Thank you, NetGalley and Putnam Books, for my advanced reader copy of How Can I Help You. This book is expected to be published July 18, 2023.

The Story

From the author of Looker comes this “compulsive and unforgettable novel” (Mona Awad) of razor-sharp suspense about two local librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined.

No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.

That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper—even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.

Taut and compelling, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession as these “transfixing dual female narrators” (Kimberly McCreight) hurtle toward a stunning climax.

My Thoughts

Truthfully, the premise of this book sucked me in based on the concept of two librarians. In my head, it was two older ladies who get into all this trouble, which would have been so cool. While still moderately cool, it was not two older ladies…

How Can I Help You was unnecessarily tense. It felt like the movie Gravity (and I’m fairly certain I’ve made this comparison in another book): You’re kind of on the edge of your seat the whole time but there isn’t really any sort of “stunning climax” to take you off the edge. It just kind of ends and you’re left exhausted and frustrated because the stress wasn’t worth it.

While Margo’s history is a thing, you never get into the why or the psychology behind it. It’s just kind of something that you’re supposed to accept and deal with. That was an issue for me.

I also had an issue with some of the timelines of the novel. While told sequentially from two different perspectives, there was some overlap and a lot of backtracking too. You’d read Margo’s story, and then pick up Patricia’s story from 3 days before and relive the same three days from a different perspective. It made the story feel redundant and unnecessary in places.

How Can I Help You had such promise, and it just didn’t deliver. I do believe that Laura Sims can write fairly well, so I’d be curious to see any future books she may create.

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