Sophie had been fighting nap time for forty minutes - screaming, throwing her stuffed bunny, the whole performance - and when she finally crashed, I didn't even move from the rocking chair. Just put in my earbuds and started this book. And then didn't get up for two hours because I was frozen in place, partly afraid to wake her and partly because Lucinda Berry had me by the throat.
One of Our Own is under four hours. I finished it in two sittings. For me, that's basically a one-day read, which almost never happens unless I'm ignoring laundry (I was) and letting Lucas watch an extra episode of Bluey (I did). No regrets.
The Phone Call That Wrecked Me
Here's the setup: Felicia is a single mom, a lawyer, and she volunteers at a suicide prevention hotline in her small Wisconsin town. One shift, she picks up a call from a teenage girl - frantic, crying, telling her she was sexually assaulted at a house party. And Felicia does something she shouldn't. She breaks protocol. She starts communicating with this girl directly, off the books, trying to protect her and figure out who did this.
The opening scene with that recorded phone call? It hit differently sitting in a dark nursery with a sleeping toddler. The rawness of it, the clinical detail that Berry brings from her background as a psychologist - she knows exactly how these conversations sound, the pauses, the way someone circles around the worst thing before they can say it out loud. It set a tone that never let up.
That unflinching eye of hers is exactly why Berry's Perfect Child wrecked me just as hard.But here's the thing that got me as a mom specifically: the slow realization that someone close to Felicia might be involved. That creeping dread of "wait, no, not THAT person" - Berry drags you through it the way only a parent's worst nightmare can be dragged out. The text exchanges between Felicia and the girl feel uncomfortably real, like reading someone's actual phone over their shoulder.
Yeah, I Saw It Coming (And I Didn't Care)
Okay, full honesty. I figured out the twist pretty early. Maybe a third of the way in? And I know some people ding thrillers hard for being predictable, and that's fair. If you need a jaw-on-the-floor revelation to feel satisfied, this might frustrate you.
But here's my take: knowing where it was headed didn't make it less painful. Actually, it made it worse. Because I was watching Felicia piece together what I already suspected, and her denial, her bargaining, her desperate hope that she was wrong - that's the real story. This isn't a whodunit. It's a what-do-you-do-when-you-find-out. And as someone who spends every waking hour trying to protect three small humans from a world that's frankly terrifying? That moral dilemma hit like a truck.
The whole single-mom, protect-your-kid-at-all-costs thread reminded me of One Plus One - totally different vibe, same punch to the gut.The secondary characters could've used more depth - the other people involved in the assault are basically sketches. I wanted to understand more about the community dynamics, the way a small town protects its own. Berry gestures at it but doesn't dig in the way she could have with another couple hours of story.
A.J. Cook Earned Her Keep
A.J. Cook (yes, from Criminal Minds, and somehow that tracking feels right for this material) narrates Felicia's chapters, and Tessa Albertson handles the girl's perspective. The dual narrator setup works beautifully here because the power dynamic between adult and teenager IS the story. Cook's voice carries this exhausted authority - she sounds like a mom who's held it together all day and is now holding it together on this call through sheer willpower. Albertson sounds genuinely young and scared, not like an adult doing a "teen voice," which is a pet peeve of mine.
The two perspectives alternate cleanly, and because it's an audio original (not adapted from a print book), the pacing was built for listening. No bloated descriptions, no chapters that feel like filler. Everything moves. Survived 47 pauses and still made sense - and that's saying something for a thriller where you need to track who knows what.
Who This Is For (And a Heads Up)
Content warning before I wrap up: sexual assault of a minor, suicidal ideation, domestic violence. This is not a cozy read. I would not listen to this one with kids in earshot, even at low volume. I specifically saved this for after bedtime.
If you're a mom and you want a thriller that will wreck you in under four hours - this is it. If you need your twists to be completely unpredictable, temper your expectations. But the emotional gut-punch? That lands regardless.
Car Time Approved, But Maybe Bring Tissues
I finished the last thirty minutes during my sacred garage-sitting time and had to spend an extra five minutes composing myself before walking inside to referee the dinner chaos. Made me think about my own kids, about how fiercely we try to control their world, and how absolutely powerless we really are. Not groundbreaking in concept, but Berry's clinical background gives the trauma portrayal a weight that most thrillers skip right over. I finished this during nap time. High praise. And I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.
