All of This is True by Lygia Day Penaflor

Title: All of This is True
Author: Lygia Day Penaflor
Genre: Contemporary
Source: HarperCollins
Goodreads

Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to meet the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her, even if her friends won’t admit it now. As for Jonah, well—Miri knows none of that was Fatima’s fault.

Soleil Johnston wanted to be a writer herself one day. When she and her friends started hanging out with her favorite author, Fatima Ro, she couldn’t believe their luck—especially when Jonah Nicholls started hanging out with them, too. Now, looking back, Soleil can’t believe she let Fatima manipulate her and Jonah like that. She can’t believe that she got used for a book.

Penny Panzarella was more than the materialistic party girl everyone at the Graham School thought she was. She desperately wanted Fatima Ro to see that, and she saw her chance when Fatima asked the girls to be transparent with her. If only she’d known what would happen when Fatima learned Jonah’s secret. If only she’d known that the line between fiction and truth was more complicated than any of them imagined. . . .

Review by Nara

I found it kind of hard to rate this book because I'm not 100% sure that I liked it. I did end up going on the side of giving it the "liked" rating, but it was quite different from what I expected. I thought it would be much more of a mystery/thriller type of book but it ended up being a drama/scandal filled plot similar in nature to Big Little Lies.

Actually, I felt like the book would do quite well in a visual medium because of the way that it is written. It's written in transcript form, basically recording the interview between a reporter and the three characters Soleil, Penny and Miri. Interspersed between the interview are excerpts of the book that Fatima wrote, paralleling what was occurring in reality. I must admit, I didn't expect the big twist in the novel. The author does a pretty good job of foreshadowing it without revealing everything, so I had made a similar guess but with aspects of the events that I definitely didn't realise.

Overall, it was a decently written book but I do also think that it would do better as a TV series or movie.

Liked it

Ratings
Overall: 6.5/10
Plot: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Characters: 2.5/5
Cover: 1/5