The Truth About Jack
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4.2 • 12 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
"The Truth About Jack certainly ticked all the boxes for me. It was funny and sweet and romantic and left me with the warm glowies after I’d finished it." -Claire, Book Blog Bird
Dakota McCloud has just been accepted into a prestigious art school. Soon she’ll leave behind the artists’ colony where she grew up—hippie dad, tofu since birth, yurt—and join her boyfriend and best friend on the East Coast. It was the plan…until Dakota finds out her boyfriend and best friend hooked up behind her back.
Hurt and viciously betrayed, Dakota pours out her heart on a piece of paper, places it in a bottle, and hurls it into the ocean. But it doesn’t quite go where she expects…
Jack Sauvage finds the bottle washed up on the shore and responds to Dakota’s letter. Except what if his straight-laced life doesn’t jive with the free-spirited girl he’s only seen from afar? As Jack creates a persona he believes she’ll love, they slowly fall for each other with each new letter. Now Jack is trying to find a way to make this delicate, on-paper romance happen in real life…without revealing his deception.
Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains references to missed connections, mistaken identities, and lots of misbehavior. It may give you all the swoony feels.
Customer Reviews
Light, Fun. Nice Epilogie, no Cliffs.
THE TRUTH ABOUT JACK
by Jody Gehrman
April 15, 2015
Publisher: Entangled: Crush
192 pages, approximately
Romance: Contemporary, YA
** Provided by Netgalley in Exchange for an Honest Review. **
-- MY THOUGHTS --
Judging a Book by it's Cover:
Cute cover with a light-hearted feel. Synopsis reads like a typical YA/NA feel-good drama.
Looking Deeper:
First-person alternating POV in present tense. Dakota grew up in an artist/ hippie community. She's vibrant, caring and not as naive as one would imagine her to be. Jack comes from money. His mother shelters and represses him due to a past tragedy she'd never gotten over. Both characters are young, barely old enough to start college in the fall, but he's already lost his best friend to suicide and she's suffered the ultimate betrayal from her boyfriend and best friend.
Dakota composes a message in a bottle and tosses into the ocean, only unbeknownst to her, it is found only moments later by Jack. Jack first caught sight of Dakota earlier that day and was immediately drawn to her. When he spots her bottle churning in the tide, he takes it as fate. However, he replies to her message under false pretenses and begins a pen pal-ship that is based only on half-truths. Now he needs to figure out how to transition from his pen pal character to the real Jack without ruining everything.
The characters are young. They both have some maturing and learning to do, especially Jack - but I blame a lot of that on his mother, too. There are several secondary characters in this story, all which seem to benefit the plot in one way or another without threatening to steal the spotlight. There's a natural and easy way about the dialogue and interaction that was nice, even the intentional awkwardness was conveyed well. While the plot progresses slow and steady, the writing style is fluid and easy to read. There were a handful of conflicts that were resolved in timely and age-appropriate manners. Predictability was low. The conclusion included a solid epilogue that added to the story nicely. Overall, a it was a fun, light read catering more to the teen and young adult crowd.
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Heat Level: 1.5
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Score: 4.1
Stars: 4
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-- ABOUT the AUTHOR --
Jody Gehrman is a native of Northern California, where she can be found writing, teaching, reading, or obsessing over her three cats most days. She is also the author of ten novels and numerous award-winning plays. Her Young Adult novels include The Truth About Jack, Audrey's Guide to Black Magic, Audrey's Guide to Witchcraft, Babe in Boyland, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty, and Triple Shot Bettys in Love. Babe in Boyland was optioned by the Disney Channel and won the International Reading Association's Teen Choice Award. Her adult novels are Bombshell, Notes from the Backseat, Tart, and Summer in the Land of Skin. Her plays have been produced in Ashland, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and L.A. She and her partner David Wolf won the New Generation Playwrights Award for their one-act, Jake Savage, Jungle P.I. She is a professor of English and Communication Studies at Mendocino College.
-- REVIEWED BY --
Tina J / Happily Ever Chapter
Reviewing for:
Tangled Hearts and Boxer Briefs
and
Smut Book Junkie Reviews