I had no clue what to expect. I mean, it's not a book filled with witches and wizards or sexy vampires. It's a book about a girl and a boy and the challenges they face. It's dark, but not in a Tim-Burton-darkness. It's dark in a real life way. All The Truth That's In Me is about two girls that go missing and 4 years later one returns. Judith didn't come back the same little girl she was when she left. Judith comes back silent, her tongue cut out and the truth buried with it.
All she can do is silently pour out her thoughts, as if reading her journal, we see life through her eyes. The cruel way she is treated from those in her community because "who's she going to tell anyways" ... the love she has for her childhood friend Lucus ... and the way her mother treats her because she is embarrassed by what happened.
However, after all the time she has spent learning to be invisible, just as her mother taught her, an attack breaks out at Roswell Station and only one man can help. Can Judith dare to bring him back with all the pain and horror? And what would be the consequences if she did?
All the Truth That's in Me is a dark and chilling tale of abuse and secrets, of love and loss, and of silence and courage. Its second person narration was one so unique and almost lyrical, with a rhythm and a kind of music I've never read before. Each chapter is usually only half a page long, sometimes less. It keeps with the way Judith might think, in short sequences. She's a very calculating kind of person. She seems to always see deeper than others, as if her lack of speech opened her eyes and ears to a far more intricate world only she can see and the narration portrayed it wonderfully.
As you go on this journey with Judith, you can't help but know the characters in this book so intimately. You really have a chance to fall in love with the people she loves and hate the ones she hates. This book had you guessing the whole time and you can't put it down until you put the whole puzzle together.
In the end, I was surprised by how much I liked this book. There was no fluff and the story was something that could happen in our world today. (But don't worry. There was still the hot guy.) I would recommend this book to anyone 17+. There is more mature content to the book but the writing was amazing. Bravo Julie Berry Bravo.
Keep reading if you want to know more about what this book is all about.
Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family. Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home, silently pouring out her thoughts to the boy who's owned her heart as long as she can remember--even if he doesn't know it--her childhood friend, Lucas. But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light, and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around her, forever.
Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal
A 2014 Edgar Award nominee for YA
A YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Top Ten title
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2013 and 2014 "Battle of the Books" contender
A Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book for 2013
A Horn Book Fanfare 2013 title
A 2014 TAYSHAS Top Ten Pick
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