All the Words We Know
By Bruce Nash
Atria, July 1, 2025, 240pp

The Short of It:

Dark with humor.

The Rest of It:

Rose may be in her eighties and suffering from dementia, but she’s not done with life just yet. Alternately sharp as a tack and spectacularly forgetful, she spends her days roaming the corridors of her assisted living facility, musing on the staff and residents, and enduring visits form her emotionally distant children and granddaughters. But when her friend is found dead after an apparent fall from a window, Rose embarks on an eccentric and determined investigation to discover the truth and uncover all manner of secrets…even some from her own past. ~ publisher

All the Words We Know surprised me. Rose is this sweet, charming lady whose grasp of the English language is slipping ever so slightly. Words like “elevator” become “relevator” and her interactions with the other residents are one-sided at best, and sometimes not even with the living!

But, she’s sharp. Very sharp, so when strange things begin to happen at the assisted living facility, she finds herself conducting her own investigation into what is going on. She befriends a trans employee who provides warnings, but are they REAL warnings or Rose’s imagination at work again?

I was intrigued by this story. Rose’s observations are colored by dementia but as the story comes together, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what the heck was going on and what was up with hat facility?

All of the players, the “angry” nurse, the “scare/care” manager, the nice boy with a mop, provide ways for the story to move forward without giving the entire plot away. Overall, I liked the story. Mostly I appreciated how unique it was. Getting used to Rose’s way of speaking took a bit of time but once I got used to it, the story flowed effortlessly.

Source: Review copy sent to me by the publisher.
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