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A review by oddmara
True Story by Kate Reed Petty
3.0
I finished this book with a feeling of confusion. I also finished reading the last 2/3 of it in the same day after trying my best not to dnf it for its first 1/3.
First of all, I've never in my entire life read a more misleading synopsis for a story. The synopsis almost makes you believe that Nick and Alice have any kind of relationship when they've actually never met in real life. Nick isn't even a real person (I mean, he is, but not in the context presented in Alice's story), and it leads you to believe that this is a story happening during someone's teenage years when that is literally the shortest part of the story.
I honestly believe I would have been even more intrigued by the book if it had a synopsis that actually presented its story as it really is: the life of a woman being destroyed by something that might have happened to her, by a lie that might actually be the truth. Even when so much worse happens to her, especially her time with Q, being poisoned by him to force her to stay by his side, almost getting murdered by him, being cut off from all of her friends and family, the one that had the biggest impact on her, the one that she surrounds her entire narrative around, is something that she doesn't remember.
The uncertainty follows through the entirety of the book, and when we finally get to the reveal, to her finding out that nothing happened, that she wasn't raped, that it was all a rumour started by dumb teens (and even then, this account was given by Richard who is not a trusted source by any means), we feel that soul crushing pain that she feels: she'd lost and been through so much, allowed herself to suffer and grief and hurt for years, for something that has never happened.
In itself, the storytelling is amazing because it combines all these accounts of Alice's life and forces you to put the pieces together, and still leaves you with questions when it's done. It's a story within a story within a story. How much of Alice's narrative is real? How much of it was her coping through storytelling? We have no clue.
I think I would have loved this book.
Sadly, I didn't.
I loved absolutely everything I listed above, I do genuinely believe that it was such an amazing story and way of telling it, however I just couldn't empathise with Nick.
The main narrator of this story, the bystander to Alice's life and pain, an alcoholic idiot who might start to gain your sympathy later in the book, but whom I couldn't stand for the first third of it. And yes, story wise it made complete sense for Nick to be the narrator, an outsider looking in to Alice's story, a critique of the bystander syndrome and so on, but he was just so infuriating for such a long time that I genuinely thought I wasn't going to get through this book. Really, the only thing forcing me to push through is the fact that I'm a student and if I buy a book first hand I'll be damned if I won't read it.
Am I glad that I kept reading? Yes. I mean, even besides the student part, Petty's writing is gorgeous, and I was genuinely angry that I hated her character so much when all I wanted to do was keep reading her descriptions. However in different circumstances, I'm 90% sure I would have just given up on this book a lot earlier.
I think a lot of it comes from how much I loved the first chapter, the vulnerability, the description, Alice's problem with those damned mannequins, only to after that be thrown into the POV of a teenage boy who kept telling me for 100 pages that the main character was crazy and an attention seeker for believing she was raped. It's a bit of a striking contrast.
Which is why I ended up giving the book 3 stars. Middle ground for my love hate relationship with this book. Definitely worth the read but man do you have to have some strong willpower to push through. Or maybe not. Some people apparently loved Nick. To each their own I guess, I just really enjoyed this story of a girl's life told by emails and bystanders.
First of all, I've never in my entire life read a more misleading synopsis for a story. The synopsis almost makes you believe that Nick and Alice have any kind of relationship when they've actually never met in real life. Nick isn't even a real person (I mean, he is, but not in the context presented in Alice's story), and it leads you to believe that this is a story happening during someone's teenage years when that is literally the shortest part of the story.
I honestly believe I would have been even more intrigued by the book if it had a synopsis that actually presented its story as it really is: the life of a woman being destroyed by something that might have happened to her, by a lie that might actually be the truth. Even when so much worse happens to her, especially her time with Q, being poisoned by him to force her to stay by his side, almost getting murdered by him, being cut off from all of her friends and family, the one that had the biggest impact on her, the one that she surrounds her entire narrative around, is something that she doesn't remember.
The uncertainty follows through the entirety of the book, and when we finally get to the reveal, to her finding out that nothing happened, that she wasn't raped, that it was all a rumour started by dumb teens (and even then, this account was given by Richard who is not a trusted source by any means), we feel that soul crushing pain that she feels: she'd lost and been through so much, allowed herself to suffer and grief and hurt for years, for something that has never happened.
In itself, the storytelling is amazing because it combines all these accounts of Alice's life and forces you to put the pieces together, and still leaves you with questions when it's done. It's a story within a story within a story. How much of Alice's narrative is real? How much of it was her coping through storytelling? We have no clue.
I think I would have loved this book.
Sadly, I didn't.
I loved absolutely everything I listed above, I do genuinely believe that it was such an amazing story and way of telling it, however I just couldn't empathise with Nick.
The main narrator of this story, the bystander to Alice's life and pain, an alcoholic idiot who might start to gain your sympathy later in the book, but whom I couldn't stand for the first third of it. And yes, story wise it made complete sense for Nick to be the narrator, an outsider looking in to Alice's story, a critique of the bystander syndrome and so on, but he was just so infuriating for such a long time that I genuinely thought I wasn't going to get through this book. Really, the only thing forcing me to push through is the fact that I'm a student and if I buy a book first hand I'll be damned if I won't read it.
Am I glad that I kept reading? Yes. I mean, even besides the student part, Petty's writing is gorgeous, and I was genuinely angry that I hated her character so much when all I wanted to do was keep reading her descriptions. However in different circumstances, I'm 90% sure I would have just given up on this book a lot earlier.
I think a lot of it comes from how much I loved the first chapter, the vulnerability, the description, Alice's problem with those damned mannequins, only to after that be thrown into the POV of a teenage boy who kept telling me for 100 pages that the main character was crazy and an attention seeker for believing she was raped. It's a bit of a striking contrast.
Which is why I ended up giving the book 3 stars. Middle ground for my love hate relationship with this book. Definitely worth the read but man do you have to have some strong willpower to push through. Or maybe not. Some people apparently loved Nick. To each their own I guess, I just really enjoyed this story of a girl's life told by emails and bystanders.