

Kept shaking my head thru this book. How can a person, a mother too, be so cruel and to her own family along with others. And to think, this happened about 30 miles from where I live! Love Gregg Olsen books, true or not, but the true ones really get to me.

Shelly was Sadistic, Dark and Vengeful from the time she was a young girl and it carried on as an adult and sadly as a Mother as well. Could her Sadistic personality disorder been inherited from her Grandmother? You Can't Put this Book Down but at times you don't want to read anymore! Gregg Did a great job, hooking the reader right from the beginning and he takes you on an emotional roller coaster through tragedies and the lives of three sisters and their Mother Shelly. Fantastic True Life Crime that takes place in Washington State!

I had no idea that this book would go into such morbid detail. Nor can I understand who this book was directed at? I read less than one quarter of it, trying to see where it was leading, but it just rambled on and on including every horrible act that any person could ever do to another human being. Adults who saw what was happening but chose to do nothing and were then surprised when more terrible things happened? Right! (I.e., A teenager just for the attention, falsely accuses her father of raping her. And then the father, when proven innocent, and who was supposedly devastated, just drops the whole episode and continues to think of her and treat her as his "special little princess" - even as he watches her grow older and lie about and physically abuse others, including (and especially) her own children. She goes through three "shy, caring and once wonderful" (!) husbands who end up being afraid of her too, and they also watch her brutally torture, and actually end up helping her abuse their children. And then there's the mother of this insane women, who witnessed all this but just wasn't sure exactly what to do to stop everything! It's crazy!) I believe the author - that the story is actually true. I believe that there are ignorant irresponsible insane people in the world. But I do not need to read page after page of details of those who allow insane people to destroy the lives of innocent children year after year. It's those who stand by and allow this kind of torture to continue that are the real criminally insane in my opinion. For what it's worth, the writing/grammar in the book itself was way below par. But maybe it's to be expected from the level of education of someone who would hope to make a profit from this kind of "entertainment." Don't waste your time or money. I regret that this book exists for those who are already sick and might be searching for this kind of brutal imagery.

It is not a well written book as some reviews suggest, I got so bored reading the repetitive sentences that went on and on... The story of the abuse that people around Shelly suffered is just terrible but then there’s the step mother who seems to be trying to do something but really doesn’t do much apart from the occasional calls and visits, the rest of the family (father, half sister, two ex-husbands...) know that Shelly is a psychopath but choose to stay away, a husband that is a “good guy” but keeps helping the psychopath to kill people, two older daughters who suffered so much, living with the monster but leave their little sister in their crazy mother’s hands and not just that but even when they are adults carry on covering for their mother’s murders (Nikki half heartedly tried to reveal it all) and also stay away most of the time... I don’t want to sound heartless and obviously it is very difficult for someone like me to understand what these people had to go through but really wasn’t there even person who could just stop that woman and helped at least Tori and Ron????? Again don’t want to sound harsh but I think Shelly did everything she could because she was surrounded by a lot of people (stepmother and father, husband, two grown up daughters, co workers...) who only thought of themselves and how to get away from that monster, if they all got together and persisted she would be behind the bars long before Mac died. Anyway I regret buying this book, all I got out of this book is a boring read and the knowledge that there are so many selfish people in the world who would let monsters like Shelly and her grandmother Anna to walk free and think about their peace and quite and only pretend that they are helpful. I am so disgusted with the authorities and the school those girls went to that I don’t even know in what words to express as to how they failed so many people and they are just as much to blame as that sick woman Shelly.

This is a very interesting, well written and emotional book that centres on Michelle Knotek, the murderer. I personally found that it basically reads itself in so much that once you start reading you can effortlessly keep going. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys true crime especially for entertainment purposes (I mean if you don't like to personally research but prefer to have information presented in a nice little package).As someone who suffered psychological and some violent abuse at the hands of my parents and also as a qualified archaeologist, I don't think I would recommend this to people who specifically want to read historical non fiction (actually this was presented to me by kindle bookstore as historical fiction...) because I feel that in an attempt to manipulate the readers emotions even further, after a certain point (the arrival of Shane Watson supposedly 1988 according to the book) the dates of the events are kept purposely vague so that the children seem younger perhaps so that certain aspects of their behaviour makes sense when otherwise it doesn't.Also some subjective opinions are repetitively presented as undeniable facts.I gave this book four stars because I really do think that it is well written and very readable. It definitely is worth a read if you want to know what it's like to live with an abusive, narcissistic mother while the world outside remains oblivious. Reading this certainly made me appreciate living in an overpopulated city where certain things would have been noticed more easily.

I didn't realise when I purchased this book that it was based on real events. It was beyond understanding that people like Shelly exist. What I really could not understand was how horrific events such as those described took place often in the open, without anyone witnessing them. To some extent it felt embroidered in the worse way possible. It is not an autobiography or biography but written by a a fiction writer and I was often left wondering about the authenticity of it. I hated it. The book was far too long.

The best book Gregg Olsen has ever written. It's the fifth I've read by him and I've usually been pretty disappointed as his proofreaders or editors have done an atrocious job, but this one is WAY better presented altogether. I see it's been a few years since he wrote a true crime book so the break's done him the world of good as this one is fascinating. I did dither a little over selecting it as my Kindle First choice for the month, but I'm pleased I gave him this "last chance" !!It's not a case that ever reached us over here, and it is a pretty harrowing read. Shelly properly is a mother from hell. How on earth some people think up the things they do to other people leave me flabbergasted ! Especially as she's a mother. There is a happy ending, however.....her girls are all grown up and well away from her and I was happy to see it.I had a lot of time for Lara. She is probably the nicest person the girls have in their lives by a country mile. She took a lot on with her kids and Shelly seemed to be pretty damaged already by the time Lara encountered her. Her maternal family were a bunch of nutcases, so I guess she didn't stand a chance, really, though it'll never excuse her later behaviour. I also liked Shane a great deal. He was dealt a bloody awful hand himself....I liked Ron, too and his relationship with Tori was a sweet one.A couple of abuses Shelly committed actually made me wince.....none were pleasant, of course but she went beyond the pale. I had little time for her husband, either. Sadly, he lacked any backbone and always backed his wife up. He attempted to redeem himself later in life and was sort of accepted as a fellow victim by the author but I'm having none of it, I'm afraid.I suppose if you've never been in the position the sisters were in, you'll never "get" why they kept quiet or hung around once they were of age. Something Nikki said I highlighted, "I loved my mother because I didn't know I had a choice. I had to love her." I guess that speaks volumes in itself. Though one thing Nikki did I found unfathomable, I just couldn't figure out her reasoning for it. You'll know what I mean when you read it....An Alford plea was discussed in this book and I've read about this before, yet it still makes no sense to me in the least. It's a proper cop-out decision for any justice system and I'm always shocked when it's utilised to even think such a thing is in existence. I just Googled out of interest and thankfully we have nothing similar here in the UK. Good. I hope we never do.I did spot the odd apostrophe mistake and one massive spelling howler, using waived and not waved (!!) but this is really a huge, huge improvement in this author's presentation and now I can take him off my sh**list for future books.

This book is poorly written and the subject matter very disturbing. It seemed like the author simply strung together a collection of the heinous acts of torture and violence inflicted upon the children and others in this story. It felt like it was written by an amateur, very simplistic language. Just pass on this one.