*Blog Tour* Book Review: Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers


Title: Truest
Format: eArc
Pages: 384
Published: 1st Sept 2015
Publisher: Kathrine Tegen Books
Source: YA Reads Blog Tours
Genre:  YA Contemporary
Shelfability: Acquire
Buy:  Amazon UK / Amazon US
About The Book
Silas Hart has seriously shaken up Westlin Beck's small-town life. Brand new to town, Silas is different than the guys in Green Lake. He's curious, poetic, philosophical, maddening-- and really, really cute. But Silas has a sister-- and she has a secret. And West has a boyfriend. And life in Green Lake is about to change forever.



Truest is a stunning, addictive debut. Romantic, fun, tender, and satisfying, it asks as many questions as it answers.

Truest is a wonderful YA contemporary debut. It's a wonderful coming of age tale that deals with friendships, romances and mental health. It's a fantastic read that truly captivates the reader and before you know it, it is 2am and you are still reading because the book is that good.

West has big plans for summer. Hanging out with her best friend  Trudy and boyfriend Elliot. However, Trudy takes a job at summer camp and Elliot decides to work full time at his family's farm to save for a car, leaving West feeling alone. That is until she meets Silas Hart and his twin sister Laurel. They are new to her small town but they shake up her life in a big way, changing everything.

Straight away I found myself completely enthralled by this story. Now West I did struggle to like her. She is such a selfish character at times but then I remember what I was like at 17 and yeah I was the same! Her relationship with her father is a tense one. He Pastor and is there for everyone else but not his family. And West is starting to hate that. When she meets Silas her world is turned upside down. Silas I loved! He is adorable, smart and dorky. The chemistry between Silas and West is sizzling. Even though West has a boyfriend, the more time she spends with Silas, the more she starts to fall in love him. It's not an instalove. It's a slow builder which makes it all the more believable. The relationship between Silas and his sister is very very tense. He loves her so much and is very protective of her. However, there are times when he is so frustrated with her. Laurel is such an interesting character. She is beautiful and smart but she hides a secret from the outside world

Truest is a very fast read. I couldn't help being gripped. The author manages to create a fantastic coming of age story that deals with so many things such as love, finding yourself, dealing with family relationships. All these things are done wonderfully. However, it's the darker side of the story that truly had me drawn in.  Any author who tackles mental health gets a big thumbs up in my opinion and to do it in such a way that has the readers with questions and making them learn is outstanding. I won't go into details because I think you should just go and read this one yourself!

I highly recommend Truest. It's a fun and fast read with adorable characters but has a darker side. Just have a hanky close by!! If you are like me and you cry at books then you'll need a few because I felt like my heart was being ripped out. Such a lovely book and it flowed just beautifully. I can't wait to read more from this author.


Jackie Lea Sommers lives and loves and writes in Minnesota, where the people are nice and the Os are long. She is the 2013 winner of the Katherine Paterson Prize. She dislikes OCD, horcruxes, and Minnesota winters. She likes book boyfriends, cranky teenagers, and Minnesota springs. Truest is her first novel.


It didn’t take long to confirm that Silas was absolutely crazy.
One morning he showed up at my house wearing an honest-to-goodness windbreaker suit straight out of the nineties: purple, mint green, and what is best described as neon salmon. I curbed a grin while Silas gathered our detailing supplies from my garage. “What?” he deadpanned. “What are you staring at?”
“Your windbreaker is just so …”
“Fetching?” he interjected. “Voguish? Swanky?”
“Hot,” I said, playing along. “The nineties neon just exudes sex appeal.”
“Well, I thought so myself.”
And after the sun was high in the sky and the pavement was heating up, he took off the windsuit, revealing shorts and a New Moon T-shirt beneath, Edward Cullen’s pale face dramatically printed across the front. “Vader’s competition,” he said, shrugged, and started vacuuming the floors of the Corolla left in our care.
He also talked about the strangest things: “Can you ever really prove anything? How?” or “I read about this composer who said his abstract music went ‘to the brink’—that beyond it lay complete chaos. What would that look like? Complete chaos?” or “You know how in Shakespeare Romeo says, ‘Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized’? He’s talking about his name, but baptism’s bigger than that; it has to be. It’s about identity, and wonder, and favor, you know?” or “A group of moles is called a labor; a group of toads is called a knot. Who comes up with this stuff? It’s a bouquet of pheasants, a murder of crows, a storytelling of ravens, a lamentation of swans. A lamentation of swans, West!”
One morning I was late coming downstairs, and Shea got to Silas first. The two of them sat drinking orange juice on the front steps and discussing Shea’s question of whether fish have boobs. “I think,” Silas said, sounding like a scholar, “they do not, since they’re not mammals. But mermaids do, since they’re half-fish, half-mammal.”
“Mermaids aren’t real though,” Shea said, the tiniest bit of hope in his voice that Silas would prove him wrong.
“Who told you that?” said Silas sternly.
“You think they’re real?” Shea asked.
“I can’t be sure,” Silas said, “but I might have seen one when I used to live in Florida. Probably best not to jump to any conclusions either way.”
Behind me, Libby giggled. Silas glanced at us over his shoulder through the screen door and grinned. “Libby,” he said, “what do you say? Mermaids, real or not?”
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions either way,” my shy sister said, then turned bright red.
“Smart girl,” said Silas.
That afternoon, Silas and I sat in the backseat of a dusty Saturn, trading off the handheld vacuum as we talked—or rather, shouted—over its noise. I ran the hand-vac over the back of the driver’s seat, while Silas said, “I used to think I was the only one with a crush on Emily Dickinson until a couple years ago.”
“You have a crush on Emily Dickinson?”
“Durr.”
“Did you just ‘durr’ me? Is that like a ‘duh’?”
He nodded as I handed him the Dirt Devil. “But then I read this book that says it’s a rite of passage for any thinking American man. And then I read a poem called ‘Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes.’”
Just the title made me blush; I averted my eyes to focus on the vacuum’s trajectory.
Silas, unruffled, sighed unhappily.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning, chancing a glance at him.
“I finally made it into the backseat with a girl,” Silas cracked, looking hard at the Dirt Devil. “This is not all I was hoping it would be.”
I slugged him in the arm, and his wry smile gave way to laughter.



One signed and annotated hardcover of Truest    

 
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