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xkirstyreadsx's review against another edition
3.0
“Other people will always try to decide things for you.” She says. “They’ll try to tell you who you are. Remember, no matter what they say, you’re the one who really decides.”
I enjoyed this book! It was a hard read; the first part is told from the point of view of Sarah, a girl who is one of the first coloured students to integrate into an all white school. It features an almost excessive use of the n-word, so just a warning to anyone who is sensitive, this is a very hard read and it will make you angry, but it’s supposed to make you angry! I’m glad it made me angry.
The middle was a little slow in my opinion, it became a bit repetitive and Linda, the white girl Sarah had feelings for, was a very problematic character who took too long to figure out her beliefs weren’t right, that they weren’t her own, but her fathers. The end saved it, most definitely. It felt a little rushed, but both characters grew so much and it has an open ending, a positive ending, which is so rare in wlw fiction.
Over all, I enjoyed it and it was a book that managed to get me out of my reading funk!
I enjoyed this book! It was a hard read; the first part is told from the point of view of Sarah, a girl who is one of the first coloured students to integrate into an all white school. It features an almost excessive use of the n-word, so just a warning to anyone who is sensitive, this is a very hard read and it will make you angry, but it’s supposed to make you angry! I’m glad it made me angry.
The middle was a little slow in my opinion, it became a bit repetitive and Linda, the white girl Sarah had feelings for, was a very problematic character who took too long to figure out her beliefs weren’t right, that they weren’t her own, but her fathers. The end saved it, most definitely. It felt a little rushed, but both characters grew so much and it has an open ending, a positive ending, which is so rare in wlw fiction.
Over all, I enjoyed it and it was a book that managed to get me out of my reading funk!
katykelly's review against another edition
5.0
I think I knew I was hooked about half a page in, when I realised just what I was reading. I had trouble putting this down, even to make dinner or pick my son up from nursery.
Know the name Little Rock? Like me, you'll probably have heard of the school there that had the army stationed outside when the first black students arrived on the first day of integrated education there in 1957. This story starts just after this event, in 1959, with Sarah and her black classmates walking up to their new high school in Virginia, with policemen and protestors facing them. Quite an opening scene. And one you don't forget.
It brings it home just what the young people might have experienced in those early years of desegregation. Sarah is one of three seniors, one of ten of the smartest from her school chosen to lead the way after the NAACP have managed to push aside all legal challenges, to the horror and anger of a lot of their community and insist their children receive an education at the best-funded and regarded school in the area.
What happens next can make for incredibly uncomfortable and upsetting reading. Even today, with books and films galore protraying the era, the mindset we see here, it's the dual perspective of Sarah and Linda that helps hammer home both sides of the story. Sarah has a secret of her own that she tries to bury, doing her best to follow her parents' rules, trying to find the best way of dealing with shouts, threats, physical assaults and adult indifference. Linda is her polar opposite - the popular white girl, daughter to a well-regarded and vocal local newspaper editor spearheading the segregationist cause, brought up to think and talk like her father, without questioning.
Forced into the same classes, and then to work on a project together, Sarah and Linda have nothing but contempt for the other's opinions and backgrounds. But they may have more in common than they can know.
This is destined, I feel, to be both a big hit and a popular read for secondary school classes in History and English. An excellent insight into the era, the issues and the people involved, it's thoughtful, emotional and well written. The parallels between the two girls only slowly become clearer, as we see their home lives and families and how they question each other into seeing the truth. The other deeper issue that comes out is also well handled and the ending both sad and uplifting at the same time.
There is an informative note from the author at the end about how she came to write the book as well as reading notes for book groups (questions that help bring focus to the issues presented, a good list).
I could see this on the big screen, and on the KS3 curriculum in school. Excellent Young Adult writing. Bravo to you, Robin Talley. A book that needed to be written.
Review of a Netgalley advance e-copy.
Know the name Little Rock? Like me, you'll probably have heard of the school there that had the army stationed outside when the first black students arrived on the first day of integrated education there in 1957. This story starts just after this event, in 1959, with Sarah and her black classmates walking up to their new high school in Virginia, with policemen and protestors facing them. Quite an opening scene. And one you don't forget.
It brings it home just what the young people might have experienced in those early years of desegregation. Sarah is one of three seniors, one of ten of the smartest from her school chosen to lead the way after the NAACP have managed to push aside all legal challenges, to the horror and anger of a lot of their community and insist their children receive an education at the best-funded and regarded school in the area.
What happens next can make for incredibly uncomfortable and upsetting reading. Even today, with books and films galore protraying the era, the mindset we see here, it's the dual perspective of Sarah and Linda that helps hammer home both sides of the story. Sarah has a secret of her own that she tries to bury, doing her best to follow her parents' rules, trying to find the best way of dealing with shouts, threats, physical assaults and adult indifference. Linda is her polar opposite - the popular white girl, daughter to a well-regarded and vocal local newspaper editor spearheading the segregationist cause, brought up to think and talk like her father, without questioning.
Forced into the same classes, and then to work on a project together, Sarah and Linda have nothing but contempt for the other's opinions and backgrounds. But they may have more in common than they can know.
This is destined, I feel, to be both a big hit and a popular read for secondary school classes in History and English. An excellent insight into the era, the issues and the people involved, it's thoughtful, emotional and well written. The parallels between the two girls only slowly become clearer, as we see their home lives and families and how they question each other into seeing the truth. The other deeper issue that comes out is also well handled and the ending both sad and uplifting at the same time.
There is an informative note from the author at the end about how she came to write the book as well as reading notes for book groups (questions that help bring focus to the issues presented, a good list).
I could see this on the big screen, and on the KS3 curriculum in school. Excellent Young Adult writing. Bravo to you, Robin Talley. A book that needed to be written.
Review of a Netgalley advance e-copy.
dembury's review against another edition
3.0
An original and sharp book about desegregation in Virgina in 1959, and two young women whose lives are changing because of it.
The main characters, Sarah and Lydia, two bright young women who were engaging main characters. They both have strong opinions and are talented, and I think they were fleshed out well.
The main thing about "Lies We Tell Ourselves" that I didn't understand was the romance. It was barely a step above 'insta love', and the characters fell for each other surprisingly rapidly. I just don't see how it happened, especially so quickly.
I definitely think it could have been much shorter. For a 400+ page book I think quite a few of the scenes were dragged out, and there was far too much internal dialogue. There are stretches of text where characters will internally ask themselves questions and lay out situations, seemingly for the benefit of the reader, but it was a bit too much. I strongly believe Talley's ideas would have been more strongly emphasized if this book was more concise.
I think this is an interesting book, and well-researched! Personally, I just didn't connect with it fully, and believe it could be better if it was shorter.
The main characters, Sarah and Lydia, two bright young women who were engaging main characters. They both have strong opinions and are talented, and I think they were fleshed out well.
The main thing about "Lies We Tell Ourselves" that I didn't understand was the romance. It was barely a step above 'insta love', and the characters fell for each other surprisingly rapidly. I just don't see how it happened, especially so quickly.
I definitely think it could have been much shorter. For a 400+ page book I think quite a few of the scenes were dragged out, and there was far too much internal dialogue. There are stretches of text where characters will internally ask themselves questions and lay out situations, seemingly for the benefit of the reader, but it was a bit too much. I strongly believe Talley's ideas would have been more strongly emphasized if this book was more concise.
I think this is an interesting book, and well-researched! Personally, I just didn't connect with it fully, and believe it could be better if it was shorter.
mehsi's review
5.0
Re-read 2021: 7 years later and I decided it was high time to re-read this one! This was an amazing read and I loved it just as much as I did when I read it almost 7 years ago (time flies!). It is wonderfully written, though at times hard because of the topic (racism) and the things that happen to the black people in the book. My heart broke for our group of teens and all they experienced. The shouting, the tripping, the spitting, and the violence. :( Next to racism there is also religion and figuring out your feelings/who you like, and that is not easy when While I wasn't always a fan of Linda, I did love her growth and seeing her change. Sarah was an interesting character, and just like Linda, she grew, changed.
The ending had me smiling and I wouldn't have minded two epilogues. One what we have now and the other featuring a few months later with Sarah and Linda.
Highly recommended!
-----------------------------------------------------
I have always been interested in this period in history, the day(s) that black people were able to go to school with white people (and later on also stores and other things). I haven't yet found a book like this one that talks about how it went. And sure it is fiction, but the author did their research, talked to people and more, so the base of the story will have truths. It was really interesting to see the situation from two sides. A black girl and a white girl, both telling their point of views on the situation. And that balances it, you see why white people did their things, why they thought like this. And mostly it is because of the parents, parents who kept telling their kids that black people are (insert a lot of stereotypes) and that they should avoid them. Add to that group pressure and the fear that you might get murdered because you are hanging around a black person, it is a complex situation, and the book really shows it clearly from both sides.
I really liked the 2 main characters and while it wasn't like from the beginning (it took a few chapters), in the end I really liked them and was cheering for them. Since not only were they in a country and time where hanging out together is not really sociably acceptable, they also had something else going on (not telling what, I will let you read about it).
They both had their good and bad sides. Both were convinced of their rights and they slowly started seeing it from the other side as well as the book progressed.
The truths/lies thing was something I liked. It was really creative to start with lies and end with truths. Because even though they said they were fine, they would be fine, they were lying. Things would happen and they wouldn't be fine, not until much later.
The book gave me goosebumps, good (as in something lovely happened) and also bad (as in something gruesome happened). There are quite a few situations that made me happy, and others that made me angry. Angry at people for being such racists, for being so horrendous just because someone has a different colour. Not looking at them individually but looking at them as one unit, black, white, yellow and so on. Adults and children everyone was just positively horrendous at times. But thank Lord, there were people who were kind, who tried to help out, who tried to stop things.
I would truly recommend this book, everyone should read this and I think it would fit perfectly at school when this period of time comes up for discussion.
Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/
Spoiler
you are both girls and you have two different skin types in a country and time where that isn't accepted.The ending had me smiling and I wouldn't have minded two epilogues. One what we have now and the other featuring a few months later with Sarah and Linda.
Highly recommended!
-----------------------------------------------------
I have always been interested in this period in history, the day(s) that black people were able to go to school with white people (and later on also stores and other things). I haven't yet found a book like this one that talks about how it went. And sure it is fiction, but the author did their research, talked to people and more, so the base of the story will have truths. It was really interesting to see the situation from two sides. A black girl and a white girl, both telling their point of views on the situation. And that balances it, you see why white people did their things, why they thought like this. And mostly it is because of the parents, parents who kept telling their kids that black people are (insert a lot of stereotypes) and that they should avoid them. Add to that group pressure and the fear that you might get murdered because you are hanging around a black person, it is a complex situation, and the book really shows it clearly from both sides.
I really liked the 2 main characters and while it wasn't like from the beginning (it took a few chapters), in the end I really liked them and was cheering for them. Since not only were they in a country and time where hanging out together is not really sociably acceptable, they also had something else going on (not telling what, I will let you read about it).
They both had their good and bad sides. Both were convinced of their rights and they slowly started seeing it from the other side as well as the book progressed.
The truths/lies thing was something I liked. It was really creative to start with lies and end with truths. Because even though they said they were fine, they would be fine, they were lying. Things would happen and they wouldn't be fine, not until much later.
The book gave me goosebumps, good (as in something lovely happened) and also bad (as in something gruesome happened). There are quite a few situations that made me happy, and others that made me angry. Angry at people for being such racists, for being so horrendous just because someone has a different colour. Not looking at them individually but looking at them as one unit, black, white, yellow and so on. Adults and children everyone was just positively horrendous at times. But thank Lord, there were people who were kind, who tried to help out, who tried to stop things.
I would truly recommend this book, everyone should read this and I think it would fit perfectly at school when this period of time comes up for discussion.
Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/
aepstone's review
5.0
Everyone in America should have to read this book. Stunning portrayal of a very important moment in American history -- and a complex look at issues that are still, unfortunately, all too relevant today.
amandastch's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
rwn_tree's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
aliena_jackson's review against another edition
3.0
There's something very problematic about a black girl falling in love with a racist white girl who made it her personal mission to harrass her, and didn't even change her opinions about integration by the end of the novel. While the writing was lovely, and I liked some of the writing devices, overall I was disgusted by the love interest.
I did like Sarah's arc where she came to be at peace with her sexuality. I also have this secret theory that Ennis is gay and that's why their kiss was so awkward. Maybe I'm wrong. Oh well.
I did like Sarah's arc where she came to be at peace with her sexuality. I also have this secret theory that Ennis is gay and that's why their kiss was so awkward. Maybe I'm wrong. Oh well.
peter_dawson's review
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5