Book Review of What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick

What I Thought Was True is the second of her three novels written by Huntley Fitzpatrick set in the same fictional town as the others and features cameos from characters from her first book.

The characters are deeply flawed and the relationship between the main characters is borderline dysfunctional. The narrator, Gwen, is deeply suspicious with good reason but to an extreme, not bothering to search for the truth. I often found myself wishing I could smack her upside the head and tell her she was being an idiot. Her love interest, Cass, made a lot of strange decisions in pursuing Gwen and her suspicions made it more difficult for him to do so.

The minor characters are also very flawed and everyone seems to make very stupid decisions. I wanted to yell at all the characters to pull their heads out of the asses. It was difficult to like the book until I finished it and realized that many characters we read about in novels are, though often slightly flawed, resemble the ideal more than the realistic. The characters in What I Thought Was True are characters that behave and react to situations more like real people would. As I read the novel a second time, I understood that more and it made the novel more enjoyable.

One thing I enjoyed about My Life Next Door and The Boy Most Likely To was that it wasn't a perfect situation with perfect people solving perfect problems. They were very complicated situations that many adults would have a difficult time sorting out, let alone teenagers. It wasn't a cookie cutter romance model of boy meets girl, they get together, they fight with a possible break up, and reconcile at the end. In What I Thought Was True, it was a case of deeply flawed, very realistic characters trying to navigate difficult situations and not necessarily making the best decisions.

It was well-written and realistic, but would not be everyone's cup of tea. The first time I read it would have garnered a much lower rating, but after the second reading I give this book:

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