Title- The Kindest Lie
Book of the Month Selection
Rating– 3/5
Genre- Contemporary, Women’s Fiction
POV- Third person, past tense
Trope- Racism, Motherhood, Family dynamics/relationships, Society- based topics
Similar Books/Comps– The Push, Trust, How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
Emotions– Ah, Ruth’s grandma drove me crazy!
Characters–
Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager but her husband wants children of their own. He doesn’t know her past.
Midnight- a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection
Plot/Blurb-
Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.
Best part-
When she found what she was searching for
What I’d change-
The climax was a bit anti-climatic.
Quote-
“…a lifetime of lies never added up to anything good. A lifetime of doing the wrong things for the right reason. A lifetime of lies that started small, like a nick in the windshield, then eventually shattered the glass.”
Pacing- Slow
Cassie Swindon 