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A review by haleyelisereads
16thingsithoughtweretrue by Janet Gurtler
4.0
Janet Gurtler has done it again, she has written a novel that breaks your heart, makes you angry, makes you sad, but in the end teaches you multiple lessons about life.
16 Things I Thought Were True follows Morgan, who starts off as a character hard to like. A video of her dancing around in her underwear has gone viral, and she has now been shunned by everyone she knows and once called friend. Morgan doesn’t care too much though, all she needs is her 4,000+ twitter followers, and her internet friends right? But when Morgan’s mother gets sick, and she goes on a road trip with two people from work to meet her dad for the first time, Morgan will learn that maybe living in real life is better than living on the internet.
Janet’s new novel teaches some amazing lessons that I myself should start following. 16 Things I Thought Were True teaches the readers the importance of human interaction, and the importance of living and enjoying your life and not getting caught up in the technology and social media of things. 16 Things also teaches the importance of surrounding yourself with true, good friends instead of putting up with people who treat you badly. Those were just a few of the messages/lessons this novel personally taught me, but there were even a few more messages than that.
Now that I have read 2 books by Ms. Gurtler I can easily say that she writes some of the most realistic characters I have ever read. The characters in her novels are never perfect, they’re never overly brave, or confident, they have insecurities and they break down. I wish I could go back to when I was in my teens and read books by Ms. Gurtler, I think they would’ve comforted me, reading a character that was so similar to me, a character that wasn’t perfect, that broke down sometimes, compared to reading about characters that were fearless and almost perfect.
16 Things I Thought Were True is a YA novel, but I would recommend this to adults just as much, I believe any adult could read this novel and take something from it that will stick with them. This novel not only taught great life lessons, but it also had beautiful friendships, a sweet romance, family drama, amazing character growth, and so much more. Janet Gurtler is an amazing contemporary author, and anyone that enjoys works by Sarah Dessen or authors similar should check out her work.
16 Things I Thought Were True follows Morgan, who starts off as a character hard to like. A video of her dancing around in her underwear has gone viral, and she has now been shunned by everyone she knows and once called friend. Morgan doesn’t care too much though, all she needs is her 4,000+ twitter followers, and her internet friends right? But when Morgan’s mother gets sick, and she goes on a road trip with two people from work to meet her dad for the first time, Morgan will learn that maybe living in real life is better than living on the internet.
Janet’s new novel teaches some amazing lessons that I myself should start following. 16 Things I Thought Were True teaches the readers the importance of human interaction, and the importance of living and enjoying your life and not getting caught up in the technology and social media of things. 16 Things also teaches the importance of surrounding yourself with true, good friends instead of putting up with people who treat you badly. Those were just a few of the messages/lessons this novel personally taught me, but there were even a few more messages than that.
Now that I have read 2 books by Ms. Gurtler I can easily say that she writes some of the most realistic characters I have ever read. The characters in her novels are never perfect, they’re never overly brave, or confident, they have insecurities and they break down. I wish I could go back to when I was in my teens and read books by Ms. Gurtler, I think they would’ve comforted me, reading a character that was so similar to me, a character that wasn’t perfect, that broke down sometimes, compared to reading about characters that were fearless and almost perfect.
16 Things I Thought Were True is a YA novel, but I would recommend this to adults just as much, I believe any adult could read this novel and take something from it that will stick with them. This novel not only taught great life lessons, but it also had beautiful friendships, a sweet romance, family drama, amazing character growth, and so much more. Janet Gurtler is an amazing contemporary author, and anyone that enjoys works by Sarah Dessen or authors similar should check out her work.