True Story by Kate Reed Petty

 

Star rating: 4.5/5

Thank you to Viking Books for this gifted copy! 

Summary:

Here's what we know: after a party, two high school lacrosse players drive a girl named Alice home, who is intoxicated and unconscious. Afterwards, rumors spread about whether or not they assaulted Alice that night. Alice remembers nothing from that car ride home, but those rumors take over her life, leading to bullying and a suicide attempt. Years later, many people's lives are still affected by those rumors, especially Alice's. Her friend, a filmmaker, has been pressuring her to tell her story, but how can she tell a story of an event she doesn't remember? 

Told in many different parts from different perspectives, this brilliant debut novel shows the longterm impacts of rumors and sexual assault. 

Review:

My mind is absolutely blown from this book. It is completely gripping, somehow simultaneously comical and terrifying. I both laughed and gasped out loud multiple times throughout reading. I finished it in just over a day because I could not put it down. The twists and turns constantly kept me guessing, dying to know what was going to happen next.  

Here's what I loved: this book makes Alice an unreliable narrator in a really unique way. Alice loves horror movies, has always wanted to write them. She is able to make sense of her world and the awful things that have happened to her through the lens of a writer and storyteller. However, fear has warped her perception of things. Just as she has always had to question what really happened to her, by the end of this book we as the reader are still questioning the same thing - what really happened here? How much of the story was created as a defense mechanism by Alice?

This book goes back and forth from Alice's perspective and Nick's, a friend of the lacrosse players who drove her home, an innocent bystander that night. By the end of the book, Nick's part in this story makes a lot more sense, but I still felt like a lot of his parts of the book were pretty pointless, senseless entertainment, very loosely tied to the main story. That for me is ultimately why I'm taking off half a star here. 

Overall, this book is nothing short of brilliant. It will mess with your head in the best way. I highly recommend for fans of books such as Verity, The Girl on the Train, and The Woman in the Window.