Hooper says in her dedication, "This book is for all those people -- cowardly and courageous -- who dare to imagine leaving it all behind." Do you see Emily’s decision to flee New York after 9/11 as impulsive? Or does it just become the unexpected final part of an escape she’s been contemplating for some time? Emily is a faulty character...( she runs away and changes her identity leaving her husband to think she died in 911. Did she run because she felt her entire life had been a lie ....and by living a REAL LIE, she felt as if she was living a more TRUTHFUL LIE? My favourite character was the largely mature thirteen year old Claire. I did think the ending was abrupt and wondered if that was a sign of another book to come with these characters. A thought provoking read about choices and consequences as well things in life we sometimes have no control over.

I went to see Dancing at Lughnasa at the National, which was so moving in such unexpected ways. The play works a strange kind of magic. At the end, I had tears streaming down my face and couldn’t quite explain why. It taps into something very primal about family and memory. Just as Emily is finally ready to make the choice between the two men, 9/11 splits the world apart. Amid this terrible tragedy, Emily sees an opportunity to remake herself. Sharon Horgan (Executive Producer at Merman) says: “It has been so great to bring Kim Hooper’s emotionally and morally complex novel to life via a drama podcast. Daniella’s adaptation and direction, along with a brilliant cast led by Rosamund and Hugh, bring you right into the mind of Connie and her battle with truth and lies. This is a series that will challenge your prejudices and invite you to ask, what would you do if you had the opportunity to run away?” And yet? I didn’t find it riveting. The main character is unsympathetic to a degree that I just couldn’t ever dig deep and care for her. And I couldn’t get past the idea of running away from your life, I’ve just never had that fantasy, and especially taking something as horrifically painful as the events of 9/11 and using them to disappear. The blurb asks what would you do? I believe I would face the music and deal with the choices that led me there. I have goodread friends who enjoyed this book but I'll be the outlier. I don't mind an unlikable character if I find the story itself well-written and compelling. But in this case the protagonist was so selfish I couldn't get past it, maybe because my husband and I are/have been caretakers of elderly parents. What she ultimately decided to do to her husband was unforgivable.I 'dig' this Southern California author. ( if she is coming to the Bay Area in June - hint hint- for the Bay Area Book Festival .. I'd love to hear her speak on this book) Starring Rosamund Pike and Hugh Laurie, Kyle Soller, Isabella Sermon and Alfred Enoch. The first audio drama from the makers of Bad Sisters, People Who Knew Me is a 10-part series, written and directed by Daniella Isaacs, adapted from the book by Kim Hooper. Well written, thought provoking and story telling that balanced the past and present stories with equal import and substance. This is quite a feat to maintain two story lines with equal weight, especially in a debut from such a young author, but Ms. Hooper does it remarkably well. Your sons speak fluent Mandarin and your whole family are fans of Chinese culture. Why the fascination? And herein lies Connie’s problem. She’s closed herself to everyone and everything. And now needs help.

Emily Morris got her happily-ever-after earlier than most. Married at a young age to a man she loved passionately, she was building the life she always wanted. But when enormous stress threatened her marriage, Emily made some rash decisions. That’s when she fell in love with someone else. That’s when she got pregnant. Without giving away the ending, it is not one of those books where everything at the end is neatly tied up in bows, but rather makes the reader think of what will happen to the characters in the future. I loved this book and strongly recommend it to anyone. It’s impossible not to wonder what would have been different had Connie stayed – admitting to the affair and everything else. Unfortunately, that piece wasn’t a big part of the novel. In fact, if I were to criticize author Kim Hooper, it would be in the way she glossed over how Emily was able to get a job, get paid, get insurance, etc. Young marriage... how much can even a 'in love' couple handle? work, (major loss), school, finances, ( major loss), planning a family?, sex, old friends, annoying habits, communication, stress, depression, chronic illness, chronic 'any' long term issue, cheating, lies.People Who Knew Me tells the story of a woman, Emily Morris, voiced by Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe & Emmy winner Rosamund Pike, who uses 9/11 to fake her own death and run away to start a new life in California as Connie Prynne. Big fan. I started with Catastrophe, then was delighted to find Motherland. And Bad Sisters was phenomenal and delicious. It was Sharon’s genius idea to option Kim Hooper’s novel and adapt it as audio drama. I think Sharon rightly saw that the story is all about lying and if you’re only listening, it almost becomes like eavesdropping. Fourteen years later, Connie Prynne is diagnosed with breast cancer. Now, with her thirteen-year-old daughter Claire by her side, voiced by Isabella Sermon, Connie must confront her past so that her daughter will not be alone if she does not survive. She must decide how to explain her lies, her secrets, her selfish decisions - and ultimately, her ‘widowed’ husband. Everything she thought she had fled from when she pretended to die in New York. I had my purse under one arm, an overnight bag under the other. To Angel Rivera, I must have looked like a woman committed to her career, flying off to a business meeting in Philadelphia or D.C. or Boston or some other place requiring just an overnight bag. Maybe he resented the tight bun on top of my head, the height of my heels, the obvious expense of my blouse and perfectly fitting skirt—the same blouse and skirt I’d worn the day before those buildings fell. He didn’t want to be there, driving around someone like me. He wanted to be home with the family I pictured him to have—a few kids and a wife who cleaned apartments or waited tables or worked as a nanny for women like me, overnight-bag-carrying women who left their loved ones for big-city meetings. He wanted to hold that family close because we’d all learned a week before that anything could happen.