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A review by emjrasmussen
To Be Perfectly Honest: A Novel Based on an Untrue Story by Sonya Sones
How can you tell if Colette is lying?
Well, it is pretty obvious.
After reading this book's synopsis, I was looking forward to a psychological story with a misleading atmosphere. I wanted to be kept guessing, searching for honesty, not knowing what to believe. But this is not what To Be Perfectly Honest delivers.
Colette's story reads just like any other, aside from a few untrue tangents jutting out from the plot and concluding with a confession of the fib and a return to the main storyline. Pointing out where the truth stops and the lies begin is a task so painfully easy that readers will be slightly offended when the narrator asks them whether or not they believed her little story because no, they did not. Her lies are flimsy, her tales transparent, and her narration does not touch the unreliability I craved.
Even more annoyingly, all her biggest untruths relate exclusively to her romance with Connor, which grows tiresome and hinders the reader's ability to see any aspect of her life other than the romantic one. This lack of variety when it comes to Colette's lies gives her a single-minded quality that does not evolve for many chapters. She drops everything for the boy she loves, complaining about how nothing can be fun without him and canceling any plans that conflict with meeting him. Seemingly unable to focus her energy on more than one thing at a time, she crushes the idea that To Be Perfectly Honest will be a book full of disorienting distrust, and it instead becomes a regular romance with a plain protagonist.
For the first half of the book, I could only think about the aforementioned annoyances, and I poked at every one, ready to write a critical review about everything that bothered me. However, about halfway through the book, something shifts.
As soon as Connor's secret mentioned in the summary comes into play, everything begins to look up. He is hiding mysteries of his own, but they are not what they initially seem. They charge the subsequent events with emotion, even making the somewhat unrealistic ending seem acceptable to readers who are cheering passionately for their protagonist. They aid Colette's development, and although she never becomes a vastly detailed character, at least her simplicity is focused not on a destructive relationship, but on a positive goal sparked by the fire that burns her.
Going into more detail on this would give away more than I should share, but readers who are struggling to get through the first half of To Be Perfectly Honest should know that things do improve. The conclusion is a little too good to be true and it does not nearly negate all the annoyances, but it is sweet, funny, and empowering, leaving readers with a smiling final impression. This book begins as a pain to push through, but the creative conclusion fades the glaring negatives, leaving them partially forgotten and making To Be Perfectly Honest a solidly okay story.
This review originally appeared at www.foreverliterary.blogspot.com.
Well, it is pretty obvious.
After reading this book's synopsis, I was looking forward to a psychological story with a misleading atmosphere. I wanted to be kept guessing, searching for honesty, not knowing what to believe. But this is not what To Be Perfectly Honest delivers.
Colette's story reads just like any other, aside from a few untrue tangents jutting out from the plot and concluding with a confession of the fib and a return to the main storyline. Pointing out where the truth stops and the lies begin is a task so painfully easy that readers will be slightly offended when the narrator asks them whether or not they believed her little story because no, they did not. Her lies are flimsy, her tales transparent, and her narration does not touch the unreliability I craved.
Even more annoyingly, all her biggest untruths relate exclusively to her romance with Connor, which grows tiresome and hinders the reader's ability to see any aspect of her life other than the romantic one. This lack of variety when it comes to Colette's lies gives her a single-minded quality that does not evolve for many chapters. She drops everything for the boy she loves, complaining about how nothing can be fun without him and canceling any plans that conflict with meeting him. Seemingly unable to focus her energy on more than one thing at a time, she crushes the idea that To Be Perfectly Honest will be a book full of disorienting distrust, and it instead becomes a regular romance with a plain protagonist.
For the first half of the book, I could only think about the aforementioned annoyances, and I poked at every one, ready to write a critical review about everything that bothered me. However, about halfway through the book, something shifts.
As soon as Connor's secret mentioned in the summary comes into play, everything begins to look up. He is hiding mysteries of his own, but they are not what they initially seem. They charge the subsequent events with emotion, even making the somewhat unrealistic ending seem acceptable to readers who are cheering passionately for their protagonist. They aid Colette's development, and although she never becomes a vastly detailed character, at least her simplicity is focused not on a destructive relationship, but on a positive goal sparked by the fire that burns her.
Going into more detail on this would give away more than I should share, but readers who are struggling to get through the first half of To Be Perfectly Honest should know that things do improve. The conclusion is a little too good to be true and it does not nearly negate all the annoyances, but it is sweet, funny, and empowering, leaving readers with a smiling final impression. This book begins as a pain to push through, but the creative conclusion fades the glaring negatives, leaving them partially forgotten and making To Be Perfectly Honest a solidly okay story.
This review originally appeared at www.foreverliterary.blogspot.com.