Tell Us Something True
'I promise you'll fall in love with River Dean.' E. Lockhart
-
- USD 4.99
-
- USD 4.99
Publisher Description
Seventeen-year-old River doesn’t know what to do with himself when Penny, the girl he adores, dumps him. He lives in LA, where nobody walks anywhere, and Penny was his ride; he never bothered getting a license. He’s stuck. He’s desperate. He’s lonely.
One afternoon he does the unthinkable - he starts walking, and stumbles on a support group for teens with addictions. He fakes his way into the meetings and begins to connect with the other kids, but when he finds himself falling for one of the girls in the group a delightful comedy of errors ensues. River wants to tell the truth, but he can’t stop lying, and his tangle of deception may unravel before he learns how to handle the most potent drug of all: true love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Once again, Reinhardt (We Are the Goldens) shows a deep understanding of adolescent attitudes and emotions in this novel tracing 17-year-old River's recovery from a broken heart. The day River's girlfriend, Penny, breaks up with him, he feels stranded in more ways than one. Without Penny to give him a ride home, he walks the streets alone, and that's how he discovers the sign advertising "a second chance." Intrigued, River joins the Second Chance group's meeting, thinking he has found kindred spirits, but it turns out that the group's members are struggling with various addictions. Rather than leave, River pretends he has a drug problem, a mistake readers will recognize as the beginning of his downfall long before the lie creates a mess of trouble. More than preaching the virtue of honesty, the book focuses on River's growing self-awareness, his coming to terms with his failed relationship, his too-passive nature, and how his father's abandonment has affected him. Intelligent and ironic, the narrative resounds with honesty, even as River himself is quite successful at inventing little white lies. Ages 14 up.
